The great energy debate

[artme]

The current debate over renewable energy and where to spend the money has demonstrated, once again, that that our political leaders
understand little and listen even less.

Tony Abbot and Joe Hockey don't like the look of wind turbines!!! Are these machines any more offensive than smoke belching coal fired power
stations?? Even if they are this seems to be a pathetic excuse for abandoning spending on wind.

I have heard that the cost of producing electricity from wind turbines has come down to very near the break even point. Alan Jones - on last night's
QandA - disputes this, and if his figures are to be believed then spending in this way might still be a case of whistling in the wind.

Solar power is another matter. Costs of generation there have come down as production refinements and efficiency gains have crept up.
More improvements are in the pipeline but we will have to wait to see if the promised gains materialize.

Little talk has entered the debate regarding tidal power generation, a fact I find baffling since most of Australia's population lives near the coastal regions.

Other generating ideas include geothermal- whereby hot spots in the earth's crust can be used to force superheated steam through generating turbines -
and Batteries.The problems at present with these two are that hot spots seem to be located far from the population centres and the cost of development
enormous.(John Howard was a proponent of the hot spot idea if my memory serves me correctly) Batteries suffer from development costs and disposal costs.

Two things seem to have escaped the minds of Abbot and Hockey. One is that solar power is only available when the sun shines while wind power is only
available when the wind blows, be it day or night. Wind power may prove more reliable for the grid, a feature of our lifestyle that we cannot abandon easily'.

When do we think that the polies might have sensible approach and debate? Probably never!!

Perhaps the power generators have too much behind the scenes sway in this debate,> Perhaps the public at large is just not interested enough.

What says the shed's brains trust on this matter??

[rob streeper]

The powers that be are heavily invested in the fossil fuel companies and therefore they pay lip service to renewables while in fact they direct policy to the disadvantage of those technologies. Take for instance Texas. Enormous investment has been made in wind power by the big utilities and at the same time the pols are advancing the idea of a punitive tax on roof-top solar. The difference is that the big utilities, and their share holders, are the only entities having the scale needed to reasonably exploit wind. Individuals however can buy roof-top solar and the power produced by individuals doesn't contribute to shareholder value for the big utilities and their purchased politicians. When I was young public utilities were granted monopolies and in return they were heavily regulated. Now utilities are private and unregulated. Individuals that produce their own power are their competition.

[Big Shed]

The problem with all these technologies is that they are not capable of generating constant baseload energy. They are fine as a partial replacement for major power generating plants such as coal, gas or nuclear but they cannot provide all our power 24/7.

The wind doesn't blow constantly, the sun doesn't shine constantly.

The trouble with coal fired power plants, apart from their obvious pollution, is that they cannot be switched on or of at a moments' notice.

I experience the shortcoming of solar frequently in our 5th wheeler, get a few days of no sun and the batteries don't get charged, so either plug in to mains power or run a generator.

I truly believe that solar and wind will always be a peripheral power source. The other problem with solar is the energy consumed in their manufacture - China produces a very large proportion of solar panels, using very dirty power stations to generate the electricity needed to produce them. I would like to see an honest cost-benefit analysis done on solar panels in terms of energy used in production and pollution/green house gas emitted vs energy produced during their life span.

We need to look at things like (the already mentioned) geothermal, wave energy and (dare I say it) nuclear (as France has done).

[Kuffy]

I think wave energy has its uses.
http://proteanwaveenergy.com.au/

They are currently building a wave farm at Yanchep beach in WA. iirc it will have one buoy with 1.5kw output initially, but the plan is to have 30 of them in the future generating 45kw. So long as the waves are rolling, the thing is pumping out power. Ideally it will be used for island nations which are currently producing electricity using diesel. its supposed to be a whiz bang device, better than its competitors in the wave energy race. for the purposes of full disclosure, if it succeeds, i might become a rich man (though it would need epic success for my meager holdings to make me rich). it is listed on the ASX with ticker code SHE.

[BobL]

As usual Australia fiddles while the world passes us by.

One of the world's hardest nosed no-bulldust engineering and service based economies is Germany. remember they also don't have anywhere near the sunshine we have.

From Wikipedia.

Germany's renewable energy sector is among the most innovative and successful worldwide. Net-generation from renewable energy sources (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_source) in the German electricity sector (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany) has increased from 6.3% in 2000 to about 30% in 2014.[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-fraunhofer-2014-electricityproduction-1)[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-2) For the first time ever, wind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power), biogas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas), and solar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power) combined accounted for a larger portion of net electricity production than brown coal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_coal).[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-3) While peak-generation from combined wind and solar reached a new all-time high of 74% in April 2014,[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-4) wind power saw its best day ever on December 12, 2014, generating 562 GWh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWh).[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-5) Germany has been called "the world's first major renewable energy economy".[6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-6)[7] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-7)
and as far as targets go




Renewable national electricity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany)—40 to 45% by 2025, 55 to 60% by 2035, and 80% by 2050[19] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-ReferenceB-19)
Renewable national energy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany)—18% by 2020, 30% by 2030, and 60% by 2050
Energy efficiency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_energy_use):

Energy consumption—reduction of 20% from 2008 level by 2020, and 50% less by 2050
Electricity consumption—reduction of 10% from 2008 level by 2020, and 25% less by 2050


The German Government reported, in 2011, renewable energy (mainly wind turbines and biomass plants) generated more than 123 terawatt-hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terawatt-hour) (TWh) of electricity, providing nearly 20% of the 603 TWh of electricity supplied.[20] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#cite_note-erneuerbare-20)

By the way that's 3 x total Australian electricity requirements are being produced by renewables!

The issue of baseload reduces significantly if adequate storage is provided and a national grid is running correctly. In a country like Australia its always wavy, windy or hot somewhere.

Instead of investing in non-fossil fuel power generation and storage solutions we continue to subsidise fossil fuel generators.
in a few decades time all we will have to show are holes in the ground and a bunch of run down filthy fossil fuel power generating plants and we will have to pay top $ for solutions from overseas.

[FenceFurniture]

I've posted this elsewhere, but it bears repeating in this thread:

Good batteries are the solution to night use. The Tesla Powerwall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k) has been recently released, which will hopefully be developed along the lines of Alum Ion batterie (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=194036)s. The short story with Alum Ion is 1000x the recharging cycles compared to Li Ion (so 1000x less disposal problem), charging time is superfast, no danger if punctured (somehow). They can also be moulded (think car panels)

[q9]

I don't know where my electricity comes from, gas, coal or nuke, but the thing I've done is put LED everywhere in this unit. I can leave all the lights on for a draw of...50 Watt. Down from 550. It was a little expensive, about $100 worth of bulbs, but my calculations based on an energy cost of around 20 yen per kWh sees me saving 15000 yen after deducting the purchase of the bulbs over a year. Multiply that by the 4 million households in Osaka and you are talking major reductions in energy consumption.

So add renewables into the mix, and the reliance on fossils is accelerated down by more than the factor of just the addition of renewables.

Everything else, is just politics.

[Poppa]

If you are interested in this area, watch Elon Musk's Tesla power wall presentation. He's a hopeless presenter, but a brilliant mind. I found it fascinating how small an area would be needed to supply the entire power needs of the USA using solar panels. And Tesla has an expandable solution that can harness solar power for (consistent, reliable) use when the sun doesn't shine. This type of battery technology will keep improving over time.

And Australia has a vast area of sparsely populated desert where the sunshine is constant (during the day) and relentless. Imagine harnessing the solar power from the long summers of the Antarctic and Arctic regions. We're only just touching the surface in this area.

[artme]

The placement of solar arrays, at present, is almost invariably done in isolated areas far from the major sources of consumption.
This being the case then transmission costs begin to raise their ugly head.

Apparently a couple of advances have been made regarding the size of solar panels and their ability to deal with extreme heat.
These two advances could drastically reduce the area needed to produce solar electricity and the need for extensive and expensive
distribution networks but, as has already been pointed out, this is only part of the solution.

Whle our polies insist that they know best and their will be done I fear we will lurch from one shoddy and hapless policy to another.

[FenceFurniture]

Whle our polies insist that they know best and their will be done I fear we will lurch from one shoddy and hapless policy to another.Art, without wishing to divert too much from the main topic (although it's pretty related): I wonder how long it's going to take for another party (say the Greens) to become a sizable force to be reckoned with (I mean in the lower house where they can be more instrumental in formulating policy - not just confirming/denying what is put in front of them). Disaffection amongst the punters is getting to be right up there these days, with often very little perceivable difference between Labor and Liberal (Liberal in the normal mode, not the lurch to the 1940s that we are experiencing now). Plenty of other countries have coalitions nutted out, and maybe that's a way to get better policy. Right now it sucks.

A lady that I can't remember the name of suggested she might launch the "Normal Party" a few months ago on Q&A. Cracker! Bring it on.

[DonIncognito]

I have heard that the cost of producing electricity from wind turbines has come down to very near the break even point. Alan Jones - on last night's
QandA - disputes this, and if his figures are to be believed then spending in this way might still be a case of whistling in the wind.

Two things seem to have escaped the minds of Abbot and Hockey. One is that solar power is only available when the sun shines while wind power is only
available when the wind blows, be it day or night. Wind power may prove more reliable for the grid, a feature of our lifestyle that we cannot abandon easily'.


What says the shed's brains trust on this matter??

Two things.

1) if in doubt, assume Alan Jones is wrong. It will save you a lot of time. There is a media watch episode that delves into just how wrong Alan Jones was in this occasion. Basically he the figures he used for wind costs had a decimal point moved to the right. $140.7 became $1407.0 (possibly not those exact numbers, but you get the idea). To be partially fair, he go his numbers from noted propaganda rag the Australian, which again, is only good for starting fires and lining bird cages.

Take away point is that wind is already competing with coal economically. The powers that be don't want people two know this, and so hide the fact.

2) the same powers that be spend a considerable amount of time and money spreading lies about solar and wind power, the most prevalent of which you have swallowed. Thanks to solar thermal towers that can store electricity they can produce power over night. There are some bunch of power storage options that get round the problem.

If you would like to read some actual solutions that can provide 100% of Australia's power needs via renewables then I suggest you look up the WA2.0 plan. It lays it all out there.

[Bushmiller]

Currently there is no single power source that provides a perfect solution.

