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The future of energy generation and storage

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I should clarify and say that I don't doubt the money exists as such, just that neither Snowy nor HT has it sitting in the bank.

Politics is where it could get interesting.

Snowy is owned 58% by the NSW government, 29% by Victoria and 13% by the Australian government so to do anything major there's three owners who need to agree.

Hydro Tas is owned 100% by the Tasmanian government so only one government involved but not one that has any spare cash.

Private investment in the form of equity would be difficult in either case for political reasons so realistically we're looking at long term debt. That's where the debate could get more difficult.
 
Well I don't know about the costs over East, but soaring costs here are associated with solar, as can be seen by this report in today's paper.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/wa-h...y-15-rise-in-electricity-prices-ng-b88611273z

A couple of extracts:

Mr Wyatt told a Budget estimates hearing into Synergy that the forecast improvement in the power supplier’s bottom line for this financial year was largely because of the decision to impose the price increase on “fixed” charges.

For residential customers, this is the supply charge and is separate from consumption charges.

It was increased to 98.9¢ a day from 48.6¢ last year — an increase of $169 a year. A typical household power bill is $1722 a year, according to Treasury.

With assumed price increases in the State Budget of 7 per cent, 5.6 per cent and 3.5 per cent between 2018-19 and 2020-21, Mr Wyatt said “there is probably still more to come” in Synergy’s shift towards a greater reliance on fixed charges.

He said that the changes announced as part of the Budget had slashed the State-owned utility’s operating subsidy — which will fall from $280 million last year to a forecast $146 million this year and zero next y
“This has been a big part of the tariff reform that we did earlier to try to get more into the fixed charge and there is probably still more to come when more of the tariff needs to be attached to the fixed charge,” Mr Wyatt told the hearing.

“That 10.9 per cent increase allocated and tied to the fixed charge went a long way ... in securing the revenue flow for Synergy.”

Until this year, about 80 per cent of the average annual power bill was based on consumption.

Critics claim the situation is inequitable because some households have been able to avoid higher consumption charges by installing solar panels or energy efficient appliances.

The WA Council of Social Service said the changes disproportionately affected poorer households because they lacked the means to minimise their exposure. Its chief executive Louise Giolitto called on the Government to ensure low-income households were properly compensated for further rises.
ear.
 
Good on Pauline. She seems to be the only one in politics, prepared to "grow a pair", so to speak.
 
Nice clear explanation of why the Liddell Power station has to close and the practical options to make up the loss of power before shutdown.

AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power and batteries
Annual general meeting told of plans for ageing power station, including reiteration of reasons it should be decommissioned

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Wednesday 27 September 2017 04.52 BST Last modified on Wednesday 27 September 2017 05.53 BST

AGL has proposed to replace its ageing Liddell power station with renewables, batteries, gas power, upgraded coal power and demand response. And the company again outlined a laundry list of problems with the federal government’s request for it to extend the plant’s life or sell it.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ddell-with-renewables-gas-power-and-batteries
 
Let's be honest basilio.
AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power, batteries, upgraded coal power and demand response.
If you're going to quote, quote the lot.
 
I noticed we haven't discussed evaporation engines yet so I'll kick it off with this...

Radical plan to produce power from evaporation of lakes could provide an almost endless source of energy
  • A miniature version of the engine was first developed by scientists in 2015
  • It could be scaled up to cover 70% of the US's energy production from that year
  • It could yield between 2W and 10W per square metre, three times wind power
  • By covering water supplies with generators this would help to conserve them
Full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4923068/Radical-plan-produce-power-evaporation.html

The concept was invented here if I remember correctly ?
 
sptrawler said:
Let's be honest basilio.
AGL says it can replace Liddell with renewables, gas power, batteries, upgraded coal power and demand response.
If you're going to quote, quote the lot.
Click to expand...

Che ??

1) Did you read the introduction I clipped ?
"AGL has proposed to replace its ageing Liddell power station with renewables, batteries, gas power, upgraded coal power and demand response. And the company again outlined a laundry list of problems with the federal government’s request for it to extend the plant’s life or sell it."

2) Did you bother to read the rest ?
 

Yes, it was your big bold statement, that I thought was misleading, you must write headlines for Fairfax. lol
 
SP I just cut and pasted the headline and first paragrph.

You reckon I should have changed the headline? I thought the article was exceptionally good at accurately summarising the AGL agenda in the first paragraph.

And it was well worth reading in full. Basically puts to the sword all teh rubbish of defenders of coal fired powered stations into the future. The figures are just wrong.
 

I really don't see where draw that conclusion from, he said Quote: “it’s our obligation to you, our shareholders, to address carbon risk through the transformation of our business,”.

