Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Warb]

What I think should happen and I know this is dreamland stuff is that there should be a community battery which relies on local solar and only buys from the grid as needed. The local solar generation is kept "in house" at an agreed price until it becomes necessary to buy from the grid. My town would be a prime example of where this sort of scheme would work. How pricing would work I would have no idea but I suspect a smart meter could be utilised.

Unfortunately, as I suggested in my earlier post about wind farms, the motivation for large scale solar, windfarms and almost every other "save the planet" scheme, is actually profit and has nothing to do with climate change, other than to gain support from eco warriors (who not infrequently have very little real knowledge and simply follow the hype), and financial incentives from the government. Domestic PV cuts into that profit, and so is the number 1 enemy for commercial generators. This is why they will never support such a scheme and will find all the reasons they can ("causes grid instability" etc.) to prevent it, unless of course it is owned and run by them. There was an effort a few years ago to impose extra charges on people who install rooftop solar, justified on the grounds that "such people still use the grid but don't contribute to it". In fact we contribute as much as everyone else, but that "poles and wires" daily charge doesn't benefit the energy retailers, so they see their profits threatened by rooftop PV.

We live in a world run and controlled by big business. If they ever tell you that something is good for you or the planet, it's almost certainly better for them!

[doug3030]

To make things worse, domestic panels tend to be fixed, rather than on frames that "follow the sun". This means that they are either stuck on the roof at whatever angle and direction that happens to be facing, or adjusted to give a "best average throughout the year" result. They then gather dust, and often their output decays far quicker than the manufacturers would like us to believe.

I have a fairly substantial 12 volt system in the back of the ute for camping, so this is not quite the same as a domestic system.

Reading Warb's post reminded me of some of the ways I manage the solar power we generate and preserve the battery power.

I have three x 120 amp hour AGM batteries and a solar panel array that attaches to my trailer, connected to the car by a solar panel extension lead. Adding up the wattage the solar panels were sold as, it comes to just over 1000 watts. I think in reality they woudl peak out at 700 watts on a good day.

The solar panels are mounted on the trailer with an adjustable bracket which I can adjust to maximise performance. I can tilt them up to nearly vertical to maximise the morning and evening sun, or lay them down at about 30 degrees for midday and anything in between in steps. Being mounted on the trailer I can also move the trailer through nominally 180 degrees to follow the sun from sunrise to sunset, while adjusting the angle accordingly.

I have a CTEK battery management system that directs the power to any appliances that are plugged in and any surplus goes into the batteries. If push comes to shove, I can run the ute engine for a while to charge the batteries from the alternator, not that this happens often with the size of the battery bank and solar panel array but it's nice to know it is there if needed.

We were camping at Easter this year for 24 days, in conditions where the sunlight was not all that reliable. During that time I was running an Engel 40 litre fridge and a 35 litre Kings Fridge as a freezer. THe power required to run a freezer is a lot more than running a similar sized fridge. There's a 2000 watt inverter in the back of the ute which we make use of for an electric kettle and a small oven, but only if we don't use gas or open fire. If the batteries are full in the evening and the chances of a sunny tomorrow are good we might just be lazy and use the electrical appliances.

I mentioned before about a freezer using a lot of power, so it's best for it to run through the day and not so much at night. The best way I have come up with to conserve power for nigh ttime is to run the freezer as cold as possible through the day so that at sunset, it should be at somewhere around -18 degrees. I normally have about six one-litre bottles full of salty water in the freezer as cooler bricks. In the late afternoon, when the indicator panel on the battery management system indicates that no more power is going into the batteries, I place two of the cooler bricks into the fridge and turn the freezer thermostat down to -8 degrees. Unless it is a very warm night it is rare after that for either the fridge or freezer to start up overnight. Even on a hot night, the freezer will maintain lower than -8 and the fridge will be below 1 degree. We run lights and a stereo off of the battery bank whenever we wish to, mostly in the evening.