They all have a serious flaw. I believe that for the forseeable future there will be a variety of power options in the mix. The base load issue means that fossil fueled stations will provide that facility for quite a while yet, but that should not prohibit the development of other sources of power: Except that the vested interests of big business and the successful lobbying with associated scaremongering tactics will slow down what should be an exponential rise in alternative power.

My own belief is that solar will triumph in the end as it can be regarded as an infinite source. However the materials from which the panels are made may not be an infinite source. The cost of manufacturing panels and wind turbines being mmore than they return I see as a smoke screen by the traditional power producers.

A little more encouragement and the alternative energies will romp away. It is just that which prompts the traditional power producers and their puppet governments to drag the chain.

I have a family member who thinks solar panels are an eyesore :doh: .

(For the record, I work in a privately owned, supercritical, fossil fired power station as a control room operator).

Regards
Paul

[swk]

My own belief is that solar will triumph in the end as it can be regarded as an infinite source. However the materials from which the panels are made may not be an infinite source. The cost of manufacturing panels and wind turbines being mmore than they return I see as a smoke screen by the traditional power producers.
...
(For the record, I work in a privately owned, supercritical, fossil fired power station as a control room operator).


What a reasonable thread this has been so far.

I wont add much for now, but I will comment on solar panels.

Materials, we wont run out in the foreseeable future. They are made chiefly of silicon (think sand and quartz, more than you can ever poke a stick at) with tiny quantities of phosphorus (produced in millions of tonnes per year, think fertilisers and explosives) and boron (also produced in millions of tonnes per year, used in fibre glass, insulation, glassware etc).
If we ever run out of these materials the world will have bigger problems than no solar cells (eg not enough food!)

I had the discussion at work a couple of weeks ago wrt "they cost more to make than they generate" and here's a simple first order basis to think about the problem (and applies to any other source of energy too);
You as a consumer purchase some cells. If you have done your homework, over the lifetime of the panels they should generate some energy which saves you money which covers the original cost of the cells.
But the original cost of the cells _includes_ the cost of the materials and energy in their manufacture as well as other costs like the cost of transport from manufacturer to your installation.
Unless you believe that someone, somewhere in the chain is purposefully making a loss, then the original energy used to make the cell (and even to store and transport it), which is reflected in the cost of the cell, is covered by the energy you generate up to the point of break even.
Yes, this depends on level playing field between country of manufacture costs and local rebates etc, etc. But as a first approximation this is hard logic to beat.

Regards
SWK

(For the record, I _used_ to work in a fossil fired power station as a control room operator :U).

[dazzler]

It has been a great thread. On the solar panel cost the new ultra thin ones are close to paying for themselves in 1 yr with a 30 yr life.

The future of energy is exciting. Check out the latest developments on hydrogen extraction from synthetic photosynthesis by googling hydrogen leaf technology.



[emoji204][emoji85][emoji86][emoji87]

[ACT_Grumbles]

Agree an interesting thread . . .

What intrigues me is that Aus seems to have some very heavy users in the "Industry" column that are relatively invisible to the general populace/user.

Just a rough Google comparison says that Sweden - has roughly double a per capita use of letricity and even then half the power is used by Industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Sweden

Aus - Industry uses three times what residential use is - http://www.esaa.com.au/policy/data_and_statistics-_energy_in_australia

I think until we can go to work on the "solar dime" -We are faffing around on the edges of this debate.

[DonIncognito]

Currently there is no single power source that provides a perfect solution.

They all have a serious flaw. I believe that for the forseeable future there will be a variety of power options in the mix. The base load issue means that fossil fueled stations will provide that facility for quite a while yet, but that should not prohibit the development of other sources of power: Except that the vested interests of big business and the successful lobbying with associated scaremongering tactics will slow down what should be an exponential rise in alternative power.

My own belief is that solar will triumph in the end as it can be regarded as an infinite source. However the materials from which the panels are made may not be an infinite source. The cost of manufacturing panels and wind turbines being mmore than they return I see as a smoke screen by the traditional power producers.

A little more encouragement and the alternative energies will romp away. It is just that which prompts the traditional power producers and their puppet governments to drag the chain.

I have a family member who thinks solar panels are an eyesore :doh: .

Regards
Paul

No one serious has ever said "one energy source only", it's always been a mix of different sources.

Baseload is a furphy propagated by the fossil fuel industry, because that's what their generators are good at.

http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/how-south-australia-coped-without-any-baseload-power-65138

[Bushmiller]

No one serious has ever said "one energy source only", it's always been a mix of different sources.

Baseload is a furphy propagated by the fossil fuel industry, because that's what their generators are good at.

http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/how-south-australia-coped-without-any-baseload-power-65138

I was hoping not to have to go into too much detail about some aspects, primarily because it has been covered on the Forum in previous threads, but having said that the whole concept is dynamic and it is true to say that the marketplace has changed dramatically.

The fundamental reason for being a base load power station is price. I recall when the competitive market was first mooted nobody knew exactly how the competitive aspect would pan out except there would now only be three concerns:

Price: Price and Price.

It is still the same only more so. Ironically the people who shout loudest about rising electricity prices are the consumers and the politicians, but not in that order: One winds up the other.

The other point is that one size does not fit all. The needs in one area are not neccessarily the same as the needs in another. Neither are the facilities the same. South Australia may well be able to supply suffient wind power, but that might not help somebody in Cairns. All sides of this business are adept at picking the eyes out of their good points and making out it is universal.

Right now and without government intervention the renewables cannot compete with the traditional fossil powered stations: Not on cost and not on reliability (continuity of power if you prefer). For the moment they can only subsidise. This was the fundamental reason our governments have either introduced, tried to intoduce or repealed carbon taxes/emission trading schemes. The very advantage that Australia has had for years, cheap electricty (not that any of us believes this when we see out electricty bill), is the reason we are falling behind in the alternative electricity sources department compared to the rest of the world. In Europe fossil fuelled stations are much more expensive to run (coal is more expensive there) so the disparity in pricing with the likes of solar and wind to quote two is not so big. Consequently, the incentive is there to go down the alternative path.

Don't misunderstand me. I think alternative energy is the way to go and as I said before, solar is my preference, particularly in Australia.

That could be a combination of PV on houses and solar thermal for large scale instalations. The issue with solar is storage of electricity (something that can't be done with AC power) for night time use or periods of low sun. Batteries are still expensive and require conversion to DC and back again. Salt beds are a possiblity to store heat capable of generating low pressure steam at night, but as yet are uneconomic. I think there is a trial plant in Spain and possibly elsewhere but these are really small and not yet economic.

Anyhow that's probably enough for now. I have to get a replacement hobby horse :) .

Regards
Paul

[dazzler]

Its also worth keeping in mind the moment residential housing becomes non reliant on the grid the cost to govt in lost infrastructure is immense. I often wonder if that is in the back of the minds of the politicians.

When I look at our power usage we have solar for the house power, solar for hot water and LPG for cooking. We don't use a lot of gas and our two big bottles have lasted over two years.

When, not if, the tesla style power banks become the norm we can effectively come off the connected grid. Thats not to say fossil fuel will no longer be in the mix, particularly petrol/diesel/lpg, but the non portable stuff like coal will reduce markedly.

Its now 2015. At the same time we were watching The Don Lane Show, Cop Shop and Steve Austin was about to finish his time as the Bionic Man this was a thought on PC's;

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. Imagine 30 yrs from now.

My 20yo cannot remember life without mobile phones now it runs his life. The point being, alternate energy is at toddler age atm, the not too distant future will be nothing you or I can perceive I reckon.

[FenceFurniture]

Agreed dazzler, particularly about what the pollies are thinking. I reckon Mike Baird might just have picked the "sweet spot" for selling off the wires & poles. We'll still need the big energy stuff for a good while I suppose (base load etc), but in time to come the poles & wires won't be worth much, as residential demand drops to virtually zero.

Ten years?

[Twisted Tenon]

The problem with all these technologies is that they are not capable of generating constant baseload energy. They are fine as a partial replacement for major power generating plants such as coal, gas or nuclear but they cannot provide all our power 24/7.

The wind doesn't blow constantly, the sun doesn't shine constantly.

The trouble with coal fired power plants, apart from their obvious pollution, is that they cannot be switched on or of at a moments' notice.

I experience the shortcoming of solar frequently in our 5th wheeler, get a few days of no sun and the batteries don't get charged, so either plug in to mains power or run a generator.

I truly believe that solar and wind will always be a peripheral power source. The other problem with solar is the energy consumed in their manufacture - China produces a very large proportion of solar panels, using very dirty power stations to generate the electricity needed to produce them. I would like to see an honest cost-benefit analysis done on solar panels in terms of energy used in production and pollution/green house gas emitted vs energy produced during their life span.

We need to look at things like (the already mentioned) geothermal, wave energy and (dare I say it) nuclear (as France has done).

Those are fair points Fred, but what about tide power. As long as we have a moon, the tides must rate as a constant source of energy. This is something Australia has in abundance. Especially as all our capital cites are on the coast. Except Adelaide and maybe Melbourne. Is Port Phillip bay tidal?.

TT

[DonIncognito]

Right now and without government intervention the renewables cannot compete with the traditional fossil powered stations: Not on cost and not on reliability (continuity of power if you prefer). For the moment they can only subsidise. This was the fundamental reason our governments have either introduced, tried to intoduce or repealed carbon taxes/emission trading schemes.

Anyhow that's probably enough for now. I have to get a replacement hobby horse :) .

Regards
Paul

Don't disagree with most of your post, but coal is dependent on subsidies as well.

I would also argue that the primary reason the ETS was introduced was to reduce the carbon pollution Australian business pumped into the air for no cost.

[DonIncognito]

Those are fair points Fred, but what about tide power. As long as we have a moon, the tides must rate as a constant source of energy. This is something Australia has in abundance. Especially as all our capital cites are on the coast. Except Adelaide and maybe Melbourne. Is Port Phillip bay tidal?.

TT
Carnegie have just connected their first wave generator to the grid. I think it's helping to power the sub base off Perth.

There are two problems with wave energy.

1) waves don't come at set intervals, making it difficult to generate consistent power

2) salt water is an amazingly destructive force. Add in biofouling and you have a maintenance nightmare.

These can, and will, be overcome.

[Twisted Tenon]

Carnegie have just connected their first wave generator to the grid. I think it's helping to power the sub base off Perth.

There are two problems with wave energy.

1) waves don't come at set intervals, making it difficult to generate consistent power

2) salt water is an amazingly destructive force. Add in biofouling and you have a maintenance nightmare.