That is fundamentally because of the underlying carbon tax risk, not because some figures are wrong. Like I said you are putting your bent on it.
We are still exporting thermal coal and thermal coal power stations, are still being built.
Just because we have a vocal left wing lobby, that believes whatever they say is true, doesn't make it so.
We are racing headlong into unknown territory, on a belief that we can change the World, if our power system over east falls in a hole who will carry the can? Not the vocal minority.

It makes absolute sense for the power companies to install renewables, the cost overheads for fuel and labour once installed is minimal, when compared to coal fired thermal stations.

The advantage the power companies have at the moment is, they don't have to take any responsibilty for the system if it fails, because they are being pushed to put in non synchronous plant and have a ready excuse for not installing base load.
If it causes massive system unreliability, they just say "oh well you will have to pay more for us to put in base load generation", it's a win win for them.
For the general public, they are taking all the risk and costs associated with the generation shift.
If it works out, it will at best be reliable, at worst very very expensive unreliable power.
 
From a 100 megawatt battery bank to a 1/10th watt gravity powered light. Lots of solutions.

This Ingenious $20 Lamp Gets All Its Energy From Gravity
Three years ago, GravityLight raised a ton of money through crowdfunding. Then it was time to actually make it work.

1/11 The ingenious GravityLight gets all its energy from its own weight.
By Ben Schiller2 minute Read
The ingenious GravityLight–a light that gets all its energy from its own weight–first appeared about three years ago. We wrote about it as it was launching on Indiegogo and went on to raise $399,590.

It provides free light (after you’ve bought it). It’s cheap. And it has none of the environmental or health side-effects as do other light alternatives in the developing world. But even all those things aren’t necessarily enough if it’s to reach its potential. If the company and foundation behind the device are to make it a success, they need a reliable product; they need to distribute it in places where distribution can be difficult; and, more fundamentally, they need to explain why someone should buy a GravityLight when there’s plenty of good, cheap solar on the market today.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3050137/this-ingenious-20-lamp-gets-all-its-energy-from-gravity
 
SirRumpole said:
Peer to peer energy trading, a goer or not ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-11/perth-start-up-using-blockchain-technology/9035616
Click to expand...

Not really "Cutting out" the middle man, rather you are just changing your relationship with the middle man, which would have pros and cons.

You would still need access to the grid, and hence would still need to pay a service charges.

But I guess what will change is just how you are billed, so your relationship with the retailer is what will change.

Currently, retailers give you the ability to sell unlimited amounts of excess to them for about 12cents a kilowatt (regardless of market price) and to buy unlimited amounts of power for about 26cents a kilowatt (regardless of market price)

switching to a peer to peer platform basically just means your retailer would take a step back, and instead of offering guaranteed pricing, will charge you a service fee (either hidden or open) for operating the platform, and allow the market to determine pricing.

I struggle to see how it would be a genuine peer to peer network though, due to nearly 100% of the people using it would be trying to dump power at the same times, while having no excess during peak times.

to me it sounds like a gimmick, either its a retailer trying to make themselves look like a peer to peer network because thats popular at the moment, and they want to get some pattsy investors to give them funds.

I reckon the guy in the article will lose his money.

The smart grid is coming, thats for sure, but it won't be a genuine peer to peer network.
 
Value Collector said:
to me it sounds like a gimmick, either its a retailer trying to make themselves look like a peer to peer network because thats popular at the moment, and they want to get some pattsy investors to give them funds.
Click to expand...

Yes, a gimmick is what I thought too, just like the whole bitcoin scene it will eventually collapse.
 
For those in Tas who want to have a look:

Meadowbank power station open day on 14 October.

Cerhana PS open day 28 October.

Poatina PS open day 11 November.

All are real, fully operational hydro power stations.

All tours are free but bookings are required via the Hydro website www.hydro.com.au

No age restrictions, bring the kids, but the nature of power stations is that you do need to be able to walk up and down stairs etc and there's no access for wheelchairs.

Long sleeves, full length trousers and proper shoes required for safety. Hydro will supply hard hats, ear plugs etc as needed. No bags, food or liquids of any kind allowed inside.

Note that Cethana and Poatina power stations are both underground so that's where the tours go - underground. Meadowbank is above ground.

Meadowbank is a single machine station (40 MW) and should be running on the day.

Cethana is a single machine station (98 MW) and may or may not be running - depends on circumstances that are too hard to predict in advance.

Poatina is a six machine station (342 MW) and will likely have at least one machine running during the tour. Could be more depending on circumstances with power demand and the operation of other stations.

Depending on station output Poatina can get quite hot inside regardless of the temperature outside. Not too warm if only one or two machines are running but it gets pretty hot in there if all six are running flat out.

The others don't get overly warm inside.
 
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