Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Bushmiller]

Solar farms everywhere.... one drives from Canberra to Sydney (or Melbourne) and its 300km of NOTHING and 1100km of NOTHING. The farms look sad and lonely.

If only we put a few solar farms down. Put in 20 times the volume we have. Put wind where we can...

It would drive that coal-usage number right down.

WP

Over the last few days additional solar farms would have made no difference at all. The cloud cover blanketing much of Eastern Australia just goes to show that we are no where close to going green with any degree of security. Until the government of the day wakes up and starts to develop storage facilities, whatever they may be, there is absolutely no point in dramatically increasing solar generation. If that were to happen, it would place greater financial pressure on the thermal stations and they would be forced out of business: Good we might say, but for three quarters of the day we would have no electricity to speak of. Over the last week we would have had no power for most of the day.

One aspect I have to emphasise is that you can't have nearly enough power. As soon as the frequency can no longer be maintained at 50Hz, and that margin is very narrow, AEMO have to load shed or risk the system collapsing. Have a look at the charts posted on this page, deduct the coal percentages (about 70%) and then we know how many of us would be without power.

I would love there to be more solar, but it must not happen before they sort out how they are going to store it. As you have said so many times, the government is dragging the chain and even if there is a change of government, I am not that hopeful there will be much difference.

I saw an interesting article by Alan Kohler, who I normally regard well, but I think he missed the point this time:

Alan Kohler: The next government must be honest about the end of coal (thenewdaily.com.au)

He, too, think we don't have enough solar and adds that the coal plants are failing (an element of truth because they are ageing). However he missed the fact that more solar without storage will exacerbate the problem. I do agree with the headline that "We must be honest about coal."

Regards
Paul

[GraemeCook]

I'm disappointed with the lack of solar and wind generation in those charts above.

Obviously nobody is going to invest in a turbine if the price doesn't support it, but that may be because the price hasn't priced in the future. ...

Commercial wind and solar are included in the charts. Remember, it relates to the wholesale market for electricity. I think that this means the high voltage grid.

Roof top solar are excluded. Essentially they are reatil transactions.

Home generation of wind electricity is neglible and likely to stay that way. Noise polution is a major issue.

But you will like this. Over the past twelves months the wholesale sources of electricity for South Australia have been:

• 55% - Wind
• 6% - Solar
• 1% - Batteries
• 38% - Gas

(SOURCE: https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/e...-dashboard-nem)

[GraemeCook]

Graeme
As I understand the chart, the Solar values you have highlighted represent the state of play between 3 and 4 AM on 13 May. ...

OOPS! Thanks, I mis-read the chart.

[NeilS]

Probably not in my lifetime...

Australian researchers show solar power can be generated at night - ABC News

The published techo details, if your so inclined...

Just a moment...

Given the very long timeline for the development of the solar cells that are now ubiquitous in solar panels, it could be a long time coming, if ever, and very unlikely to contribute to a 2050 target.

Timeline of solar cells - Wikipedia

[GraemeCook]

Probably not in my lifetime...

Australian researchers show solar power can be generated at night - ABC News
...

Exciting, but it could be a long research road. So far they have achieved "proof of concept" only; they have an electricity conversion of 1/100,000th that achievable in daylight hours.

They seem to have done this by extending the solar capture into the infrared zone. This might also mean increased efficiency during daylight hours.

[woodPixel]

here is another tech that will be useful: High Hopes claims stratospheric breakthrough in direct air CO2 capture

These things can remove a ton a day of CO2 at USD$50 a ton.

Nice! Good article too.

[ian]

here is another tech that will be useful: High Hopes claims stratospheric breakthrough in direct air CO2 capture

These things can remove a ton a day of CO2 at USD$50 a ton.

Good to know

we'll only need around 200 MILLION of them (operating cost USD $15 Billion, pa) to "clean up" the CO2 emissions from 2021 alone.


me thinks, very much speculation at this stage.

[ian]

One aspect I have to emphasise is that you can't have nearly enough power. As soon as the frequency can no longer be maintained at 50Hz, and that margin is very narrow, AEMO have to load shed or risk the system collapsing. Have a look at the charts posted on this page, deduct the coal percentages (about 70%) and then we know how many of us would be without power.

Paul,
Don't forget that natural gas is also a fossil fuel.

the number of us [in NSW] without any power would have been around 90% for at least some period over the past 48 hours. In round numbers that's 9 out of 10 households or 7.5 million people.

For Queensland it's worse, around 11 out of 12 households.
and in Victoria it would have been 19 out of 20 households.

The real truth is that if we, as a nation, are to attempt to meet net zero (CO2 emissions) by 2050 our policy makers have to tell us the real, unpalatable truth -- the transition will cost the nation more than a s**t load of money -- perhaps more than three times as much as was borrowed during Covid.


Not to mention the environmental costs (visual, low frequency noise, land clearing, bird strikes, etc.) of expanding wind generation by perhaps 300 times -- that's 30,000% more wind than is currently installed.
Currently, if wind turbines are not located close to existing transmission lines, the cost of installing the necessary infrastructure makes the project non-viable.

[ian]

Probably not in my lifetime...

Australian researchers show solar power can be generated at night - ABC News

The published techo details, if your so inclined...

