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The future of energy generation and storage

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SirRumpole said:
As the towers are down maybe they can't get the power from the solar farm to the town.
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In the article, it says that they have just got an agreement to charge the battery system from the towns rooftop solar, so there is obviously an existing connection.
Also, the towers that were destroyed are closer to port Augusta than Broken Hill, so the transmission should not have been a problem unless the lines were no where near the solar farm or battery , which seems somewhat unlikely if the system was supposed to be feeding back to the Port Augusta feed.
Heres the money line.
1730070947794.png

The connection rules. I wonder who designed them, and will they now be altered to cater for the time when another emergency arrises.
Mick
 
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SirRumpole said:
As the towers are down maybe they can't get the power from the solar farm to the town.
Click to expand...

Technically they may need the transmission line to run the solar depending on what infrastructure has been installed.

Note that's the bits that don't make money but if just running solar then to maintain frequency, power factor, fault tolerance and stability you need stuff or connecting to an established system helps solve the issues of just solar on its own.
 
mullokintyre said:
For reasons beyond comprehension, it took 10 days to get an agreement with AGL.
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I'll be blunt.

In any situation the people who ought be calling the shots are the people who are experts in that field. That goes for anything from running a restaurant to felling trees, the ultimate decision makers need to be people who are experts on the thing being done, the rest are under their direction not the reverse.

In the case of electricity that means having an engineer in charge, not an army of regulators, lawyers, accountants and so on. There are things such people should be in charge of but electricity isn't one of them.

Today the whole thing's ultimately been captured by bureaucracy, everything else acts only with their permission. That's what it comes down to, and nobody will take the risk of stepping outside that given the threat of being sent to prison.

Only thing I'll add is it's not just the people of Broken Hill that are suffering the consequences. NSW, Vic and SA have all experienced at least one incident of forced load shedding due to that approach. A situation where supply was cut not due to any technical inability to supply, but simply due to all the above. The result was load shedding, blackouts, that either need not have occurred at all or which would've been reduced in duration and extent had a technically optimal approach being taken.

The rules around the BH gas turbines contributed to at least one of those from memory. They could've been run but weren't. Silly firstly because consumers elsewhere in the state lost power. Secondly because giving them a run periodically is actually a really, really good idea.

That's ultimately what's wrong with all of this. It's not the technology, it's not fossil fuels versus nuclear versus renewables, it's taking a bureaucratic approach to an inherently technical subject and a complex one at that, that's what's not working. Same as it wouldn't work to put engineers in charge of an art gallery or law courts. :2twocents
 
IFocus said:
Technically they may need the transmission line to run the solar depending on what infrastructure has been installed.

Note that's the bits that don't make money but if just running solar then to maintain frequency, power factor, fault tolerance and stability you need stuff or connecting to an established system helps solve the issues of just solar on its own.
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It'd need the output limited, which is doable, but fundamentally well the solar farm connects to the same substation, via feeder, that the gas turbines are located at. Physically the solar farm's about 2km away.

So in theory at least, nothing precludes running the gas turbine to provide the 50Hz then just operating the solar and battery so long as there remains some load on the gas turbine at all times.

Doing that would really just be a small version of what's being done at a state level in SA routinely, bearing in mind we do at times only have two conventional synchronous machines (gas turbine or steam) running in the whole system and the rest done with solar and wind.

There might be some issues with inertia and so on, but so long as protection works, I'll argue that an insecure system with a risk of customers ending up in the dark if something trips is far better than having customers actually in the dark. Those with a legal mindset won't agree however - rules are rules no matter what. :2twocents
 
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Smurf1976 said:
It'd need the output limited, which is doable, but fundamentally well the solar farm connects to the same substation, via feeder, that the gas turbines are located at. Physically the solar farm's about 2km away.

So in theory at least, nothing precludes running the gas turbine to provide the 50Hz then just operating the solar and battery so long as there remains some load on the gas turbine at all times.

Doing that would really just be a small version of what's being done at a state level in SA routinely, bearing in mind we do at times only have two conventional synchronous machines (gas turbine or steam) running in the whole system and the rest done with solar and wind.

There might be some issues with inertia and so on, but so long as protection works, I'll argue that an insecure system with a risk of customers ending up in the dark if something trips is far better than having customers actually in the dark. :2twocents
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Not on the blame game
First case: do nothing, blame wind and so global warning , and maybe Trump.
Scotch free!
In the second case, you need to made decision, maybe even understand tech stuff or worse rely on a lowly engineer while in your ivory tower.nahhh
let them rot
Duplicated all over the big corporates and PS gov agencies
 
Smurf1976 said:
It'd need the output limited, which is doable, but fundamentally well the solar farm connects to the same substation, via feeder, that the gas turbines are located at. Physically the solar farm's about 2km away.

So in theory at least, nothing precludes running the gas turbine to provide the 50Hz then just operating the solar and battery so long as there remains some load on the gas turbine at all times.

Doing that would really just be a small version of what's being done at a state level in SA routinely, bearing in mind we do at times only have two conventional synchronous machines (gas turbine or steam) running in the whole system and the rest done with solar and wind.

