Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[GraemeCook]

... Our peak rate has just gone from 40.3c to 55.99c, which is a 39% increase. ...

Just got the latest power bill. Our all inclusive rate (Tariff 31) has just gone from 27.6310c to 29.9470 cents per kWh - an increase of 8.4%. Feed in rate is 10.869c kWh.

But they did increase the daily service fee from 98.9320 cents to $1.137720 per day - a 15% increase.

Yes, they do quote all those decimal numbers.

[GraemeCook]

[QUOTEwoodPixel] ... These big kahunas have blades that are 123 metres each.... and generate 16-megawatts

Nice!

Imagine having a few thousand of these pumping power 24x7 ... [/QUOTE]

WOW, those numbers are impressive, Evan.

Here is a chance for Albo to lead from the front. If he is smart then he could give the contract to a coallition contributor. Wonder how many of them would fit in the ACT?

We could start with one on the flag pole at Parliament House. But should it be orientated to catch the breeze or the hot air?

[Warb]

Just got the latest power bill. Our all inclusive rate (Tariff 31) has just gone from 27.6310c to 29.9470 cents per kWh - an increase of 8.4%. Feed in rate is 10.869c kWh.

But they did increase the daily service fee from 98.9320 cents to $1.137720 per day - a 15% increase.

Yes, they do quote all those decimal numbers.

Tasmania. Your single rate is lower than our off-peak, and so is your daily charge. And what a nice place to live...... But cold!

[GraemeCook]

Tasmania. Your single rate is lower than our off-peak, and so is your daily charge. And what a nice place to live...... But cold!

No; we can afford to turn the heat pump on.

[Warb]

No; we can afford to turn the heat pump on.

If you really want to taunt us, tell us you heat your house by burning Huon Pine.........

[ajw]

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

[Warb]

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

When we bought our new property, it had an old PV installation on the house roof, with an equally old "dumb" 4kW inverter. I built a new workshop, then installed 20kW of PV (2 inverters) on the new workshop, and replaced the inverter (keeping the old panels) that was on the house. On my previous farm I had used SMA inverters, but over the years I noticed that each time I installed a new system (we converted all the irrigation pumps etc. to grid-interactive PV, and put solar on several buildings) the new SMA inverters seemed more troublesome, had issues and generally didn't seem as bomb-proof as the earlier ones. Their support also fell apart, the last inverter we installed there was a 3phase 20kW unit that died after a week or so, took ages to replace under warranty, the replacement was clearly a repaired unit and (although we never found any limit in the settings) would peak at 18kW output - the monitoring showed a flat topped output graph, the output "stuck" at exactly 18kW for 6 or more hours in the middle of the day. SMA didn't care! I also looked at replacing my "home built" backup power system and discovered that SMA were unable to help as they were changing their range and could give me no idea when their new solution might be available. And then there was the "SolarCoin" debacle, don't get me started!

So, being disillusioned with SMA, I went with SolarEdge for the system at the new property. There were a couple of minor issues during the installation, mostly down to comms between the inverters, but it seems to be working fine now. The initial install had a single 10kW SolarEdge battery, but we have realised that 10kW isn't enough to isolate us from the grid. At present (winter, PV is gone by 5.30pm), if we heat the water through the day and use no power for heating or cooking, the battery is at 4% (plus 10% reserved for backup, see below) in the morning - not enough to start the coffee machine without importing from the grid. As we are just about to replace our cooktop with an induction unit, the single battery isn't enough.

I suspect that during the summer, the single battery would be OK if no air-con was used at night, but I'm setting this place up for my retirement so I'm trying to get it right now and have minimum maintenance (and bills) later.

The SolarEdge system seems OK. It auto-switches to battery backup mode in the event of a grid failure, and that backup will auto-restart from PV in the morning if the battery runs out at night, which pretty much gives us an ad hoc off-grid system. The amount of battery reserved for backup (i.e. not normally discharged) can be set by the user, and it can also take a generator input if required. SolarEdge also supply load control units, that are programmed from a web interface but driven from the inverters (so work even if the internet is unavailable) that allow loads like water heating, underfloor heating etc. to be switched using both a timer control and "excess solar" - the advantage over a time clock being that on a cloudy day the load doesn't burn grid power at midday, but heats on the normal cheap rate overnight power.