Now of course, I don't always have to utilise all the ways I have available to maximise power usage. It is rare for me to adjust the angle on the solar panels through the day as the sun rises and sets. A nice average angle for the whole day is plenty most of the time, but the adjustment is there to be used when needed. Following the sun with the trailer is real easy and happens four to six times a day regardless. It's all about knowing the state of the batteries, the possible weather forecast and knowing when not to use big power consumers. I have a phone app that monitors the batteries and I don't even have to get out of bed to use it.

It's not uncommon for us to have about 20 of other people's mobile phones and tablets plugged into our charging ports through the middle of the day when we have plenty of power. I did enough rough camping when I was in the Army. Now I'm older I enjoy the luxuries I have worked for.

[Chris Parks]

I use a similar method to Doug to bank the surplus from our panels instead of exporting it and it seems to work. During the day I run the heating (heat pumps) no matter what the day temperature is and bring the house up to 24 degrees and by watching the data from the inverter generally manage to heat the house without drawing from the grid. After the panels start to lose output that heat now banked in the house structure keeps the need for heating to a minimum and about two hours before going to bed all the heating can be turned off and that works well.

This is the first year I have tried this because our winter power bills have been generally low and we get a huge discount from the invoiced figure but I could see the need to be more careful due to the increasing power costs. I have also changed my view of how to use the power from the panels and my aim is never to export power unless forced to for obvious reasons. I doubt many people are getting zero power bills these days due to the very low FIT and the export limits being imposed on PV panel owners. Houses that are not occupied because everyone is at work or school would require a somewhat different approach but it still could be done to some extent.

[FenceFurniture]

I hadn't looked in here for a couple of weeks, and there's been a flurry of activity!

A very interesting announcement from Toyota yesterday, re solid state batteries for cars, but no production for 3-4 years yet. Much more output, safer, and crazy short charging times.
Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars | Automotive industry | The Guardian

In 3-4 years I'd expect other significant developments in battery tech from other players.



There doesn't seem to have been any further movement in rolling out V2H in Australia that I can find. That will certainly improve Graeme's economics significantly, albeit at the cost of purchasing an EV.

[Mr Brush]

Probably nearer to happening, the addition of niobium to anode/cathode offers massive advantages without changing too much else in lithium-chemistry batteries:

Niobium in Batteries - Battery Design

These batteries are already being manufactured in prototype quantities, and (significantly) would require minimal changes to existing battery production lines. Just imagine the benefits to our very limited charging infrastructure if cars could charge from empty to full in <10 mins??

Niobium is fairly scarce (already widely used to make high strength, low weight steels), but there has recently been a promising new niobium deposit discovered in Australia - check the chart for WA1 on ASX. Yes, I bought quite a few WA1 a while ago at $1.50/share.....it's been very good to me !

[GraemeCook]

... There doesn't seem to have been any further movement in rolling out V2H in Australia that I can find. That will certainly improve Graeme's economics significantly, albeit at the cost of purchasing an EV.

Another way of stating that, FF.

According to Car Sales, a Tesla Model 3 has a 60 kWh battery capacity and a a drive away price of $62,505 - although I have seen prices as low as $57,400 advertised.

Tesla Powerwalls have an initial capacity of 13.1 kWh per unit and locally the installed cost is $13,000-13,500 for the first unit plus $9,500-10,000 for each additional unit. Five PW's would have a capacity of 65.5 kWH and would cost $51,000-53,500. (Sorry that I cannot be more precise with the costings.)

Thus the car would cost about $10,000 more than the batteries.

To this one would have to add the costs of a very smart energy management system.

[Bushmiller]

An article on the current retail prices (and by default the wholesale prices too):

Questions raised about 'overly generous' power price rises amid tumbling wholesale costs (msn.com)

I would have said it was a very reasonable report until I read this:

"Following the closure of Liddell, which had a notional capacity of about 2000MW, big energy users have raised concerns about the security of the system as more coal plants retire."

