The future of energy generation and storage

Value Collector said:

No we would buy computers, that require loads more electricity than typewriters hence the need for the coal power stations

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Install a pedal powered generator for each computer. A great way to work and stay fit.

Value Collector said:

I think so, if pollution wasn't an issue, either coal or nuclear. If you could erase the negatives of the two options that is.

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It's interesting because it seems for new built generation wind is cheaper but that doesn't take into account storage requirements. It doesn't give coal any extra value for being a base load generator. Either way it seems RET or no RET we were going to see a hefty increase in energy prices as these aging coal plants need to be replaced.

Value Collector said:

No we would buy computers, that require loads more electricity than typewriters hence the need for the coal power stations

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Maybe true, but in the old days there were contiguous typing pools where vast amounts of energy were expended in relatively small footprints. 300 watts from each typist compares less favourably with PC/user replacements operating on more sedentary and sparse occupancy per sq metre .

Tisme said:

Maybe true, but in the old days there were contiguous typing pools where vast amounts of energy were expended in relatively small footprints. 300 watts from each typist compares less favourably with PC/user replacements operating on more sedentary and sparse occupancy per sq metre .

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The largest amount of energy waste in that scenario is the waste of human effort, the word processor freed up a large amount of that talent to be used in other areas.

Value Collector said:

I think so, if pollution wasn't an issue, either coal or nuclear. If you could erase the negatives of the two options that is.

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When I think back at the good old days of carburated, leaded petrol engines, open fireplace fires, close proximity industry, coal fired steam locos, etc ..... I think we should be marching on to better solutions than coal,

but if we could put big mother unit in the outback, fence them off and allow refugees to live as ground keepers until they prove themselves worthy, perhaps it's not a bad idea. We could build a massive inland sea by ripping out all the mineral wealth and giving it to China, generate power that drives pumps. that feed water to the Snowy Mountains "Turnbull Cofferdam" plus tourist hamlets along the way, where gravity turns the water back into electricity, which is delivered to the home.

it was early 2015 when this original elon musk post was started
now 2 years of extra technology later in late 2017 the sa government over here
is going to team up with musk to provide a 50 million dollar battery.

all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
this battery will keep things going for an extra
4 MINUTES.

traderxxx said:

it was early 2015 when this original elon musk post was started
now 2 years of extra technology later in late 2017 the sa government over here
is going to team up with musk to provide a 50 million dollar battery.

all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
this battery will keep things going for an extra
4 MINUTES.

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Yep, that kind of puts it in context, but if it is a major blackout the battery will do nothing.

However, I think the S.A Government will be hoping, Joe average puts batteries in his garage. Then he can wear the cost of installation and replacement, all the Government then needs to do is up the supply charge, they have already sorted out the unit price.

After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?

Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in

macca said:

After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?

Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in

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Very good question.

macca said:

Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in

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There may be no "peak demand", the generation mix, smart grid and storage capacity (both consumer storage and industrial storage) may balance out and arbitrage away all the major peaks and valleys in electricity supply.

Cars can be charged any time

traderxxx said:

all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout this battery will keep things going for an extra
4 MINUTES.

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A more accurate way to look at it is that the battery being built in SA can supply 100 MW peak power and has 130 MWh of storage capacity.

So in a situation where demand peaks at 3000 MW and there's only 2900 MW of supply available from wind, gas, diesel and the interconnector (which maybe zero given the circumstances in Vic) the presence of the battery avoids load shedding altogether so long as the duration of the supply gap isn't long enough to discharge the battery.

In other circumstances it may not avoid load shedding due to the extent of the supply deficit but it still means a reduction in the duration and extent equal to the battery's capacity.

So in a practical sense it's just another power station on the grid, the only real differences being how it works, that is primary energy source is stored electricity rather than wind, gas or diesel and that it has a relatively limited supply of "fuel" in the form of stored energy.