These can, and will, be overcome.

Agreed about the waves DonIncgnito but tides are a different thing. They always move.

TT

[Big Shed]

Agreed about the waves DonIncgnito but tides are a different thing. They always move.

TT

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tidal-energy-advantages-and.html#axzz3jM3g8jcp

[Twisted Tenon]

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tidal-energy-advantages-and.html#axzz3jM3g8jcp

Yes it all seems so plausible without those pesky facts getting in the way.......

TT

[Bushmiller]

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tidal-energy-advantages-and.html#axzz3jM3g8jcp

This link Fred has posted in fact gives underneath an advantages and disadvantages list of many of the alternative power sources.

One advantage of thermal power is that it is available on demand 24/7. The current major flaw with solar and to some extent with wind, but the issue is not so clear cut is generation when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.

We all know and have a clear understanding of that and appreciate that some method of storing the electricity is required. What we may not appreciate is the ramifications of that.

Let us take a small solar installation that generates 100MW. Let us also assume that the average sunshine over the course of a year is eight hours a day. That is only one third. For two thirds of the day, stored energy would be required. This means that at the very least two thirds of that 100MW would be used to store the electricity (either in batteries or some form of heat). Effectively we really only have a 33MW station.

To achieve 100MW we really need 300MW. In practice the ratio would probably be closer to 400MW as there would be losses involved in the storage. I had not really appreciated this myself except today I was discussing the issue with our station manager.

Clearly it will be a long time before thermal stations are extinct and for the foreseeable future we should be aiming at significant reductions in carbon emissions as opposed to elimination.

Regards
Paul

[Toymaker Len]

Spain has been running molten salt solar power generators for a couple of years that produce power on demand 24/7.(Google 'solar towers Seville')
The stuff about renewables not being able to supply 'baseload' is just not true. (reminds me of my farmer brother telling me that solar can't make industrial strength electricity. lol)
The cost of a kilowatt hour from renewables dropped below the cost of fossil power in 2014 and is continuing to drop. Our federal government is trying to cover the fact that they are using our taxes to subsidise the coal industry and prevent an orderly transition to renewables.

[Bushmiller]

Thanks Len for that information.

I did allude to the salt beds in one of my earlier posts,

"Salt beds are a possiblity to store heat capable of generating low pressure steam at night, but as yet are uneconomic. I think there is a trial plant in Spain and possibly elsewhere but these are really small and not yet economic."

However I am still not so sure of their viability. I also mentioned that just because a power generation source is viable in one part of the world it doesn't mean that it is viable in another as the relative costs are all important.

I am never quite certain of the level of subsidies that the coal industry receives ( and I certainly agree they shouldn't be receiving any), but I think it is important to distinguish between high quality coal that is exported and the absolute rubbish coal that power stations burn. I can't really speak for other power stations, but the one at which I work is sited on our own mine, it is a privately owned enterprise and we receive no subsidy whatsoever.

Despite this we are the second most efficient thermal fired coal station in Australia.

I think one of the dangers with this debate, and I am probably just as guilty of it as the rest, is that we hone in on an aspect and apply it to everything else in general.

Unfortunately it is nowhere near as simple as we would like to think.

Regards
Paul

[DonIncognito]

According to the IMF, coal, gas and petroleum industries will get $41 billion of tax payer money in 2015, in Australia.

[Toymaker Len]

Bushmiller the solar power stations in Spain are not geological warm beds they are towers surrounded with mirrors. The sunlight is focused on the top of the tower and generates enough heat to melt salt. The molten salt is then pumped through a heat exchange which makes industrial steam to power a conventional steam turbine. The great thing is that they can store energy in tonnes of molten salt which they feed through the heat exchange as needed and generate power 24 hours a day. So if it is cloudy the system is still making baseload power.
The costs of construction are substantially lower than coal or gas fired power or especially nuclear and once they are up and running there are NO INPUT COSTS just maintenance and management.
Just as an aside I put one of those evacuated tube solar hot water systems on the roof a couple of years ago and it works like a charm. $2500 all installed does a family of five and uses the booster perhaps twice a year. No input costs, no maintenance, roof tank, mains pressure. Probably costing us %25 what the previous off-peak was costing.

[Bushmiller]

It took me a little while to track down the details of the Spanish solar installations.

The first two are small at 10MW (this wouldn't power our feed pump for one unit at work) and 20MW. The third installation is the one with the salt beds. They are all what I call solar thermal in that they heat up a tower to produce steam, which in turn drives a conventional steam turbine.

This is the link:

http://www.cleanenergyactionproject.com/CleanEnergyActionProject/Energy_Storage_Case_Studies_files/Gemasolar%20Thermosolar%20Plant.pdf

You have to read down a little way to get the story on their reduced output by heating the salt beds.

"Because of the large storage capacity, the output capacity of the turbine is smaller than would be expected from a plant of its size. While the thermal receiver has a 120 MW thermal capacity, the generation plant only employs a 19.9 MW turbine."

That is in fact a six to one ratio by my reckoning so there are considerable losses in storing the heat. The pictures also show another drawback. That of the huge amount of space they occupy. The 20MW plant occupies 75 acres. The power station I work at is small at 870MW (the previous one was 2640MW and has been increased in size since then). A solar installation of the same size would occupy 3225 acres. My previous station would require a solar equivalent of 9900acres.

Of course in Australia we have vast tracts of hot land, but that is not where the people are and the transmission costs are too expensive. Places like Mt Isa and Broken Hill are not on the general grid for that reason and are stand alone systems. Just too far away.

Sorry to sound negative. I don't mean to be and in fact I firmly believe that once the government stops pandering to the lobby groups of the various interested parties, alternative energy development will accelerate at an exponential rate. The playing field needs to be leveled.

Two days ago I had a talk at work with one of the managers as part of an interactive discussion programme. This manager is not one to whom I report and that is a deliberate strategy. One of the questions he put to me was how do I feel about working for the company and am I comfortable working for them. I pointed out that if I have to work for an environmentally polluting electrical generator this is probably the best one I could choose, but I am looking forward to the day they build a solar plant so I don't have to apologise to people for placing CO2 into the atmosphere.

That probably tells you a bit about where I stand on the alternative energy options, but at this point in time I don't see them as economically viable......I would very much like them to be. That time is still to come and it is getting closer.

Regards
Paul

[swk]

OK, this may be a bit rambly and long.
I noted before that, like Bushmiller is now, I was an operator at a power station. You can see from my profile I am in SA and it doesn't take to much to work out where that might have been, just the same as we can readily tell where Bushmiller is.
I'll give a little of my history and then I'll make some comments on the discussion so far. Noting that nothing that I can see so far has been outright wrong and a lot of it is correct (if limited).

I _was_ an operator more than 25 years ago (whew, that does sound a long time now that I wrote it down) but it was an old station even then and to "get on" I got some further pieces of paper that allowed me to move to more "senior" areas of work. For a time I was involved in some interesting areas of work, including being involved in a total power station refit and I was later the site representative for the sale/privatisation which happened in the late 90s in SA. I moved out of generation about 15 years ago, but am still in a closely related area in the electrical industry. My thinking on the future of many things has changed over the years.
In the 90s I believed that most fossil fuel stations would run, almost forever, with continual refits and upgrades. there was evidence of this in the US of stations built in the 30s being kept going 50+ years. Callide A in Australia seemed to be another one. However, there was starting to be evidence, even then, that greenhouse gasses could be an issue. If you think this has been an issue of the last few years you are really wrong. As part of the power station sale process I saw documents that indicated some sort of carbon price was expected by purchasers within the next few years (ie they expected to see a carbon tax in the early 2000s). Frankly I am surprised the carbon tax took so long to implement. My view is, when the carbon tax or some form of trading is reintroduced (and it will be) the remaining fossil fuel stations will take a hit. (Bushmiller, at least one of the _hidden_ subsidies Millmeran and others have is the free disposal of pollutants, CO2 being one. Economists call them "externalities" but what they mean is a cost that is too hard to work out, so they just ignore it).

So about 2000 I left the power station, mainly for my kids future, but also I had doubts about the medium term longevity of the station itself. As I type, that station is closing and guys I worked with for years, some of who I went to primary school with, will be finished up in about 7 months time. This has not been a surprise to them as it has been on the cards for a few years. I thought the carbon tax would do for them, in the end it appears to have been the wind farms.

So baseload...
As others have said, baseload is a bit of a furphy, and bear this in mind with Bushmillers 100MW machine example, which is correct as a first approximation (and also his points about the Spanish solar thermals) but the likely real situation is more dynamic than that.
Once a long time ago when generators were just becoming commercial it was difficult to get a steady load throughout the day.
Efforts were made to smooth out the load by giving people discounts to use power in the evening, such as electric hot water heating. But it turns out that a large part of the overall load is daytime load, unsurprising as thats when most people are awake and doing stuff, which aligns very nicely with solar PV generation. In fact if we do the opposite of what we did all those decade ago, and encourage power use during the middle of the day, solar would be an excellent match. Of course, it can't do everything and we still need to cover the times when it isn't available. That is where batteries etc come in for individuals and wind and fossil (and theoretically nuclear) for the overall system.
Another side effect of PV means that the power an individual house needs is reduced, so the utility wire might be OK to be smaller. In fact even if you don't have PV but those around you do, it means they support your load locally and the power required by the whole area reduces (and so does size of wires, transformers etc). This is a very interesting technical problem (as in the Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times!)

Do we need fossil fuel...
Well I have thought all my working career, yes. But now I am not so sure (talking only electric generation here). I have seen interesting papers which plausibly suggest we can get away without it. So what is the state of fossil fuel in SA, and Bushmiller is correct that different places have different circumstances so what is true for SA may not be exactly so for other places. BUT what SA shows is that there can be places where the circumstances are right. If you hear anyone say wind (for instance) can't replace coal (or gas or whatever) as a categorical statement, they are simply wrong.
The current state of SA generation is this. Coal power will be shut down next year. It is dead in SA and will never come back. Even without the carbon tax the particular power station was struggling to compete in the market (it was in 2000, it always has been*). In fact the last few years it was taken offline for 6 month winter periods, to reduce market losses. Their breakeven cost was usually higher than the market rate. And this is the interesting bit. When you hear the discussion that subsidising wind power means that the subsidy "costs" money and is passed on to the consumer so electricity is "more expensive". That is only half the story. Once the wind generator is in the market, its fuel costs are zero and it can bid in at much lower costs, which the other generators have to compete with, driving down the overall cost of electricity in the market. So we can get to the stage that subsidising wind, drives the total price down. This isn't guaranteed as the subsidy and the savings counter each other. But I think that is where SA is, ie our savings have been greater than our subsidy.
As for gas, there are two baseload stations and a few smaller turbine peakers in SA. The biggest of these is permanently half shutdown and the other is in hiatus for the foreseeable future. So, SA currently has/will shut down or indefinitely taken off the grid; coal generation of approx 780MW, and gas 960MW _all base load_. To get that in perspective SA typically runs 2000+MW loads daily average and summer peaks a bit above 3000MW. And 1750MW of fossil fuel "base" load has now been taken out of the system.