The one problem that I have so far found is that their monitoring system doesn't, bizarrely, allow the setting of a FiT. This means their revenue calculations are incorrect, and worse they can't/won't tell me whether exported power is discarded by their calculations or priced 1:1 with imported power. This seems a fairly significant omission/error for a PV company, but perhaps the rest of the world doesn't have FiT's the same way that we do?

I don't know if the SolarEdge battery can be used standalone, like a Tesla Powerwall, and I'm guessing probably not because it is DC coupled rather than AC. But so far (early days) I'm quite impressed with SolarEdge.

I have no affiliation with SolarEdge, this is simply my experience of owning a SolarEdge system (for 2 weeks!).

[GraemeCook]

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

Powerwall Costs.jpg

[Warb]

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I suspect(ed) that the batteries will never pay off their financial investment. However.....

When I did my rough calculations, I recall allowing for a sensible increase in the cost of grid power. At no point did I allow for the 50% price increases that I've just experienced. Such price hikes, if they are a sign of things to come, may significantly change the equation. Averaging the choices on the government "Energy Made Easy" website suggests that current power offerings would cost a house of 4 to 5 people (with electric heating, electric water heating) around $6170k/year in electricity. That's a lot of coin and looks likely to increase into the future.

Grid stability in my area has been OK at best. In the 6 months that I've lived here we've had maybe 5 outages, from minutes to several hours each. Given the transition from fossil fuel to renewables and given that the grid doesn't as yet seem to have been prepared for this, will this instability get worse? Who knows, but my panels and batteries isolate me from this, at least to some degree.

I'm retired. At present I have the cash to allow me to buy PV and batteries. In the future, given a stock market crash or a few months/years of low returns from investments, I may not only struggle to buy panels, but I may struggle to pay the power bill. My PV and battery investments, to some degree, isolates me from this too.

The price of PV and batteries seems to be increasing. The research that I did on batteries suggests that the quoted installed price today is higher than that quoted (internet references only!) a couple of years ago. Batteries are expensive, and the components to make them are shipped several times around the planet before they end up here. As transport and raw material costs increase, they seem likely to get more expensive. Today I can afford them, but if I wait....?

Having said all that, an acquaintance has just this afternoon told me that after the AI and UFO hearings in the US at present, the entire world will be shaken up and unrecognizable, so who knows? (I'm guessing he doesn't!)

[GraemeCook]

The only thing that we can say for certain about the future, Warb, is that it will be different from what we predict.

All the industry promotional stuff that I have seen on batteries has been filtered through extremely rosy glasses. Media "analyses" tend to be done by innumerate journalists - little more than rewriting PR hype. You have to do a thorough cost:benefit analysis of you own situation. In my view you cannot rely on any advice from the industry:

• Zealots have very rosy glasses, and
• Snake oil salesmen are snake oil salesmen.

In my view, the current exhorbitant electricity prices are artificial should be regarded as a temporary aberration. Remember that most electricity is still generated from fosil fuels.

The market prices of thermal coal spiked during the lockdown, but has been in decline and has dropped by 68% in the past 10 months.

Coal Prices - 1 year.jpg

The wholesale price of electricity as reported by the Australian Energy regulator has also been declining; the contract price declined by about 60% over the same time frame.

Electricity Contract Prices.jpg

The wholesale spot prices for electricity, although much more volatile, have also declined in the same period as reported by the AER.

Electricity Spot Prices.jpg

So we have a situation where coal prices have declined substantially, wholesale electricity prices have declined substantially, yet the retail price has risen drammatically - about 50% in your case, less in mine.

Why?

The only logical explanation is market exploitation. Because they can.

[Bushmiller]

Graeme

Thank you for all the charts and the comment. I think it is fair to say that the market is still extremely volatile and we see wide ranges on the spot market. I have started to keep our daily reports and these are a couple to highlight the volatility. Note that the prices are only for QLD, although demands are across the three largest states (apologies to South Australians and Tasmanians that you don't get a mention).

