Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Chris Parks]

And then we have this Mike Cannon-Brookes, Brookfield launch bid for AGL to ‘accelerate coal exit’

[woodPixel]

Mike is exactly correct.

We need to decarbonise the entire worlds economy instantly, if not sooner.

It is already too late. All we can do is ameliorate the effects for future generations.

It is only by taking over the dinosaurs (figuratively and literally) that we can, as a society, fix this. There is NO incentive for Boards like AGL to change. The only way to change them is complete elimination. Those board members LOOK great on paper, until you realise they (all of them) would happily to sell your children's futures for a personal quarterly bonus.


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[AlexS]

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[Bushmiller]

This is an interesting and slightly disturbing development with Hornsdale Power Reserve (The SA Tesla battery)

Regulator takes Tesla big battery to court for failing to properly back up broken coal plant | RenewEconomy

Firstly, the strength of this type of battery is the supposed ability to respond to frequency deviations: It is alleged that having taken payments for about eighteen months, when they were called upon to deliver in anger they fell down. Consequently the AER is taking them to the high court to get the money refunded, to have their costs paid and a penalty imposed.

This is the crux of the action:

"The AER is alleging breaches of the National Electricity Rules for its inability to deliver frequency control services and respond to instructions from the Australian Energy Market Operator over a four month period, and particularly one event when the country’s biggest single coal unit at Kogan Creek in Queensland tripped in October, 2019."

It is true to say that in the current market you have to deliver on your promises. If you don't deliver, there is a penalty associated.

The article above states that coal fired generators have performed less than satisfactorily, but I suspect they just did not say they could do something when they could not. There is a difference. It is also interesting to wonder if since that time there have been changes made in how the battery performs.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

So over the last few days I have read this entire thread, but confess to not having read the external links, or watching many of the videos. Nor do I have any kind of engineering background.
There will most likely be a few things that I have missed.

(snipped)
The third point is where the market price is less than the cost of their fuel. Under this situation the station will reduce load to a practical minimum. Ideally they would come off line, but do not, because of start up costs and startup times.

Fourthly the station would stop generating as the price goes into negative territory for a protracted period. A Gas Turbine plant may do this ( in fact they will probably do it at step three above), but for coal fired plants it is not an option for the moment. It should be mentioned that it would also be a problem for the grid. Even the fast response units may take two hours to come back on line. Mostly the generators wear negative prices and pay AEMO so they can stay generating.

However it is important to note that as times goes on this will be less and les likely acceptable to AEMO and viable to the generators Fossil fired stations will eventually shut down. The last stations will be there courtesy of a combination of economic efficiency and flexibility.

The solar farm is only going to stop generating when supply is too great, until storage facilities become available. There will be a balancing act between generation and storage for many years to come.

Regards
Paul

Notwithstanding Paul's most recent and "slightly disturbing" post re the Hornsdale Power Reserve......
Given that there seems to be 3/4 situations where CF power stations are losing money, would it not make sense to attach a battery storage to them (or other storage... see below)? Computer algorithms would be smart enough to discharge the power at peak times if needed, so creating recharge "space"(and run the CF turbines a little slower, saving fuel, but not at a loss), so that they always needed recharging during the money losing times.



When I watched the Vid in woodPixel's post I thought that it was an extraordinary idea. No water (river) required, doesn't have to be in a remote location (where the river is), it can just be on any old hill. In fact, a hill wouldn't necessarily be required – just a bunch of Luna Park style Big Dippers made from steel – green, of course . We've got plenty of iron ore for the steel, and any amount of rocks and other heavy waste (concrete and other demo waste) to fill the buckets with. Push comes to shove we could fill 'em with Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly replicants.

And yet there wasn't a single comment about this idea. It looks brilliant to me. Think of all the wasted blight sites around the various cities that could be used. I'll wager it could be built for a fraction of the Pumped Hydro cost, given the necessary locations of same.
(with apologies to music lovers - best watch this vid on mute to avoid the heroic music which is just crap-on-a-loop)

And how about this startlingly obvious idea....
Have a hill, plus excess cheap electricity? Well, put giant blocks of rock into carts and haul them up a hill.
When the juice is needed, roll them back down....
Just like stored hydro, but on rails

ARES North America '-' The Power of Gravity

[BobL]

Brief informative article here about ARES
Advanced Rail Energy Storage System | Old and New Technology

Summary of article;
Its not all sliced bread which is why this system hasn't really taken off.
All the current ARES projects are not touted as "storage", but like the BIG SA battery as "system regulators".

Article suggest the high up front cost is what's currently putting most investors off , US$55 mill for a 50MWh system
Compared to US$56 mill for the 100MWh battery in SA.

Of course the battery will eventually need to be replaced but that's too far ahead in time to concern most investors (they will have easily recovered the money by then) - these sorts of really long term investments will need to be done by governments.

ARES also apparently takes up considerable space, 70 hectares for a 12.5 MWhr system, compare that to a similar size battery.

Remember this is MWhrs, so you only get 12.5 MW for one hour - This issue has been pointed out several times by Bushmiller
Lets say you wanted some serious storage eg 1250 MW for 10 hours - that would be 1000x more space, so 70,000 Hectares!!, and at ~US$1 mill per MWh, and US$12,500 million!

In practice it is supposed to use relatively less space, and construction $, as it scales up in size.
Either way its still a lot of space and money so who is who's going to cough up?

[FenceFurniture]

Thanks Bob.

ARES also apparently takes up considerable space

So does Clive. (errr, that's billboard space...)

[BobL]

Thanks Bob.
So does Clive. (errr, that's billboard space...)

Space shouldn't be a problem in this country, but you can bet that someone will consider anything like that an eyesore.