(*There are technical issues which Bushmiller may be interested in but which aren't relevant here. Was subcritical Benson type boiler which meant it ran very badly in any role other than base load and with no top drum couldn't really make any money from ancillary services either, plus had coal transport costs. I think, the average generation cost was about twice Millmeran, but Millmeran also has economies of scale not available in SA too)

Nuclear?...
Will never happen. Forget all the stuff about NIMBY and radioactive pollution and capital costs and government subsibies to make them profitable which are all big problems. There is a simple technical problem which is never talked about. A single generator cant be too big in a system. Think about if all NSW was fed by one generator and it tripped for some reason. Everyone loses power till another station starts up. Rough rule of thumb a generator cant be more than about 10% of the total system. As above SA about 2500MW, NSW about 7000MW (from memory) and QLD somewhere between (Bushmiller?). The smallest commercially available nuclear power generator is 800MW. It is too big to use in SA (by a very long way). Too big for Qld and Vic, maybe marginally possible for a location somewhere around Sydney if the NSW grid grows (and then the political issues will kill it, like it did in the 70s).

The future...
Some things take a lot longer to happen than you might think due to difficulties to implement (eg technical development) and underestimated blocks (political opposition from negatively affected parties), but often, when they do go they go in a rush (a paradigm change was the buzzword) and the changes take people by surprise.
Bearing in mind my views have morphed as time passed, I think this is what will happen, and it will happen at various rates in different places:
Solar thermal we wont see for decades (but it will displace fossil peakers when/if it comes).
Nuclear, in Australia we will never see.
Wind and solar (PV) will continue to grow and displace fossil fuel especially those that consider themselves base load now.
Transmission and distribution systems will still be needed, but they will be smaller (due to increases in local generation, mainly PV) and older (because what we have now has to last) and a big headache to their owners.
There will still be fossil fuel, but less than we have now (and zero in some areas).
The fossil fuel will be peaking types, mostly gas turbine based.

Regards
SWK

[DonIncognito]

That was an interesting read, and a view on nuclear power viability I hadn't heard before.

[FenceFurniture]

That was an interesting read, and a view on nuclear power viability I hadn't heard before.+1 Indeed it was.

Perzackly what is baseload then? I know it's for industry, and therefore big draw, but is it still 415v and very large amperes, or.......

[Bushmiller]

(*There are technical issues which Bushmiller may be interested in but which aren't relevant here. Was subcritical Benson type boiler which meant it ran very badly in any role other than base load and with no top drum couldn't really make any money from ancillary services either, plus had coal transport costs. I think, the average generation cost was about twice Millmeran, but Millmeran also has economies of scale not available in SA too)

Nuclear?...
Will never happen. Forget all the stuff about NIMBY and radioactive pollution and capital costs and government subsibies to make them profitable which are all big problems. There is a simple technical problem which is never talked about. A single generator cant be too big in a system. Think about if all NSW was fed by one generator and it tripped for some reason. Everyone loses power till another station starts up. Rough rule of thumb a generator cant be more than about 10% of the total system. As above SA about 2500MW, NSW about 7000MW (from memory) and QLD somewhere between (Bushmiller?). The smallest commercially available nuclear power generator is 800MW. It is too big to use in SA (by a very long way). Too big for Qld and Vic, maybe marginally possible for a location somewhere around Sydney if the NSW grid grows (and then the political issues will kill it, like it did in the 70s).



Thanks SWK for a most interesting and well thought out post.

I would like to think that you are right about nuclear power not getting a look in here in Australia. Until they work out what they are going to do with the waste I don't believe it should be given the time of day. There are a whole host of problems associated with the nukes, but I won't go down that track again.

I noted that most of your time as an operator was spent in SA, which apart from Tassy has the smallest load demand out of the Eastern states. The nature of the load has changed significantly in the last fifteen years. The peak power demand used to be in winter. During the start of the 21st century it changed to a peak summer demand, which of course suits solar.

The generation demand generally has decreased. In years gone by I saw almost 14,000MW in NSW and almost 9000MW in QLD (can't remember VIC but probably 10,000). Typical demand in NSW now would be around 9000MW, QLD just under 7000MW and again I can't recall VIC. SA is about 1800. Add ten to fifteen percent to those figures for extreme conditions.

Generally the largest generators are in NSW where they have twelve 660MW machines installed across four stations (Bayswater, Eraring, Vales Point and Mount Piper). I believe these machines have now been upgraded in varying degrees up to 725MW or slightly more.

The largest individual unit in Australia is in fact in QLD ,being the giant (for Australia) 780MW unit at Kogan Creek. Of course your comment that the generators have to be of a compatible size for the system is quite correct. I was amazed when I heard about Kogan Creek being built as it was out of kilter with anything else up here (I think 450MW is the next largest). To some extent the whole of the eastern seaboard is linked into one grid. I qualify this by pointing out that there is only a partial exchange of power possible between states because of limitations in the transmission lines. So QLD cannot supply all NSW's power and VIC cannot totally supply SA. Think more like ten percent.

However, what those larger units does mean is that, if the minimum size nuke is 800MW (I don't know what sizes they come in, although the US definitely has some 1300MW sets) it is not inconceivable that it could happen here. I believe that more of a barrier at the moment is the huge capitol cost of the nukes combined with the fact that power stations in the future in Australia will probably only be privately owned. I have not gone into the relative costs of operating a nuke, but hopefully, they are unlikely to be able to compete with our cheap sources of power, which for the moment are thermal, but may well be in the future, solar and wind to name two.

Regards
Paul

[AlexS]

Bushmiller, SWK & others, thanks for making this an interesting discussion rather than an argument, and for your informed contributions which I, for one, have found most educational.

[swk]

I noted that most of your time as an operator was spent in SA, which apart from Tassy has the smallest load demand out of the Eastern states. The nature of the load has changed significantly in the last fifteen years. The peak power demand used to be in winter. During the start of the 21st century it changed to a peak summer demand, which of course suits solar.

The generation demand generally has decreased. In years gone by I saw almost 14,000MW in NSW and almost 9000MW in QLD (can't remember VIC but probably 10,000). Typical demand in NSW now would be around 9000MW, QLD just under 7000MW and again I can't recall VIC. SA is about 1800. Add ten to fifteen percent to those figures for extreme conditions.



Paul,
ALL my time as an operator was in SA :U
I assume your numbers are from AEMO and more up to date, mine were from memory somewhat but SA summer record peak was about 3400 in 2010/11 and slightly lower in 2013/14. Last summer was lower but this next summer will be interesting as the El Nino looks like it is on the way. We'll see if the PV can really lop the summer peak. The AEMO data does not include PV which is only estimated and not included in the generation stats (as far as I know) and which is another reason the thermal stations took a hit, but yes SA is small and the demand has decreased somewhat. SA always used to get bigger summer peaks from at least the early 80s so that hasn't changed for us.

As for nuclear, like I hinted, stability issues really limit where a commercial generator can be located due to their size. I said minimum size is 800MW but these are older designs generation 3 (look up CANDU in google if you are interested, the Indian nuclear program is based on this reactor and I think some of the European ones too). I think the actual up to date ones, generation 3+, are in excess of 1000MWe.
There are generators smaller than this but they are either old (Magnox type, really used to make material for nuclear weapons) or not developed yet (integral fast reactor). The new ones won't get a look in for at least a couple of decades as the developmental costs and risks are too great, the companies that tout them will not develop them unless they are assisted by government money (at least the more reputable western companies).

Regards
SWK

[Bushmiller]

SWK

The disturbing point I was making was that in QLD the authorities approved a generator that was getting on for twice the size of the next nearest unit.

It is because of this alarming development that your very sensible and logical premise may be tested down the track. I very much hope that you are right.

I think Kogan Creek may have been the last coal-fired thermal station built in Australia.

Millmerran power station was built by the American and I was here during commisioning. The American crew had an alarming rate of chronic sickness and, yes, they had all worked on nukes.

Now I am sure the protagonists will say, but that was the old reactors. Well maybe....


Regards
Paul

[swk]

Fence furniture,
no, not really. The baseload hasn't got anything directly to do with industrial, domestic etc. In its simplest it is the minimum amount of power which is always needed in a system.

Imagine a 24 hr day in 4 quarters.
Midnight to 6am most people are asleep, but there are still street lights, hospitals and maybe some factories. To Make up some numbers, say 500MW of power is needed for these.
6 till mid day, people get up and go to work the load increases to 800MW.
In the arvo, 12 till 6pm industry is flat out people working hard say 1000MW, then in the evening everyone is home, cooking tea, watching telly before bed etc say back down to 700MW.
And this cycle repeats every day.
We can think of this as a "base" load of 500MW with an additional 300/500/200 MW "peak" depending on the time of day.
(Of course it isn't blocks, its a smooth curve and there could be more than one peak and other things affect the daily cycle. Weekends are different from weekdays and winter is different to summer, but these complications aside this is the concept).

Now, if you are a command economy like China or a (semi)state run enterprise like the old Australian electricity commisions, the obvious solution to your planning is to have 500MW worth of generators which run all the time (base load) and another set of generators which you can run up and down each day (for the peaks). Anything that makes a steady amount of steam to drive a turbine and generator is good for base load, in fact they really don't like changing loads. Run them flat out and steady for months (coal, gas or nuclear) is best*. Cover your peaks with gas turbines (comparatively expensive, high maintenance etc), hydro (capital expensive) or diesel (expensive fuel) generators which can be started and stopped quickly.

*In fact, if you can spread out some of that peak across the full 24 hrs of the day (instead of having 500/800/1000/700 we can get 700/800/800/700) you can have more easily managed base load machinery and less expensive peaking, which is why you as a consumer might be able to wangle cheaper electricity at "off peak" times.