Spot market 31 July 23 (2).png

Every day (during the day) we see negative prices at some point and this is during winter, which is the second highest seasonal demand. It has been mild and the demand is quite low across the NEW. That -$44 to -$55 equates to 4c/5c per KW/hr. Quite a lot more than Warbs 1.5c in that 10am to 3pm period. It can go lower. However, it is capped at -$1000 (roughly. I can't remember the exact figure.) I am guessing the average householder would be spewing if he had to cough up $13 per hour for his 13Kws supplied to the grid! If we wish to be a supplier, we may have to play by the big boys' rules . Of course, I can hear Warbs explaining that he only gets a fixed rate of.... can't remember... 6c-8c (not as much as the 10c you get in Tassie) but he can't deliver much in the way of power when the grid really needs it. That time is from about 0630 until 0830 and then again in the evening from 1630 to say 2030 at night. Then prices remain high during the night, although not elevated as they are during the peaks.

The average prices for the moment are quite low and I had to go back a month to see a significant spike. 19 June 2023. It hit voll, (Value of Lost Load) which is the highest it can be. It quite likely lasted for only a single five-minute segment, although I am only guessing that judging by the average price. It still only resulted in an average of $195 or 19.5c /Kwhr. The NEM load demand for 19 and 20 June was well up. It looks like on the next day the market was better prepared and despite a higher generation the ludicrous maximum price did not eventuate, although I expect the traders of the various companies had their tongues dragging on the floor hoping for a windfall. Supply and demand economics, which I don't think I have to explain to someone like yourself.

I think it is true to say that all generators make hay while, ironically, the sun doesn't shine, because, during the day they have to pay to stay online. Ideally, they would shut down, pack up their toys and go home, but for even the fastest ramping generators this is enormously expensive. The generator just has to reduce load as far as practical and wear the penalty.

Spot market 21 June 24.png

Tasmania, as we have observed in past posts, is something of an anomaly. They are the only state where the power is government owned and they are consistently less expensive than any of the other states. It looks as though that is at least partially passed on to the consumer judging by your costs. A good reason why none of the states should have sold off their electricity utilities, but don't get me going on that one.

Just on your coal chart in the previous post, I think that relates to export coal and may not have too much bearing on the rubbish that we burn in power stations.

Regards
Paul

[ian]

Just on your coal chart in the previous post, I think that relates to export coal and may not have too much bearing on the rubbish that we burn in power stations.

Paul,
as I understand the THERMAL coal market, the export price (per tonne) for exported thermal coal is discounted by a fixed percentage to obtain the price for the "rubbish" ground up and spat into your power station.
If I have my facts straight, the discount is based on the percentage of burnable carbon in the coal, though the discount may be based on the percentage of "ash" in the coal -- a higher ash content leads to a greater discount on the export price. The fact that only Australian generators are willing to use the crap is irrelevant.

Oh, the joys of the free market -- if no one but Aussies is prepared to buy the coal, the miner's marketeers can still charge a percentage of the current international spot price to supply the rubbish coal.

[ian]

I'm not sure how many remember the ACT's late 2000s ledge to go 100% renewable with their electricity supply.

The ACT's early contracts for places like the Royalla Solar Farm were written at prices in excess of 180 cents/kWh, with later projects written at prices of around 150 to 160 cents/kWh.


Paul may have a better handle on current solar contract pricing, but solar electricity is capital intensive and the investors will be looking for something like a 15% return on their investment.

[ajw]

Home battery prices are very expensive, and I can’t make an economic argument for them in my case. My PV panels plus infeed tariff mean I have virtually zero bill in summer. Still waiting for our winter bill, but my guess is that it might get to $300. Prices per kWh would have to climb to unimaginable levels before a battery would pay for itself. Yet I still find myself looking at them, and wondering if I could get to zero power cost.

cheers,

ajw

[Bushmiller]

Paul may have a better handle on current solar contract pricing, but solar electricity is capital intensive and the investors will be looking for something like a 15% return on their investment.

Ian

I can't really help there. Solar contracts are a mystery to me so much so that during a visit to the Brisbane head Office I asked the traders how it was done. I have to say that the reply did not really answer my question. However, it appears that the solar farms don't negotiate the contracts themselves, but other generators negotiate on their behalf and possibly incorporate it into their contracts. I had wondered how a contract could be issued for 0700hrs to 1900hrs.

On the cost of Power Station coal I don't know what is paid in general as that would be confidential information. As to the Millmerran station, I certainly can't divulge the cost other than to say it is dirt cheap, mainly because it is very close to dirt! In fact, if it didn't produce Carbon Dioxide I would suggest it is a stretch to call it coal. It is also cheap because it is our coal mine and we are the only ones that use it. I don't believe any percentages come into the equation.

Regards
Paul