Future of the Australian Electricity Market

**Bushmiller** · 22nd March 2022, 10:06 AM

Never heard of Duck Reach Power Station? Well, this is a little off beat but as we have talked extensively about the methods of storing electricity using other energy sources I thought this might provide a little amusement and some insight.

I think of hydro electric schemes as very fifties, but on a recent visit to Tasmania I came across this station at Launceston and it brought home to me how wrong I was on that score. By the way it is pronounced "Lonceston."

(Not a great revelation for Tasmanians)

Duck Reach power station is situated at cataract gorge and was commissioned in December 1895. It originally just supplied street lighting in Launceston. It was later enlarged to 2MW! It was destroyed in an extreme flood event in 1929 and rebuilt in 1932. It was closed down in 1956.

This is all that remains today:

IMG_6300.jpg IMG_6320 (2).jpg IMG_6316 (2).jpg IMG_6310.jpg IMG_6315.jpg

The turbines in their heyday:

IMG_6313 (2).jpg

After the 1929 flood

IMG_6309 (2).jpg

Some technical information describing the tunnelling through 860 meters of rock, which was and maybe still is, considered an engineering feat.

IMG_6322 (2).jpg IMG_6323 (2).jpg

Perhaps they shut it down prematurely

.

Regards
Paul

**BobL** · 22nd March 2022, 11:13 AM

There was a small Hydro power station just south of Pemberton setup in the 1930's which made it the first and only town to be powered by hydro in WA.
I'm pretty sure it only ran 48V system and was primarily used for lighting.
In 1954 the town was finally collected to the south west power grid
I remember playing around in some of the disused houses at the end of our street that had the cloth covered wiring hanging out of the damaged ceilings which were installed as part of the system.
The old dam has been upgraded and now provides water for the town.

**AlexS** · 22nd March 2022, 04:12 PM

Paronella Park in Qld had the first hydro scheme in that state, just to supply power to the (rather large) house. Just checked, it's been restored and is in use again.

Paronella Park Hydro scheme

When I worked in Bougainville, I was asked by one of the Bougainvilleans I worked with whether a small hydro scheme would be suitable for his village. We looked at what the demand would be - electric refrigerators were the main thing they wanted, replacement of current small generator capacity plus a few other essentials. A scheme that would supply these was feasible. Then we (he and I) looked at what other things people would buy as soon as they had power available. The capacity of the river to meet this new demand would soon be exceeded.
I understand that there are now several small hydro schemes running to villages, cobbled together from equipment from the mine etc.

**GraemeCook** · 22nd March 2022, 04:40 PM

Just revisited the costs of installing solar in Hobart. Like many, I use most electricity in the evening when the sun ain't shining.

Current cost of electricity = ~25 cents/kwh,
Current feed-in tariff = ~6.5 cents/kwh.

Conclusion: Currently cheaper to buy from Aurora than to install solar. Its all hydro power so no moral imperative.

Future: I looked at trends in the wholesale price of electricity.

Wholesale Electricity Prices - Tasmania - 2.jpg

The retail feed-in tariff has been significantly above the avaerage wholesale price for the last three years. This should place further downward pressure on the feed-in tariff. Why would Aurora want to pay 6.5 cents to someone with a solar system when the can buy the same kwh of electricity wholesale for 2.8 cents?

Solar panel prices are still trending downward.
Feed-in tariffs are trending downward and are likely to continue.

Conclusion: Watch and wait.

**Chris Parks** · 22nd March 2022, 05:46 PM

It seems that every small town on a river in the US had a small dam or multiple dams for hydro electric purposes and saw milling and they are now being removed for environmental reasons, mostly to try and increase fish stocks. Most of these dams go back to the late 19th century, early 20th century but some as late as the mid 20th century. YT has a lot of video of dam removal as well.

dam removal projects 2021 - Google Search

**Bushmiller** · 22nd March 2022, 07:38 PM

This brings me back to my chorus that every power supply has a flaw. Hydro's weak point is the effect on the rivers downstream.

Regards
Paul

**woodPixel** · 22nd March 2022, 08:13 PM

Here is something to chew on!

Could super-sized heat pumps make gas boilers extinct? - BBC News

Holes in the ground for heat.

Since Oz is good at digging holes (we seem to specialise in it) then this would be of interest to our political overlords.... just tell them there is oil, coal or gold down there

Ooops, only heat? Whoops

(title flogged from the lyrics of Blue Sky Mine)

**BobL** · 23rd March 2022, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Here is something to chew on!

Could super-sized heat pumps make gas boilers extinct? - BBC News

Holes in the ground for heat.

FWIW that form of heat like all geothermal heat is originally nuclear.
Natural Radioactive decay of certain elements with long half lives.