So about 20 years ago there was a bright idea to create a national market of electricity because that would be more efficient than the old long term state planning. Bushmiller said;
"I recall when the competitive market was first mooted nobody knew exactly how the competitive aspect would pan out except there would now only be three concerns:
Price: Price and Price."

And now the system is driven by what is cheapest. So instead of a planned system with an orderly use based on the most suitable type of machine, whoever can undercut the others gets to make money and whoever misses out doesn't make money that day (in fact loses it in overheads)
Back to our system using 500/800/1000/700 in a day. We introduce 100MW of renewables and everyone ignores it because it is too small and puny to make much difference. Say its solar power. It can generate say between 6am and 6pm although the quantity might be less than its rating. It is competing with the peakers, but because every MW of solar is cheaper, whatever they generate will displace whatever the peakers used to generate. The peakers now don't have the income they used to have. Hmm... nothing stops them turning around and competing with baseload if their cost structures allow it. So the cheapest of the peakers can knock out the more expensive base load during some parts of the day.
Now someone puts 100MW of wind into the system. Wind also might not always give its full nameplate rating, but it can operate at different times during the day and, same as solar, it is cheap and will be preferred generation so all the wind generation will sell into the market, and this time on some days when the wind is blowing after midnight, it competes directly with the base load stations as well.

But remember the base load generators really weren't meant to run their load up and down, particularly if they come off all together it can takes hours (days!) to get back on. In an effort not to come off some of the more desperate base load will bid into the market free. They will generate for free for a short time because it costs less than coming off and back on again. In rare cases they may even _pay_ to generate. How long is that business model sustainable.
Eventually the more expensive peakers and base load go bust and drop out of the system. And then, in theory, after a while the price of electricity goes up and it becomes favourable for investment and private investors will add more competitive generation to the system. However, now we have that paradigm shift. No private investor is going to shell out billions (really) for a big power station (coal, gas or nuclear) where the market risk is so high and chance of return is so small. Instead they will invest in a lot of smaller and distributed generators, which is why a point comes where wind farms and PV farms spring up everywhere and big thermal stations become a thing of the past.

The buzzword is disruptive technology.

And part of the reason this happened/is happening in SA was because after 1985 the state government didn't invest in generation, so SA was poised to go down this path earlier, but barring some big game changer (like climate change??) the other states will follow in time, although it might be some time for states with newish infrastructure (like QLD). Any form of carbon tax/trading will also give it a kick along.

Regards
SWK

[swk]

The disturbing point I was making was that in QLD the authorities approved a generator that was getting on for twice the size of the next nearest unit.
It is because of this alarming development that your very sensible and logical premise may be tested down the track. I very much hope that you are right.

I don't know how it is done in QLD, but I am sure that choosing one unit was a commercial decision by the investors, based on certain assumptions, and the stability issues were reviewed by someone independant in QLD (regulator or NEMMCO?). It will be interesting to see how the future of that station pans out. IE were the original assumptions reasonable. How many times has Kogan Creek been resold (that might be a clue to how well it is doing)




I think Kogan Creek may have been the last coal-fired thermal station built in Australia.


I think you are absolutely right there.

Regards
SWK

[FenceFurniture]

I agree with Alex's sentiments. The thread is a fascinating read, with loads of background and detail. Thanks to the major contributors, in particular swk and Bushmiller.

So, the question is, should solar energy fit-outs for households be subsidised or not? Obviously the main power generators wouldn't think so and could be expected to lobby hard against it, but surely that would have to go a reasonable distance towards achieving a "proper" reduction (i.e. >26%:~). After not too long the investment for each household is recouped - perhaps the govt could recoup the subsidy from electricity fed back into the system for a period.

Just a thought, and no doubt there are downsides to it.

[Bushmiller]

So, the question is, should solar energy fit-outs for households be subsidised or not? Obviously the main power generators wouldn't think so and could be expected to lobby hard against it,

Brett

The burning and most emotive question of all. The alternative energy industry and in this case solar had to be given a kick start. Without it the necessary development was just not going to occur. The irony was that the subsidy itself pushed up the price of the installations!

Speaking for myself, I took out a loan to afford the solar panel installation. At the time I calculated it would take a minimum of eight to ten years to break even. So a way of looking at that is that I am subsidising the market for that period of time. Agreed, if the panels and associated equipment last the distance, I will make some money after that time.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

I was scaning the TV programmes and saw this on SBS about a show on uranium:

"In our energy hungry, warming world, uranium both tempts with unbelievable power and threatens all life on earth. Destroyer and saviour, dream and nightmare: the extraordinary paradox of uranium."

I thought it was appropriate having regard to earlier comments about the "nukes."

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

The irony was that the subsidy itself pushed up the price of the installations!

Speaking for myself, I took out a loan to afford the solar panel installation. At the time I calculated it would take a minimum of eight to ten years to break even. So a way of looking at that is that I am subsidising the market for that period of time. Agreed, if the panels and associated equipment last the distance, I will make some money after that time.

Regards
PaulSurely that can be put down to rorting by the installers, just as there was with the doomed insulation fiasco.

It sounds like you went solar a few years ago? If that was the case then the time to recoup investment is still +- a similar time. Panels are apparently significantly cheaper in the last couple of years or so, but the return for putting lecky back into the system is rubbish now (in NSW anyway). I suppose the recent large increases in power cost would mean a shorter return time though.

[Big Shed]

As bushmiller said, subsidies of any kind distort the market.

Think back to the LPG installation subsidy, almost overnight the cost of LPG installations increased by the same amount as the subsidy, as the subsidy reduced, the cost of installation reduced by the same amount. To add insult to injury the government then decided to recoup these subsidies by increasing the excise on LPG, which of course affected every user of automotive LPG, not only the ones that "benefited" from the subsidy.

First home owner grants are another prime example, I could go on.

Subsidies are used by governments (of any colour) for political gain, but ultimately it totally distorts the market and all consumers and tax payers finish up paying more than the subsidies ever put in the pockets of the recipients (usually the industry - not the consumer it was aimed at).

Economics 101.

[ian]

So, the question is, should solar energy fit-outs for households be subsidised or not? Obviously the main power generators wouldn't think so and could be expected to lobby hard against it, but surely that would have to go a reasonable distance towards achieving a "proper" reduction (i.e. >26%:~). After not too long the investment for each household is recouped - perhaps the govt could recoup the subsidy from electricity fed back into the system for a period.

Just a thought, and no doubt there are downsides to it.The problem I have with the question is the number of households who can't install (or can't afford to install) PV panels. If The Herald is to be believed, something like 30% of Sydney households rent and around 50% of all new dwellings in Sydney are units. Installing PV is difficult for both groups and I find it difficult to see why users who can install PV should be subsidised by those who can't. i.e the feed-in tariff shouldn't exceed the retail price for the time of day, though I would support a subsidy funded from general tax revenue.

[DonIncognito]

There are some energy companies who have seen the writing on the wall and are now offering solar panels up for lease to consumers.

[Toymaker Len]

Lots of really good information, thanks to all.

[Robson Valley]

About 10 years ago, I installed a small solar power system because of frequent power outages, particularly in the winter. Was not cheap but hindsight has shown me the wisdom of my decision. Cost-effectiveness may be an issue for you but freezing to death is a little higher up on my list of concerns. I need 500W to run the motors in my Harman pellet stove. My system will do that for 8 hours+. Maybe this October, I buy 2 more batteries = they really are the core of the system.

My oil-fired central heating system cost nearly 2X the pellet stove operating cost. Three winters and the capital cost of the stove ($3k) was recovered. In the next two winters, the solar panel and bits were paid for.
I have a plug in alarm in the bedroom which goes off when there's a power failure. In the summer (now), I don't care much except to run the coffee pot and the toaster. Winter night, high wind, blowing snow and -20C, I do care. Fortunately, all my neighbors know about the power system so they have all been invited to hang out at my place while their own homes freeze up. Water expands about 1/11 (approx 9%) when it freezes. Icebergs float. In copper water pipes, the copper will split = serious issues.

I realize that this story is nothing like your own. For my peace of mind, I could not afford NOT to do it.

[johnc]

A very civilised thread to what has been for sometime a divisive topic, perhaps there has been a shift in attitude over recent times. We put on solar a few years back and also expect an eight year payback. Our annual electricity bill is nil and will stay that way until we come off our very generous feed in tariff of 66C/Kw. Technology eventually makes everything redundant, how many still have video recorders? The big money is leaving coal because it is a sunset industry, early renewables will suffer the same fate. The future will be low cost renewables some yet to be invented some currently in development. The only question will be the pace of change and Australia by being slow to embrace technological change will possibly suffer a competitive disadvantage in the long term. Our biggest risk is loosing the technological and manufacturing skills to profit from change, we embrace gadgets but are slower to improve and modernise our industry which is why we have lost major industries in the past from wool processing through to cars.

I would expect to see an ETS to possibly return as a government policy but for my money I'd like to see more investment in next generation research and development and the continual rollout of wind turbines and solar farms of which the former seem to be dotted all over Europe and not be a big deal like they are here. The main worry is ensuring those on low incomes can afford power, generation power isn't the main problem it is distribution costs but as more go solar rooftop the more the cost burden falls on those who either rent or can't place a solar array on their roof tops.

[dazzler]

An interesting thought on future technology and how we struggle to think what the future will be like.

The square kilometre array radio telescope being built in Aus and South Africa will be 50 times more sensitive than present and survey the sky 10,000 times faster.

There is no computer on earth remotely capable of dealing with it. But, the advance curve predicts we will have enough computer power by the time it comes online.

This is the type of thinking we need for the future.


[emoji204][emoji85][emoji86][emoji87]

[Bushmiller]

From recent posts here is a little information to put some aspects of power generation pricing into context.

The wholesale price of electricity varies greatly but probably averages around 5c per KW/Hr. This varies from state to state with SA being slightly above and QLD, as the cheapest, being slightly below. I stress that these are average prices only and the pool price is constantly fluctuating. For example, last Thursday in QLD for a single five minute segment the price reached it's maximum of 1380c for a KW/Hr! At other times, as SWK mentioned, particularly at night, I have seen negative prices. We have to pay them!!

We do this for short periods of time because it is cheaper than taking the units offline and then putting them back on again.

Retail cost to the consumer I think is getting towards 30c per Kw/Hr (I am not quite sure of the cost as I havn't seen a bill for a couple of years now.)