Just a moment...

Given the very long timeline for the development of the solar cells that are now ubiquitous in solar panels, it could be a long time coming, if ever, and very unlikely to contribute to a 2050 target.

Exciting, but it could be a long research road. So far they have achieved "proof of concept" only; they have an electricity conversion of 1/100,000th that achievable in daylight hours.

They seem to have done this by extending the solar capture into the infrared zone. This might also mean increased efficiency during daylight hours.

Funny this

The CBC's science show Quirks & Quarks -- equivalent to the ABC's Science Show -- did a segment on this only a week or so ago.

The key take-outs are that a team from MIT has developed an infra-red energy converter -- a sort of solar cell if you will -- that works in the infra-red area of the spectrum, converting heat directly to electricity.
If I have the numbers right, the IR cell's efficiency is about 40% -- about 2x that of a typical solar cell.

The solution appears to be scalable -- the researchers used graphite (carbon) blocks as their heat battery.

If I have managed to copy and paste the link ...

New heat-to-electricity device could make large thermal batteries a reality
Energy storage is viewed as a key technology to enable full deployment of renewable but intermittent energy sources like wind and solar. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led by Dr. Asegun Henry has developed a new thermo-electric device that would allow efficient extraction of energy stored as heat. This could enable large-scale and cost-effective thermal battery systems to work with renewable power. The research is published in Nature.



The link to the audio should be here https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/may-7-endangered-tiny-porpoise-mars-quakes-thermal-batteries-and-more-1.6443011

[Bushmiller]

Paul,
Don't forget that natural gas is also a fossil fuel.

the number of us [in NSW] without any power would have been around 90% for at least some period over the past 48 hours. In round numbers that's 9 out of 10 households or 7.5 million people.

For Queensland it's worse, around 11 out of 12 households.
and in Victoria it would have been 19 out of 20 households.

The real truth is that if we, as a nation, are to attempt to meet net zero (CO2 emissions) by 2050 our policy makers have to tell us the real, unpalatable truth -- the transition will cost the nation more than a s**t load of money -- perhaps more than three times as much as was borrowed during Covid.


Not to mention the environmental costs (visual, low frequency noise, land clearing, bird strikes, etc.) of expanding wind generation by perhaps 300 times -- that's 30,000% more wind than is currently installed.
Currently, if wind turbines are not located close to existing transmission lines, the cost of installing the necessary infrastructure makes the project non-viable.

Ian

When I said "coal", I should have said "fossil fuel" as I added both types together to achieve 70%.

I have not done any calculations as to how expensive a transition might be, but certainly not cheap, and the even more of a problem is who is going to put their hand up to do the R & D?

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

Energy storage is viewed as a key technology to enable full deployment of renewable but intermittent energy sources like wind and solar.

Ian

We need to hold that thought for a moment.

"Energy storage is viewed as a key technology to enable full deployment of renewable but intermittent energy sources like wind and solar."

I think the simple fact is that emission reductions are all but impossible without energy storage (with the exception of the nukes, but as there are so many associated issues with that technology, we may leave that alone for the moment). Until significant effort is thrown at storage we are just going to dance around in circles and the unconscionable "right" are going to keep paying it off.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

here is another tech that will be useful: High Hopes claims stratospheric breakthrough in direct air CO2 capture

These things can remove a ton a day of CO2 at USD$50 a ton.

Nice! Good article too.

WP

I have quoted before in this thread one of the ways of ranking the CO2 emissions of any fuel used in power stations is a measure called the "carbon intensity." The gas stations are rated from a low of .6 to .8 while the coal fired plants are in the range of .8 to 1.3. In simple terms these figuresare the weight in tonnes for every MW produced each and every hour! Any station older than twenty five years is going to be greater than 1. Any station forty years old will bw towards the top end. The now defunct Hazelwood was a diabolical 1.6! The other brown coal stations are...I don't know, but think high.Again I have not done any calculations, but that is an awful lot these plants that would be required and the $50/tonne is only when scaled up. I also don't know if it included compression transportation and storage. However, I am being a little negative here because out of research something viable will develop.

Regards
Paul

[woodPixel]

Saline Water-Based Mineralization Pathway for Gigatonne-Scale CO2 Management

Another one for the cynics here! Ill convert you grumpy curmudgeons yet!

This one reacts the huge quanta of CO2 in water (rather than the 400ppm in air) into various Interesting Minerals.

Water has 50x more CO2 in it than air. This method can process 10Gt per year of the whopping 37Gt we emit (!!!!)

An interesting read.

a thought - IF there were a price on CO2 emission these types of projects would be worth a fortune.

sc0c08561_0014.jpg

[Bushmiller]

Another one for the cynics here! Ill convert you grumpy curmudgeons yet!

Water covers something like 73% of the planet and perhaps insufficient attention is given to marine based solutions. A brief glance at the article highlights one aspect is the integrity of the storage, which is under pressure. That would require constant monitoring

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

a thought - IF there were a price on CO2 emission these types of projects would be worth a fortune.

sc0c08561_0014.jpg

I believe that was the essence of the much maligned carbon tax as the incentive would have been there to develop solutions.

Regards
Paul