[FenceFurniture]

Yeah. Billboards are a bit of an eyesore too.

[Bushmiller]

Thanks FF.

It is actually very important that we keep assessing these new ideas. It is a little like brainstorming where the vast majority of ideas are discarded: Something in the end gains traction. I was discussing such things with a work colleague, who was decrying hydrogen as a fuel source. His contention was that the technology for incorporation into transport was at least ten years away and consequently not viable. I am not too sure exactly where it is in a practical sense but need is a great incentive for development.

Two years ago any vaccine required six plus years to be granted approval! Hopefully accelerated programmes will result from increased awareness, although a government that is unreceptive to science is always going to be behind the eight ball.

Hydrogen is potentially one of the storage options providing it is generated by a renewable energy source (fossil fuel generated hydrogen is a nonsense of the first order) with batteries and pumped hydro being the other options. However, just as there is no source of electricity today without a fundamental flaw, there is no storage system, yet, without a flaw.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

I was discussing such things with a work colleague, who was decrying hydrogen as a fuel source. His contention was that the technology for incorporation into transport was at least ten years away and consequently not viable.

Hmm. I think your colleague's thinking is at odds with Toyota's. In 3 years, by 2025, they are planning on having 15 EVs to market,and they seem to think that hydrogen is the way to go. I don't know how many of those EVs are planned to be hydrogen.

Hydrogen is potentially one of the storage options providing it is generated by a renewable energy source (fossil fuel generated hydrogen is a nonsense of the first order) with batteries and pumped hydro being the other options. However, just as there is no source of electricity today without a fundamental flaw, there is no storage system, yet, without a flaw.

Yebbut no system will ever be flawless – for example, no matter how recyclable something is there is always some kind of loss, be it materiel, energy consumption, wages etc. I think we need to be a bit forgiving of the coming tech for a while to a) get it going and b) convince the recalcitrants that this stuff actually works, and that the economy won't implode – quite the opposite!

By that I mean if it takes using CF power to create hydrogen in the short term (a few years) to kick start H powered vehicles, then so be it. It can't be too much worse than petroleum for a while. To my mind that gets people into H2 EVs in the short term, and those same vehicles can still be used in the longer term when H2 can be more easily green power generated. Therefore we won't have wasted resources on producing a short term vehicle that has to be replaced when all the i and t have been crossed and dotted to satisfy the most ardent greenie. Resource waste is appalling in our current lifestyle – all to make bigger profits from a shorter planet life, for some idjiot that is going to die before the planet does (I'm still looking at you Clive ).

In short, we need to look at the overall picture, and how to get there in the quickest and least costly (in all senses) way. Even if that means peaking up emissions a wee bit before a much bigger and quicker fall than is currently predicted, I would be ok with that because the longer term goal is more quickly achieved (and we really do have to get our skates on). It would also address EV buyer hesitation and EV political BS ("he wants to steal your weekend").

Surely hydrogen EVs are the best longer term solution (on current developments). They would vastly reduce the amount of battery storage required (and batteries are nasty for a plethora of reasons – mining, processing, child exploitation in poor countries, disposal). H2 also gives the capacity for a much longer range than a purely battery EV – I don't fancy a trip across the Simpson desert with just batteries, and I need be able to tow me boat y'know. I know that's the exception, but you get my drift. When we no longer have vehicles that can have a few hundred litres of fuel in the trailer for the trip....there'll be no trips to those places.

[Chris Parks]

The problem with Hydrogen is it can't be used in mass production and even using a pair of binoculars it is not clear when it will be production ready.

This appeared today Coal-fired power in Australia could be over within 10 years concedes lobbyist Ian Macfarlane - ABC News

That is not a very long way off, maybe eight years away at the most but I have to ask what can be done in that time to replace the existing power generation that will be lost in that time span. It will take a damned big battery to power any capital city without interruption. The East coast has just had about a fortnight of reduced solar and I have the logs from my system to prove it and the question would have to be asked as to how things would have been without the existing coal fired generation.

[Beardy]

How can they make such a bold statement without following it up with an alternative?
I don’t doubt the transition will happen but what path are we heading down?

[woodPixel]

Well, on Hydrogen, I cant think of a more energy demanding process than making steel.

To that end, hydrogen powered steel making plants are a thing. They are real and exist already. It isn't a theory.

Here is one in Germany that has replaced coal - Steel breakthrough - thyssenkrupp makes steel using hydrogen - Australian Manufacturing Forum

and here is one in Sweden that is 100% Hydrogen - First in the world to heat steel using hydrogen - Ovako and https://www.rechargenews.com/transit...ion/2-1-799308



as for production - wind, solar, geo. Store it as CAES, H2, O2, battery, kinetic. It is no mystery. More. More. More.

Just as we built coal fired power plants to get where we are, its time to put in SUN powered.

IT IS ALREADY TO LATE TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE.

(I hear "CC is BS" - yeah, well, THIS is the third "1 in 500 year event" in 3 years.... --> Hannah Cabinet masterpiece among flood-damaged artworks in Lismore Regional Gallery - ABC News )

Its not even a choice. It must be done. Must.

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[woodPixel]

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I know I use comics a lot for serious subjects.

I personally think its way too late. I've been having a few chats with climatologists and their opinion is we have already passed the point of no return for us as a species. We cannot possibly reverse what we've done, only ameliorate the devastating outcomes.

Our core problem is the insanity of people hanging onto the past. Pretending that problems are too big to solve. Yeah, well, we were hit by Atomic-bomb level bushfires, COVID and now a 14.5 metre flood. Perth has had an endless set of 36-40° days and no rain for 2 1/2 months.

"New normal" is uninhabitable.

Take some time to watch this: 10 Inevitables: Post Doom, No Gloom (Appetizer) - YouTube