Pricing during the subsidised period of solar installation saw prices up to 66c depending which state you live in. In QLD it was 44c. While this was clearly a significant subsidy, as the price of electricity increases the relative advantage of the subsidy deceases, although it looks as though it will still be of benefit right until the end of the scheme (if governments continue to honour the agreement) for those that contributed.

It may be that the advent of solar pv will contribute to holding costs down as the maintenance of the distribution network is huge. Compare the difference in the whole sale cost to the cost that at the consumer end. At least five times as much.

It was mentioned in an earlier thread that industry consumes about two thirds of our power. I don't know the details of those figures, but it is quite likely when you consider than a single pot line in an aluminium smelter draws around 500MW. I think some smelters have three pot lines.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

Surely that can be put down to rorting by the installers, just as there was with the doomed insulation fiasco.

It sounds like you went solar a few years ago? If that was the case then the time to recoup investment is still +- a similar time. Panels are apparently significantly cheaper in the last couple of years or so, but the return for putting lecky back into the system is rubbish now (in NSW anyway). I suppose the recent large increases in power cost would mean a shorter return time though.

Brett

Rorting? How dare you suggest such a thing? :oo:

Of course it was :- .

I put my solar system in within a few weeks of the subsidy shutting down. 5KW costing $16,900 if I remember right. After the subsidy had ceased I was talking to a colleague at work who was considering an identical system even down to the same inverter. He had realised that if you put your name down for the commitment you could still get the subsidy even though the scheme had technically ended. However without the subsidy, the market was in a spiral fall. He paid only $11,000 for his installation. When I first looked at a solar installation I was quoted about $24,000 for 5KW!

Today, without that subsidy, I think such a system would cost about $7,000 or even less (possibly somebody with recent experience of the market could verify that.)

So rorting, absolutely!

Regards
Paul

[artme]

Little did I expect when I began this thread that it would develop the way bit has.

The responses have been to the point, informative and extremely civilized. For that we should all be very thankful.

The responses also demonstrate the diversity of the membership of these fora. It never fails to amaze me that people
from such diverse backgrounds are interested in woodwork and so many other topics.

On the subject of subsidies I know there are many who have missed the subsidies offered by various governments and many
who are implacably opposed to subsidies. I know that in Spain there is a legal requirement for people to install PV cells on
new buildings and there is NO subsidy. My view is that the market would soon adopt to a subsidy free environment if any
government had the political will to make solar installation obligatory.

The information supplied here with regard to nuclear is, I find, a total revelation. A pity the information is not so readily known
to the general public!

Keep the information coming fellas!! Every little morsel is grist for the mill.

[Bushmiller]

Arthur

I can see a time when every new dwelling will have to have a solar array on the roof. We already have it with water tanks (admittedly they don't go on the roof :rolleyes: .)

The big advantage with something like PV is that you don't have to go around buying up land and getting permission to stick your power station in the ground. Solar PV represents an instant mini power station utilising existing line infrastructure with out the need for an EIS and the like.

There are some issues with using the existing structures and antagonists continue to trot these out, but to my mind they are fairly easily overcome if the desire is there.

Regards
Paul

[johnc]

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback. I would imagine the new Tesla battery concept puts paid to that problem as it stores excess power for later use. I would think once we come off our contracted feed in tariff the Tesla storage system is something we will consider very seriously. Certainly at end of transmission runs solar PV has proven useful in keeping sufficient load in the network.

[kiwigeo]

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback. I would imagine the new Tesla battery concept puts paid to that problem as it stores excess power for later use. I would think once we come off our contracted feed in tariff the Tesla storage system is something we will consider very seriously. Certainly at end of transmission runs solar PV has proven useful in keeping sufficient load in the network.

Battery storage systems present the same problem to the power suppliers that PV systems do......unless you are able to monitor how much everyone is using and how much they are pumping back into the grid...managing the grid becomes an impossible task.

[swk]

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback.

John,
at the local level solar does something like this

The blue line is the load of a local part of the electric system. The brown line is the power generated by PV in that area. The black line shows what has to be supplied to the area from the grid.
If you can imagine the brown line getting higher (more PV systems bought), the black line comes down to nothing. If the whole grid behaves like this, some power stations will have to come off. Which might be OK for some peakers but very difficult for base load. This is one of the reasons that big power stations with slow response may be in trouble sooner than expected (depending on how different parts of the grid develop).


Regards
SWK

[ian]

given the slow ramp up and ramp down of thermal, I think that thermal coal might stabilise around the overnight plateau, with the "peak units" cutting in big time on cloudy days

[swk]

Battery storage systems present the same problem to the power suppliers that PV systems do......unless you are able to monitor how much everyone is using and how much they are pumping back into the grid...managing the grid becomes an impossible task.

Managing the grid is difficult, but not impossible.
I was talking to some folks today about a development in Vic. After the bushfires there, one of the distributors wanted a system which they could use to shutdown the power in an overhead line on fire danger days, but still have power to customers at the far end. Some sort of remote generation or storage. After they thought about this for a while they realised that a system like that could also be used to manage peaks throughout the day in suburban areas.

In fact a system like this does more than just shift the peaks, it actually has 7 functions, the easier explained ones are;
In the very short term (less than seconds) it can stabilise frequency and control power quality (ie the timing and shape of the ac waves).
At slightly longer time periods (some seconds) it can act as spinning reserve, that is, for outages caused by loss of a big generator it can quickly pick up load and help the remaining generators which are trying to share that extra load.
At the minutes to hours level it can detect if the power requirements have gone over a defined maximum level and "shave off" short term peaks and for longer time periods it can shift the loading level around (ie flatten out that squiggly blue line in my previous post) and remove the issue with solar PV driving the local load low/to zero in the middle of the day. Think the Tesla battery idea, but not for your house, for your suburb.

Pie in the sky? Here it is, its been running since January (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgzgNF6DyWo)

And before you jump to the conclusion that it is simply a diesel generator charging batteries. It isn't. The batteries charge and discharge into the grid, the diesel is a back up only for the rare times when the batteries go completely flat like a total grid power failure. Under normal operation the diesel is meant to run hardly at all.
This one is of course only comparatively small (about 1MW for an hour), but it is a trial in Australia based on equipment already in use overseas. 20MW systems will be available based on the battery technology available now and probably bigger systems with some improved battery chemistries.

Like the duck swimming, calm on the surface but paddling madly underneath, there is a lot happening in the electrical industry caused by renewables. Not just in Australia. Those buzz words again, disruptive technology.

Regards
SWK

[Bushmiller]

One of the problems with the generation of electricity is that the demand is not constant. We have already seen that there are the "base load" generators who tend to run all the time. They are base load because they are the cheapest. They tend to be cheapest because they are large and there is an economy of scale.

The generators that provide the peaking power are often smaller and more specifically able to respond very quickly to a load demand. They are often gas turbines or gas turbines with an HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam Generator) tacked on to the exhaust end of the gas turbine.

Bear in mind that there is normally a "rolling reserve," which is power capability that is not being used. For example, if station has a capability of 500MW, but is only generating 300MW it can provide a rolling reserve of 200MW.

In the old NSW system there used to be a rolling reserve of 2000MW at any one time to cover sudden and unexpected losses of generation. Today I don't really know what it is, but I would expect something similar.

If the rolling reserve is insufficient to cover a sudden loss of generation there has to be load shedding.....Blackouts.

I thought you might be interested to see a typical generation pattern and pricing from my last two night shifts. The picture cover three days from the 27th to the 29th. I took two snapshots each evening: One shortly after the start of shift and one during the early or late morning when demand and prices had fallen to their lowest. There was other information behind the maps, which could arguably have been deemed sensitive information so I cut most of that away. It related to forecast prices, but doesn't have much relevance here.

The picture on the left is at 1941hrs and on the right 0247hrs.

358143358144

and on the second night at 1950hrs and 0604hrs:

358145358142

Some points of interest are:

South Australia is the most expensive state and that partially shows why it has been quicker to adopt alternative energies ( coupled with a lot of wind :rolleyes: ).

The chevrons indicate where there is a transmission line (interconnector) between neighbouring states. It shows the maximum capability for both import and export and what the line was carrying at that moment.

Note that NSW was being fed energy from both Victoria and Queensland.

Victoria was feeding power into both SA and NSW

Tasmania was feeding Victoria.

The prices are all per MW/Hr. Divide by 1000 and you have the price per KW/Hr.

Although these are very normal prices, they can be extreme and I have seen -$1000 as well as +$13,800 (as I mentioned in an earlier thread). Ordinarily these extremes are for very limited periods: Rarely more than 30 minutes.

Regards
Paul

[DaveTTC]

......
I pointed out that if I have to work for an environmentally polluting electrical generator this is probably the best one I could choose, but I am looking forward to the day they build a solar plant so I don't have to apologise to people for placing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Regards
Paul

How did that go down?

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

[Bushmiller]

How did that go down?

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Dave

I'm still there :D..............for the moment :( .

It was a time more for openness and honesty than sycophantic subterfuge :wink: .

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

I don't have to apologise to people for placing CO2 into the atmosphere.

Regards
PaulI'm more of a methane man myself, but apologies are still rare.

[Bushmiller]

I'm more of a methane man myself, but apologies are still rare.

Brett

I thought CO2 would be more than enough for him to digest without getting into methane :rolleyes: .

Regards
Paul

[DaveTTC]

A very interesting walk i to your world which our world depends on.

Another post from SA. Cant recall who it was but guess he was talking about ETSA and Torrens island

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

[Chris Parks]

As bushmiller said, subsidies of any kind distort the market.

Think back to the LPG installation subsidy, almost overnight the cost of LPG installations increased by the same amount as the subsidy, as the subsidy reduced, the cost of installation reduced by the same amount. To add insult to injury the government then decided to recoup these subsidies by increasing the excise on LPG, which of course affected every user of automotive LPG, not only the ones that "benefited" from the subsidy.

First home owner grants are another prime example, I could go on.

Subsidies are used by governments (of any colour) for political gain, but ultimately it totally distorts the market and all consumers and tax payers finish up paying more than the subsidies ever put in the pockets of the recipients (usually the industry - not the consumer it was aimed at).

Economics 101.

How very true, the first home buyer subsidy is the glaring example of this as is the diesel fuel subsidy for commercial operators. Both distort the market and the industry cops the cream.

[Bushmiller]

It rather begs the question as to whom the subsidies are intended: The provider or the recipient? I think we know who gets the benefit.