Overall it's useful but it's only a partial solution and by no means a total one.

macca said:

After reading about the push for electric cars, where are we going to get the power to recharge all of them ?

Twenty years from now, peak demand could be between 10pm and 6am when all the cars are plugged in

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A huge unknown is how consumers as a whole will actually use electric vehicles in practice.

Here in Tas the thinking is definitely that most charging could be done during a fairly wide off-peak period if consumers are encouraged to do so. Hence Tariff 93, a residential time of use tariff which replaces all existing metering for those who choose it, with the cheap (off-peak) period intentionally set wide at 10am - 4pm and 9pm - 7am Monday to Friday plus all weekend. Logically it ought to be possible to do most "slow" electric vehicle charging during those times although the big unknown is what consumers will actually do.

Tas is a unique (within Australia) situation so far as all things relating to energy are concerned however. Hydro generation being dominant is one factor but the others are:

60% of total generation goes into heavy industry and only about 20% is for households. The other 20% is non-industrial businesses, agriculture, public services (eg street lighting, traffic lights), offices, schools and so on. But industry is absolutely the main game and the largest factory uses more power (base load) than the average demand of every house in the state. Yep, a quarter of the entire load is at one site and there's 3 others which collectively comprise the "big 4" guzzling through 50% of supply.

That electricity is dominant is another thing in Tas which isn't the case elsewhere. Gas is extremely widely used in Victoria and significant in every state apart from the NT (gas does supply a lot of energy in the NT, actually it supplies almost the whole lot excluding transport, but virtually all of that is in the form of gas-fired power generation with minimal direct use of the fuel for other purposes). But ultimately Victorian households use as much gas in one day as Tasmanian households do in a whole year - that's a huge difference even when you take population difference into account.

So in that context adding electric transport doesn't require a great increase in total power generation at least in Tasmania. I don't have the figures handy but Hydro did crunch the numbers and concluded that a fully electric car fleet would use less than what's going into any one of the "big 4" factories and less than households presently use for water or space heating (bearing in mind that well over 90% of water heating in Tas is electric and so is two thirds of residential space heating).

For the other states it's a more significant issue, Tas being at the extreme of low impact.

Firstly the other states all have higher average distance traveled per vehicle so that logically means more power used.

Secondly the other states have a smaller present electrical load per capita. Victorians use only half as much electricity per head of population as Tasmanians do and most other states are similar except the NT which also has a high rate of consumption albeit for very different reasons.

Put those two together and it's a larger impact in the bigger population states certainly. Just how large is a bit hard to answer but it's an impact certainly.

The big question though is about how to actually charge such vehicles?

The idea of plugging them in at home overnight sounds reasonable until you look a bit deeper.

What about all those inner city older houses in places like Sydney? In general there's no practical way to get power to where the car is parked since it's parked on the street. That could be built, on a small scale other cities such as Paris do have on-street vehicle charging, but it's not there now.

Then there's the question of whether or not someone who drives 20km to and from work is going to bother charging the car every night? Or do they instead plug it in on Saturday morning since that's more convenient?

And how significant will the use of fast charging at public facilities, which may well take the form of otherwise conventional looking fuel stations, be? To the extent it occurs it will primarily be during business hours and that does include the actual or at least close to peak demand times in all states.

So there's a lot of unanswered questions about it all and they largely relate to human behaviour more than "hard" technical limits.

Then there's the issue of self driving cars. Once we go to electric cars, will it still even be normal for everyone to own one? Or will a relatively smaller fleet of self-driving vehicles provide transport "on demand" in a manner similar to taxis thus bringing us to the point where we see a boom industry ripping out driveways and converting garages into rooms since households no longer own cars? Another big unanswered question.

One thing though, to the extent that the self-driving model does catch on those vehicles are going to be doing a lot of km each day. They're not going to be waiting for spare power to be available to charge them and will instead need to be charged whenever they're not in use for transport. That wrecks the idea that most charging will be done at times which best suit the grid.