There might be some issues with inertia and so on, but so long as protection works, I'll argue that an insecure system with a risk of customers ending up in the dark if something trips is far better than having customers actually in the dark. Those with a legal mindset won't agree however - rules are rules no matter what. :2twocents
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In the article I orignally highlighted from Renew Economy
The AGL website boasts that the Broken Hill battery can – with the grid-forming inverters funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency – “support the reliable supply of electricity to Broken Hill in the event of line failure and provide efficient grid support for the region.”

Clearly, it didn’t do that when the line failed in the storm and it now emerges (thanks to the sharp eyes of a Renew Economy reader) that its ability to create mini grid in such circumstances had been deliberately disabled.

An AGL report into the battery’s system strength capabilities, published under the Knowledge Sharing requirements of ARENA funding, reveals that Transgrid had required the battery to include an “anti-islanding” scheme, meaning that its ability to provide the islanding service had been deliberately inhibited.

“It had been hoped that the Broken Hill Battery could be used to supply the Broken Hill load in the event of supply from the grid not being available due to faults or maintenance outages,” the report says.
“This service had previously been provided by Essential Energy using two 25MW GTs (gas turbines) running on diesel.

“When Essential Energy decided that it no longer wished to provide this service, AGL offered to configure the battery to operate in island mode in conjunction with the Broken Hill solar farm, Silverton wind farm and the existing GTs which they had an option to purchase.
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So the project was orignally planned to operate in island mode just for the very contingency that we recently arrived at- no power conng from the external grid.

“Transgrid ran a RIT-T process to select its preferred provider of standby supply for Broken Hill and chose a compressed air storage alternative. As a consequence, and to avoid adverse interaction between the battery and the compressed air system, the battery has been configured under Transgrid guidance to include an anti-islanding scheme.

“The battery provider is still contracted to include islanding functionality, but this functionality will be inhibited to avoid interaction with the compressed air scheme.”
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Transgrdi is partly owned by spark Infrastructure, an Astralian investment fund with 15%, and Utilities trust of Australia, another Australian Invesment trust.
However, the majority is foreign owned.
OMERS, a Canadian Pension Fund, which has 20% , CDPQ another Candian investment fund which has 22.5% ,and the Abudhabi based Tawreed Investments has a further 20%.
The above is important when one looks at the next steps.

The compressed air storage project that AGL is referring to is the 200 MW, 1600 MWh facility planned by Canada’s Hydrostor at the site of a cavern in one of the underground silver mines that has made the region famous.
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So it just so happens that a solution for preferred standby was was awarded to a Candian firm.

But that project – which has also won an underwriting agreement from the NSW government in a long duration storage tender – will not be built for several years, with a target date of 2027 at the earlier.
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So a majority foreign owned entity decided that another foreign owned entity would supply the long duration storage, and was underwritten for funding by the NSW government.

And it is not clear why Transgrid required AGL to disable the “islanding” capabilities of the battery, particularly given the ageing nature of the diesel generators that are to be replaced, one of which is completely out of action, and the other only able to operate at just over half of its capacity due to various limitations.

The AGL report appears to make clear that the battery would have been able to support the huge wind farm and large solar farm that are located near Broken Hill, and allow them to generate and provide power to the locals, including the mines that have been forced to down tools.
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I am surprised that the Minns government has not bought all this out into the open, as the original sale process and lease to transgrd was all done under the then Baird led coalition government.
Mick
 
mullokintyre said:
Clearly, it didn’t do that when the line failed in the storm and it now emerges (thanks to the sharp eyes of a Renew Economy reader) that its ability to create mini grid in such circumstances had been deliberately disabled.
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This is what drives the technical people crazy.

Legal, contractual and ideological stuff standing in the way of getting the job done, to the detriment of society.

Hence my view that in any situation it should be the most relevant trade or profession calling the shots, in this case that being engineering.

I don't see that as personal bias - there are other things where legal and so on people ought be calling the shots, but electricity isn't rationally one of them simply because legal or contractual approaches aren't what's required to get the best outcome. :2twocents
 
SirRumpole said:
KRAKEN- Using AI to run power networks.

We live in interesting times.

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This is truly brilliant story. The company, Octopus, is well and truly operational and has revolutionized for the customers good, the distribution of energy in the UK
Well worth 15 minutes view. Thanks Rumpy.
 
Read it while you can,
because pretty soon it will be legislated as 'misinformation', and will be hidden from you.
Approved opinions only, you see.

You think electricity is expensive now? ..you ain't seen nothin yet!
Expensive, intermittent electricity is only just beginning.

Chris Bowen's reckless and pointless pursuit of net zero is pushing Australia towards 'economic suicide'
'The renewed push by the Energy Minister for a WA offshore wind farm ignores the inconvenient truth of how renewables are bringing other nations to their knees, writes Rocco Loiacono'
September 7, 2024
 
Logique2 said:
Read it while you can,
because pretty soon it will be legislated as 'misinformation', and will be hidden from you.
Approved opinions only, you see.

You think electricity is expensive now? ..you ain't seen nothin yet!
Expensive, intermittent electricity is only just beginning.

Chris Bowen's reckless and pointless pursuit of net zero is pushing Australia towards 'economic suicide'
'The renewed push by the Energy Minister for a WA offshore wind farm ignores the inconvenient truth of how renewables are bringing other nations to their knees, writes Rocco Loiacono'
September 7, 2024
Click to expand...
Even stating that the US can not possibly repaid its debt could send me in jail.
And i bet the pressure will be first on Joe not to let this be said.
Run while you can but not as easy to say as doing it
 

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