Regards
Paul

[johnc]

Subsidies distort markets but are useful if used to give new technology the start it needs to gain critical mass to reduce production costs through technological improvement and larger production runs. Diesel subsidies for farm users aren't a big deal because it is effectively the removal of the road tax for off road use. Diesel rebates for heavy haulage are a different matter, that is distorting the market and discouraging to a certain extent alternatives such as rail (debatable it makes any difference given the logistics of efficiency between the two) Subsidies such as the first home owners grant went into a market that was already under pressure, bit like using petrol to supress a fire, wrong economic lever, they needed to increase supply but instead increased demand pressure, prices lifted as a result.

[ian]

Subsidies distort markets but are useful if used to give new technology the start it needs to gain critical mass to reduce production costs through technological improvement and larger production runs. Diesel subsidies for farm users aren't a big deal because it is effectively the removal of the road tax for off road use. Diesel rebates for heavy haulage are a different matter, that is distorting the market and discouraging to a certain extent alternatives such as rail (debatable it makes any difference given the logistics of efficiency between the two)
I'm not sure that's correct.
The diesel fuel rebate for rail is about 39 cents per litre, for heavy haulage it's about 13 cents.
Rail gets the Fuel Excise refunded in the same way that farmers, miners and general industry does on the basis that the fuel is for non-road use.
The heavy haulage "rebate" is, I think, a repayment of the difference between the road user charge (the road damage component of the heavy vehicle registration fee), set at about 25 cents per litre and the "road component" of the excise which is about 40 cents per litre. In part the "rebate" is intended to encourage the take up of newer, cleaner diesel engines.
The balance of the excise -- about 10 cents -- is for general revenue purposes. Economists might term it paying for the externalities of fuel use.

[johnc]

I'm not sure that's correct.
The diesel fuel rebate for rail is about 39 cents per litre, for heavy haulage it's about 13 cents.
Rail gets the Fuel Excise refunded in the same way that farmers, miners and general industry does on the basis that the fuel is for non-road use.
The heavy haulage "rebate" is, I think, a repayment of the difference between the road user charge (the road damage component of the heavy vehicle registration fee), set at about 25 cents per litre and the "road component" of the excise which is about 40 cents per litre. In part the "rebate" is intended to encourage the take up of newer, cleaner diesel engines.
The balance of the excise -- about 10 cents -- is for general revenue purposes. Economists might term it paying for the externalities of fuel use.

I don't think it is clear cut, rail provides its own roads, but are tracks subsidised?, To what extent are road taxes spent on roads and how much extra tax payer money goes into roads. Fuel subsidies are a very muddy pond. Higher not lower Diesel prices should encourage a shift to ever more efficient diesel engines, yet lower diesel prices encouraged the shift from petrol heavy haulage truck to diesel power plants originally, why do we continue to subsidise heavy haulage fuel. Most of this is rhetorical, there really isn't an answer other than politics plays a big part.

[Chris Parks]

The price of diesel went up when subsidies were introduced, I rest my case.

[ian]

I don't think it is clear cut, rail provides its own roads, but are tracks subsidised?, brief answer is yes, rail tracks are subsidised.

Most interstate track in Australia is owned or controlled by the Australian Rail Track Corporation -- a Federal Government body funded in part by tax payers.
"in 2014–15 over 78 per cent of all [Federal] infrastructure expenditure is to be spent on roads. Rail receives approximately 13 per cent." source: http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201415/Infrastructure



13 % of about $5.8B is around $750M.

The track user charge paid by rail operators is, according to the National Transport Commission, competitively neutral with heavy haulage's road user charge which is collected through the fuel excise system.


To what extent are road taxes spent on roads this is as good an into as any
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/under-the-pump-where-your-petrol-taxes-are-really-going/story-fnagkbpv-1226298533026
summary
Drivers see only nine of 40 cents-per-litre spent on roads (more typically, over time the spend on roads has been around 50% of the fuel excise revenue)


and how much extra tax payer money goes into roads.none

why do we continue to subsidise heavy haulage fuel. I argue we don't.
the "rebate" is supposed to return the difference between the full fuel excise and that proportion of the excise "deemed" to represent a road user charge similar to the track user charge paid by rail operators.


Most of this is rhetorical, there really isn't an answer other than politics plays a big part.:whs:

[Chris Parks]

With all the talk of SA and its move away from coal we have this http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/startup-infratechs-floating-solar-rafts-hold-promise-for-australias-rural-communities-20150823-gj5ktn.html

Imagine a farm dam covered in one of these, the evaporation would be cut down and you get solar power as well.

[Big Shed]

They may have to find a way to keep the birds off though, water birds are messiest poopers there are.

[kiwigeo]

They may have to find a way to keep the birds off though, water birds are messiest poopers there are.

Gas guns...but then you have noise pollution.

[Bushmiller]

Gas guns...but then you have noise pollution.

I think you will find the birds get used to them after a while.

Regards
Paul

[Big Shed]

I think you will find the birds get used to them after a while.

Regards
Paul

The more they get used to them the more they will use them as a roost, they love to roost on anything that floats on water DAMHIKT.:;

If you have ever seen roosting spots where water birds nest and roost you will know what I am talking about.

[DaveTTC]

With all the talk of SA and its move away from coal we have this http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/startup-infratechs-floating-solar-rafts-hold-promise-for-australias-rural-communities-20150823-gj5ktn.html

Imagine a farm dam covered in one of these, the evaporation would be cut down and you get solar power as well.
I like it

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

[DonIncognito]

Interesting article on going 100% renewable

https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-is-ready-to-supply-all-of-australias-electricity-29200

[Bushmiller]

Interesting article on going 100% renewable

https://theconversation.com/renewable-energy-is-ready-to-supply-all-of-australias-electricity-29200

DonIncognito

I become a little exasperated when the title of the article refers to 100%, but as you read further down they are really only talking two thirds.

Then there is this statement:

"For instance, South Australia nominally has two coal-fired power stations, several gas-fired ones, and at least 15 operating wind farms. Wind now supplies an annual average of 27% of South Australia’s electricity generation. As a result, one of the coal stations is now shut down for half the year and the other for the whole year. And the state’s electricity supply system is operating reliably without the need for any additional non-renewable energy supply."

Clearly the author is unaware that a significant amount of power is supplied from Victoria on a very regular basis. It is true to say that the bulk of SA's own power generation is wind or other renewable (I don't consider gas renewable, although bio gas may be) and this is for two reasons.

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.

Thirdly, they have Victoria ready and waiting to supply power to top up their shortfall. You can see in the snapshot in pic 3 (post #61) that during the evening peak Victoria was supplying almost a quarter of SA's demand and on top of that the price was almost 50% more than Victoria.

The same article makes reference to 100% sustainability in some European counties, but they too are able to buy power from neighbouring countries. Also it is forecast for quite a way into the future: Not right now.

I am very open to renewables, but such statements are misleading and do the protagonists no favours as they are easily shot down.

Regards
Paul

[DonIncognito]

DonIncognito

I become a little exasperated when the title of the article refers to 100%, but as you read further down they are really only talking two thirds.

Bushmiller

the quote you are talking about is as follows :


So two-thirds of annual energy can be supplied by wind and solar photovoltaic

That is not including the contribution made by CST. I had to reread it a couple of times for it to sink in. They are talking about 100%.




Wind 46%;
Concentrated solar thermal (https://theconversation.com/with-a-bit-of-concentration-solar-thermal-could-power-your-town-2005) (electricity generated by the heat of the sun) with thermal storage 22%;
Photovoltaic solar (https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-photovoltaic-solar-energy-12924) 20% (electricity generated directly from sunlight);
Biofuelled gas turbines 6%; and
Existing hydro 6%.





Then there is this statement:

"For instance, South Australia nominally has two coal-fired power stations, several gas-fired ones, and at least 15 operating wind farms. Wind now supplies an annual average of 27% of South Australia’s electricity generation. As a result, one of the coal stations is now shut down for half the year and the other for the whole year. And the state’s electricity supply system is operating reliably without the need for any additional non-renewable energy supply."

Clearly the author is unaware that a significant amount of power is supplied from Victoria on a very regular basis. It is true to say that the bulk of SA's own power generation is wind or other renewable (I don't consider gas renewable, although bio gas may be) and this is for two reasons.

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.

Thirdly, they have Victoria ready and waiting to supply power to top up their shortfall. You can see in the snapshot in pic 3 (post #61) that during the evening peak Victoria was supplying almost a quarter of SA's demand and on top of that the price was almost 50% more than Victoria.

The same article makes reference to 100% sustainability in some European counties, but they too are able to buy power from neighbouring countries. Also it is forecast for quite a way into the future: Not right now.

I am very open to renewables, but such statements are misleading and do the protagonists no favours as they are easily shot down.

Regards
Paul

The article was not about the current supply situation. It was about what is the optimal mix of renewables that could supply the eastern markets power requirements. It is not just about SA. Its about the entirety of the eastern seaboard.

Of course its about the future. It would be a massive infrastructure project taking years apon years to build. Worth the cost in my opinion.

[swk]

The article was not about the current supply situation. It was about what is the optimal mix of renewables that could supply the eastern markets power requirements. It is not just about SA. Its about the entirety of the eastern seaboard.

Of course its about the future. It would be a massive infrastructure project taking years apon years to build. Worth the cost in my opinion.

When I said (back on page 2) I had seen some papers which _plausibly_ showed we could do without fossil fuel, they were indeed the papers written by Mark Diesendorf, the guy who wrote the conversation article. Also spoke to him last year. I say plausible, because I still believe there is a way to go on solar thermal before it becomes commercial. However, I think it will become so long before other technologies such as integral fast reactors which a lot of people are pushing too.

Of course things have changed since he wrote that article, the coal stations in SA are now gone (or good as). And no, this wont happen immediately, it may not happen in my lifetime, but to say it wont happen at all (or even that things wont transition in that direction in the near future) is completely wrong.

Regards
SWK

[Toymaker Len]

Solar thermal power stations are up and running. Have a look at the fifty or so listed by wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations

[swk]

DonIncognito

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.



Paul,
two comments.
While one of the coal stations was old and done its fair share (Playford B, being about the same age as eg Callide A). The other one (Northern Power Station) is far from old, at least in power station terms. It was commissioned in the mid 80s, which means that it is only just 30 years old. Somewhere in age between Tarong and Callide B and a good few years newer than Gladstone.