Overall there's a lot of unknowns with the only certainty being that electric vehicles MUST result in more electricity being consumed than would otherwise be the case. Everything else, the detail, is less clear at this stage.

Then there's the question of what happens with oil if demand for petrol and diesel diminishes. High cost oil likely stays in the ground but to the extent that there's still at least some reasonably low cost oil available it could well end up competing with coal and gas for use as boiler fuel, process heat, power generation etc. Another uncertainty.

all our problems will be solved now because when we have our next blackout
this battery will keep things going for an extra
4 MINUTES

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Elon Musk swooped on the opportunity for recurring business. No business people snart enough in Australia.

Looking at the stats there are over 16million cars and light commercial vehicles in Australia, if they all change over to electricity within 30 years, it is going to alter power demands that is for sure.

Unlike Tasmania there would be parts of Oz where private demand takes up the majority of the supply but in the Hunter Region of NSW there is the Tomago aluminium smelter. They have been negotiating with AGL in preparation for any power shortages. They have 3 potlines and 3 hours without power means a $300m problem

http://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/4919006/smelters-100m-decision/?cs=761

https://money.good.is/articles/port...utm_source=121&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=swp

You’d be forgiven if the phrase “Portland goes green with innovative water pipes” doesn’t immediately call to mind thoughts of civil engineering and hydro-electric power. And yet, that’s exactly what Oregon’s largest city has done by partnering with a company called Lucid Energy to generate clean electricity from the water already flowing under its streets and through its pipes.

Portland has replaced a section of its existing water supply network with Lucid Energy pipes containing four forty-two inch turbines. As water flows through the pipes, the turbines spin and power attached generators, which then feed energy back into the city’s electrical grid. Known as the “Conduit 3 Hydroelectric Project,” Portland’s new clean energy source is scheduled to be up and running at full capacity in March. According to a Lucid Energy FAQ detailing the partnership, this will be the “first project in the U.S. to secure a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for renewable energy produced by in-pipe hydropower in a municipal water pipeline."

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The pros and cons of hydrogen cars.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-...-are-they-and-when-will-we-drive-them/8946184

Well Rumpole, the problem with battery electric cars is, how much of an upgrade to the domestic power distribution system will be required?
It will be an NBN on steroids, all the low voltage distribution network will need to be upgraded to cope with the current draw.
That will include replacement of most pole top distribution transformers, and upgrading the low voltage distribution cable to the house, if you thought the NBN was expensive ,wait until the cost of power supply upgrade to the residence comes in. lol
IF South Australia goes ahead with off peak hydrogen generation, they will be ahead of the World in the clean energy future, they could actually have stumbled to the head of the game by accident. IMO
Hydrogen is future power source for cars, IMO, if S.A embraces it and produces heaps of it, they can just put hydrogen tanks in petrol stations same as LPG.
They could even use swap out tanks from road trains, it would be easy, I just hope they go this track, it could save their ar$e.
Renewable energy at this point, is only good, for supplying power for non economical processes, the capital cost is offset by the non economical gains from the free generation.
Once the penny drops, I think the oil companies, will be jumping into hydrogen generation from renewables, big time. Just my opinion.

sptrawler said:

Well Rumpole, the problem with battery electric cars is, how much of an upgrade to the domestic power distribution system will be required?

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Indeed , as I have said all along. Going electric vehicles will require a massive investment in generation
, and it just replaces an oil oligopoly with an electric one which is why I think hybrids are the way to go, with regenerative braking technology as well.

SirRumpole said:

Indeed , as I have said all along. Going electric vehicles will require a massive investment in generation
, and it just replaces an oil oligopoly with an electric one which is why I think hybrids are the way to go, with regenerative braking technology as well.

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Once there is a large amount of electric cars, they could actually be used to support the grid, as a whole even if just 10% of the electric vehicles battery capacity was used to support the grid while idle, it would be a huge storage network.

Smarter grids will manage loads, and intergrate renewables and storage.