That statement makes me question whether their other information is correct. True, Liddell once had four units capable of 500MW each. When it closed down there were only three units running and they had been derated to 300MW. You don't have to be Einstein to work out that is only 900MW maximum and is probably why the closure did not have as much impact on the market as would be expected from the design rated capacity. Added to that, Liddell was a bit of a dog going back nearly forty plus years when I was briefly there and the reliability was an issue even back then. When it closed, it was over fifty years old coupled with a hard life and at times insufficiently maintained.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

Very interesting video on Nickel-Hydrogen batteries published by Matt Ferrell a couple of days ago. No good for small batteries, but excellent for scaled up storage where space is no real problem. Fifty year old tech too, so very well tried and tested, and with a huge temperature operational range. Safe too, apparently.

[GraemeCook]

... I would have said it was a very reasonable report until I read this:

I share your frustration with inumerate journalists, Paul. Journalism schools do not teach their students to count. It is a favourite topic of conversation amongst economists, often reduced to - "How do we dumb this down so the journos can understand it?"

But the main thrust of the article is still relevant.

The closure of Liddel has taken up to 900 MW from the network, but it is baseload supply which is particularly relevant when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. It is not a binary issue, it is simply reducing the available supply of a product with an inelastic demand and which will put substantial upward pressure on prices. This is Economics 101 stuff. Supply goes down, demand remains largely fixed, prices rise, costs remain fixed, profits soar. The next round of corporate reports will verify this.

This looks very much like a segment of a greater plan to manipulate prices under the guise of environmental responsibility and ecomomic competition. But competition in any oligopoly is illusionary. It is actually the ugly face of capitalism.

Déjà vu - California 2000 - all over again.

[GraemeCook]

... Very interesting video on Nickel-Hydrogen batteries published by Matt Ferrell ...

You have done it again, FF, quoting Matt Ferrell.

He is very entertaining, he finds some very interesting source information, but as soon as he starts talking my snake oil detector shrieks. But I still enjoyed the video.

[FenceFurniture]

... as soon as he starts talking my snake oil detector shrieks.

I haven't seen a whole bunch of his vids, but he seems pretty balanced, talking about pros and cons. Now if it was Elon Musk presenting, that would be somewhat different! (in snake oil credibility, leaving out Musks's absolute crap presentation, business, and humanity skills)

Perhaps any American accent these days makes us concerned?

That tech also has NASA credibility behind it, so apart from the fake moon landing , entirely believable.

[GraemeCook]

I haven't seen a whole bunch of his vids, but he seems pretty balanced, talking about pros and cons. ...

That tech also has NASA credibility behind it, ...

No arguements about that at all, FF. But NASA's concept of cost efficiency is a little different from mine and yours. Remember, they are the guys that spent $8 million 1960's dollars to develop a biro that worked in space. The Russians just used a pencil.

Matt seems to be mesmerised by the science of science - all good - but his grasp of economic reality and risk seems rather remote. That part of his presentations is in snake oil territory in my view.

But his stuff is very entertaining; jus google his name and you will get hundreds of hits.

[Warb]

...... but his grasp of economic reality and risk seems rather remote......

Companies developing such technologies are, I suspect, doing so on the basis that the demand side of "supply and demand" has been skewed by the climate debate to the extent that governments (and some companies) will these days ignore all logic and common sense, and pay outrageous sums simply to be able to say "we're doing something".

As the new worldwide religion, "climate action" can be used to justify anything. It doesn't matter whether it's a massively expensive battery, or the replacement of loss-making free "single use" plastic bags with profitable $0.50 "re-usable" ones (they're exactly the same, but you can tell they're reusable because they have it printed on them!), companies will do it, and profit from it, because the faithful will lap it up.

I wouldn't mind betting that governments the world over start ordering these batteries. They don't need to work, or even be delivered, because (I've watched too much Utopia!) the _announcement_ is everything!

[BobL]

Remember, they are the guys that spent $8 million 1960's dollars to develop a biro that worked in space. The Russians just used a pencil..

I have little regard for NASA efficiency but before this urban myth is further propagated maybe read this
Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil - Scientific American

In short, using pencils is dangerous in space so the Russian now use the same US$4 "Space pen" as developed by an American private company (not NASA).

[GraemeCook]

What now, Bob; that leftist rag the Scientific American is now peddling FAKE NEWS!

I much prefer my story, and if it is not true, then it should be.