I am not sure that only SA has a climate suited for wind farms. While SA has good wind resources, so does all of Tas, the western half of Vic and the bottom half of WA (http://www.renewablessa.sa.gov.au/files/121219-windresourcemappingaustralia.pdf). While not as good as the other states there are still some good pockets in NSW and Qld.

Regards
SWK

[swk]

And just to leave with a few interesting tidbits.

From the International Energy Agency, "five countries" reached "socket parity" (https://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/graphics/2015-03-03-solar-pv-socket-parity.html) for residential PV in 2013. That is, the cost to the consumer of power from residential solar cells is less than the cost supplied by their utility.

As of now onshore wind power looks to be cheaper that coal power stations (http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm) in the US. (US Energy Information Admin).
(Similar numbers by the Fraunhofer institute in Germany, See table 1 (http://go100re.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014_10_24_Statement_LCOE_PV_Fraunhofer_ISE.pdf), but you may say they are biased due to being a solar energy mob
and the financial group Lazards)

(http://www.lazard.com/media/1777/levelized_cost_of_energy_-_version_80.pdf)

Regards
SWK

[artme]

Good article and a good series of points have arisen from it.

One thing that bothers me is the term "renewable".

To me renewable means you can replce it once it is used as in bio-gas.

Wind and solar - just to be pedantic - are continuously harvestable sources of intermittent energy.

[swk]

Solar thermal power stations are up and running. Have a look at the fifty or so listed by wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations

Well, I stand corrected on that. I wasn't aware there was so much activity. Even though some of it certainly small and is still in the development phase (like the Australian power station boosters) there appear to be a lot coming on line now, so mass produced standardised (cheaper) plant wont be far away at all.
And it confirms what I said about that technology being _commercially_ available long before some other projected types.

Regards
SWK

[Bushmiller]

I have just re-read the majority of this thread. Hell, it was one of the best discussions I have participated in and so much information was produced both by people active within the industry and those purely intrigued by the issue.

Thank you to artme for raising the subject.

In recent times the SA debacle raised it's head and became a political hot potato. As usual there were polies ducking for cover and casting aspersions well before their mouth was in gear.

Of course they wanted to attribute blame to suit their particular agenda. The chorus of " See, I told you." The disgraceful aspect of that was it was while the consumers were still severely inconvenienced because they were without power.

The first thing to note was that the event was a freak event. Things go pear shaped during freak events.

Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.

Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.

The interconnector between Victoria and SA shut down when it threatened to exceed it's safety margins. That left the remaining generators unable to maintain constant power as the wind turbines (and solar too I believe) have no frequency control.

The electrical power supply in Australia generates at 50Hz, which is the method by which we end up with 240V in our homes. The alternative energy suppliers could not regulate the feed at 50Hz and so the power crisis escalated.

One thing to not is that the freak weather conditions would have challenged almost any power supply and it certainly did that in SA.

I have not really heard at this stage whether steps have been taken to remedy the frequency control situation down there. It would be interesting to hear if anybody has up to date information.

Regards
Paul

[Big Shed]

.....................

Of course they wanted to attribute blame to suit their particular agenda. The chorus of " See, I told you." The disgraceful aspect of that was it was while the consumers were still severely inconvenienced because they were without power.

The first thing to note was that the event was a freak event. Things go pear shaped during freak events.

Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.

Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.

The interconnector between Victoria and SA shut down when it threatened to exceed it's safety margins. That left the remaining generators unable to maintain constant power as the wind turbines (and solar too I believe) have no frequency control.

The electrical power supply in Australia generates at 50Hz, which is the method by which we end up with 240V in our homes. The alternative energy suppliers could not regulate the feed at 50Hz and so the power crisis escalated.

...............

Regards
Paul

Paul, what I find amusing is your statement "


Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.


Followed by an equally amusing


Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.


It would be interesting to observe the desgners of the system giving evidence before a Royal Commission in effect saying "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong.:doh:

From my recollection the "chorus" of politicians (and I may add) other real experts all stated that SA had gone too far too early with relying too much on renewables.

Even before this "freak" event happened there were plenty of people saying that, and they were the ones saying "I told you so".

SA is now deficient in baseload power generation as it has chosen to rely on baseload power generators in other states.

With the upcoming shutdown of Hazelwood in Vic, and probably other power generators, they may not be able to get enough power out of Vic.

It is interesting to note that SA over the last few days is going through yet another substantial power outage.

It is also interesting to note that Bob Hawke again renewed his call (at the Woodford Folk Festival) for nuclear power generation in Australia.

[kiwigeo]

It is interesting to note that SA over the last few days is going through yet another substantial power outage.



The cause of the most recent power blackouts here in Adelaide was a severe storm that hit the state on Tuesday night (27/12) and caused widespread damage to power lines, power poles and other infrastructure. It was nothing to do with a lack of baseload power or an over-dependence on renewable energy sources or the Victoria/SA feeder...the blackouts would have occurred regardless of power source. The areas where blackouts were prolonged were mainly in the Adelaide Hills where there are lots of trees and a majority of power supplies are via overhead cables.

No highly centralized power network such as the ones operating in every state and territory could have survived a weather event such as the one above without sustaining significant damage to lines and poles.

[Bushmiller]

My take on the series of events was that freak storms wrecked transmission lines. The remaining wind system was overloaded so it shut down (hence the operating as designed to "protect" the system). However this left the interconnector from Victoria as the only supply, which was unable to cope so it too shut down to protect itself from damage. This resulted in a blackout. Consequently you could consider that there was indeed a design fault.

This is a link to the third preliminary report from AEMO. The final report is due in March.

http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Security_and_Reliability/Reports/Integrated-Third-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf

Clearly there are several issues that need to be addressed. The most disturbing factor for me however is the continued dialogue by politicians to cast spin to limit renewable energies. This to my mind is a gross misrepresentation of the facts to suit their agendas and is despicable, if I may quote that cartoon character.

I thought this might be an opportune moment to add further comment following the decision yesterday in SA to shed load instead of firing up a Gas generator. I have no additional knowledge of that strange decision.

One final mention I should make is that the market has changed dramatically since the inception of this thread. Two factors are that the cheap gas has gone and particularly right at this moment we are experiencing an unusually protracted period of hot weather. There are other issues too.

Regards
Paul
(Just a reminder that I work in a thermal power station, albeit good one.)

[kiwigeo]

I thought this might be an opportune moment to add further comment following the decision yesterday in SA to shed load instead of firing up a Gas generator. I have no additional knowledge of that strange decision.



Not as easy as it sounds to fire up the second generator at Pelican Point at short notice....because of the current shortage of domestic gas the operator has first to source enough gas on the spot market (=$$$$$$) and then they have to submit an outrageous price bid to sell the electricity.

[Bohdan]

As I understand they offered the electricity but nobody was willing to pay their price.

So much for the benefits of private enterprise in a service industry.

[Big Shed]

Not as easy as it sounds to fire up the second generator at Pelican Point at short notice....because of the current shortage of domestic gas the operator has first to source enough gas on the spot market (=$$$$$$) and then they have to submit an outrageous price bid to sell the electricity.

This quote from Wikipedia seems to suggest other reasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Point_Power_Station



Reduced operation

Since March 2013 the power station has generally operated at half capacity due to over-capacity in the South Australian region of the National Electricity Market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Electricity_Market). Grid generation capacity was reduced in early 2016 when the Northern Power Station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Power_Station_%28South_Australia%29) closed. Generation at Pelican Point was increased to full capacity at the request of the South Australian government for at least a week in July 2016, due to much of the state's wind generation being offline due to damaging high winds, and the Heywood interconnector (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heywood_interconnector&action=edit&redlink=1) being unavailable due to works associated with a planned increase in its capacity.[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Point_Power_Station#cite_note-2) It returned to only operating one unit (half capacity) and the owner claimed that the National Electricity Market (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Electricity_Market) rules prohibited the second unit from responding to a request for electricity market responses on 8 February 2017.[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Point_Power_Station#cite_note-3) The result was that the extremely hot weather in Adelaide plus little wind to drive wind turbines led to the market operator requiring "load shedding" for 27 minutes during the evening electricity demand peak.[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Point_Power_Station#cite_note-4) The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather

But really the long and the short of it is that we are now reaping the "benefits" of selling off our electricity assets for short term gain, resulting in losing control of them completely.
This is not peculiar to SA, the same thing will be happening in Victoria once Hazelwood is closed down by its' private operator (Engie, also majority owner of Pelican Point).

Jay Weatherill, SA Premier, is now talking about the possibility of "nationalising" electricity generation again!

[kiwigeo]

This quote from Wikipedia seems to suggest other reasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Point_Power_Station





"The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather." Translation - the second generator was fired up after the national authority granted the plant operators exemption from the supply guarantee rule.

A guaranteed gas supply is still an issue......most of the gas from Moomba and Bass Strait is currently being piped to Gladstone to feed the LNG plant there because they cant get enough gas from local CSG fields.

[Lappa]

I don't have an intimate knowledge of the energy suppliers and political cabin Australia so I can only go on reports I read and heard. If these are correct, then the thing that annoys me re this gas shortage is the amount that goes OS. Reports have overseas households in Asia paying less for their Australian gas than Australian households pay. I believe we are the only country selling fuels overseas that allows this price variation to occur.

[ian]

seems to me, the major issue in SA is a false assumption around the "National energy market".

Leaving aside the issue of transmission losses, which are, I believe, substantial, there are just not the wires required to allow electricity generated in NSW's Hunter Valley to be consumed in Adelaide. Nor the wires to allow most of SA's potential demand to be supplied from Victoria.

so when the sun goes down and the wind's not blowing and everyone is running an air conditioner, there's not enough generating capacity to go around -- unless the gas fired generator at Pelican Point runs both its units. But to run both units requires the operator to enter into a take or pay contract for the necessary gas, the cost of which can't be recovered if the wind is blowing, which it does much of the time.

[ian]

"The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather." Translation - the second generator was fired up after the national authority granted the plant operators exemption from the supply guarantee rule.
my translation would be "the second generator was fired up after the operator received an assurance that the cost of entering into a take or pay contract for the required gas to run the second unit would be covered. "

[kiwigeo]

my translation would be "the second generator was fired up after the operator received an assurance that the cost of entering into a take or pay contract for the required gas to run the second unit would be covered. "

Either way the root cause is still the same......a government that lets the nations gas reserves be shipped overseas as LNG at the expense of domestic users.