It's interesting to hear how 15ºC in the UK is considered warm. I know a chap who lives on acreage just out of the city who uses the coolth in groundwater to cool his house in summer. I forget the temp of the groundwater but its warmer than 15ºC. He has a copper pipe heat exchanger under the ground water and uses a solar powered pump to bring a loop of water inside the heat exchanger up to his house where he has another heat exchanger and solar powered fan to dump cool air into his house.

**havabeer69** · 23rd March 2022, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Here is something to chew on!

Could super-sized heat pumps make gas boilers extinct? - BBC News

Holes in the ground for heat.

Since Oz is good at digging holes (we seem to specialise in it) then this would be of interest to our political overlords.... just tell them there is oil, coal or gold down there

Ooops, only heat? Whoops

(title flogged from the lyrics of Blue Sky Mine)

midnight actually filmed one of their videos with a central coast power station in the back ground (i think there's a few other stations in there for "location shots":

**GraemeCook** · 23rd March 2022, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by BobL

FWIW that form of heat like all geothermal heat is originally nuclear.
Natural Radioactive decay of certain elements with long half lives. ...

Some 20+ years ago, when most heat pumps only worked efficiently when the ambient temperature was above 5°C, I looked seriously at installing a geotherman heat pump to heat the house and hot water. With the then level of technology they were about 1 - 1.5 COP units more efficient than other heat pumps (COP of 5 vs 3 to 3.5).

At ten metres below the surface in Hobart, the ambient temperature is 15°C winter and summer - it is the average annual temperature for the area, according to BOM. Near the surface the temperature fluctuates with the seasons, but by 10 metres it is stable.

The proposal was to drill one or more holes with total length of 150 metres, insert closed heat exchanger pipes, and bliss!

The heat pump, heat exchanger and installation would have cost around $10,000 then. But our house is built on dolerite and the drilling cost was quoted at $30,000 or so. Ouch!

It was very efficient using engineering or scientific criteria; definitely not so using financial criteria.

**woodPixel** · 23rd March 2022, 01:01 PM

Its vaguely tangential to the discussion, but I felt it was worthy.

In Canberra (here!) it often gets blistering (35 but sometimes >40°) and freezing (~-5° to -10).

While these are bragging extremes, they do occur every year. Most of the time it is fairly pleasant (Id guess 25 to 27, with 15 nights).

Heat pumps make a LOT of sense.

About 10 years back I was yarning with a fencing guy (who was, unsurprisingly, putting up a fence) and I noted the size of all the yards combined was HUGE. I enquired why all four houses, in the conjoining corner, wouldn't drill a deep hole for a heat pump and "pipe" the air to each home, somewhat independently.

Sharing would reduce the capital cost.

Air coming out would be 15° and this could fill the houses in summer and take the chill out in winter. As BobL has pointed out a million times, the cost of running a motor for air movement is trivial.

15 in summer would be BLISS... 15 in dead winter means the heater doesn't need to be on.

The cost savings over 4 houses would be HUGE.

I'm now in new units. Every one of them has an reverse-cycle aircon .... some people run them continuously. Its annoying AF.

What a TRAGIC lost opportunity to pump ground heat into 100 units. The cost savings would be HUGE.

**BobL** · 23rd March 2022, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Its vaguely tangential to the discussion, but I felt it was worthy.

In Canberra (here!) it often gets blistering (35 but sometimes >40°) and freezing (~-5° to -10).

While these are bragging extremes, they do occur every year. Most of the time it is fairly pleasant (Id guess 25 to 27, with 15 nights).

Heat pumps make a LOT of sense.

About 10 years back I was yarning with a fencing guy (who was, unsurprisingly, putting up a fence) and I noted the size of all the yards combined was HUGE. I enquired why all four houses, in the conjoining corner, wouldn't drill a deep hole for a heat pump and "pipe" the air to each home, somewhat independently.

Sharing would reduce the capital cost.

Air coming out would be 15° and this could fill the houses in summer and take the chill out in winter. As BobL has pointed out a million times, the cost of running a motor for air movement is trivial..

Its not just an air fan - you do need a water pump as well, but still cheaper than running a compressor pump.

I know of another interesting system that does not even use an underground heat exchanger and that is the Gravity Observatory at a place north of Perth called Ginginr.
The Gravity Discovery Centre - Gingin & Perth
The entire air conditioning system for the visitor centre and the observatories (including a very large lab with the gravity laser interferometer arms that has to run at extremely even temperature) are run using groundwater of which there is heaps.

The cool underground water is drawn by a pump up to ground level and put through a heat exchanger and then just let drain out onto the very sandy soil outside the observatory where it quickly trickles back under ground. Its not something that can be done is a suburban setting but anyone on acreage can probably do this.
The savings especially in summer are quite significant