Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Bushmiller]

Ian

Thanks for the additional information on the company make up. The whole thing sounds a little airy fairy to me, but I am trying to keep an open mind.

The time differential could be an issue, but I think their idea is to have significant battery storage so they could buy cheaply when solar supply was plentiful or, in the case of their own arrays, use their supply to charge up their batteries when there is nowhere for the power to go.

I am afraid that if Australia is at the high end of the wage spectrum, Norway is king, emperor and despot all rolled into one. Son lives in Norway and commented how cheap common items were in Australia compared to where he lives. Actually, he lives in a spot (Tromso) that amazingly is more expensive than Oslo, but overall Norway is not cheap.

Regards
Paul

[ian]

A bit more info on SunCable

Image sourced from SunCable in January 2023


I think GWp stands for peak GW.


Image sourced from SunCable November 2023 website


Note the lesser detail re battery storage in the later project image.


but the company's website speaks in terms of "delivering 1.75GW of 24/7 renewable electricity to Singapore".
If I can do the sums properly, 1.75GW, 24/7 would translate to around 5 to 6GW of generation in the NT.

SunCable also talks about delivering "up to 4GW of 24/7 renewable electricity" to Darwin -- again this would translate to around 12GW of generation 800km south of Darwin.

All up a solar array generating up to 18GW. I'm not sure how much area that size of generation would cover.

[ian]

oh, and the proposed SunCable battery (at around 40GWh) seems rather small, around half the size of SA's "big battery"

[NeilS]

Cannon-Brooks acquired the company's shell and his stated aim is to continue with the Singapore undersea DC link. I'm not sure of the viability of the overall project as the NT is about an hour ahead of Singapore, and presumably the peak Singapore electricity demand will be after the sun has set in the NT. To my mind a 20GW solar farm in India would make more sense in terms of supplying electricity after the sun sets in the NT than a 20GW one in the NT that will "shut down" before the demand peak in Singapore.

If it would be more viable to green power Singapore from India because of the peak time usage offset it would do the same for a WA to eastern Australia interconnector. The longitude difference is about the same.

Not sure of the relative cost of undersea cable costs compared to overland, but expect it is a lot less. Part of an east -west link could be undersea across the Bight and pick up some wind generation along the way. Couldn't cost any more than Snowy 2.0!

[Bushmiller]

Fatal flaws plague every form of power generation that currently exists. Unfortunately.

Nuclear power is no exception to that and in fact it has more than most. The first hurdle is initial cost. Much hyperbole has been spruicked over Small Modular Reactors despite none having been built so far. It is all pie in the sky. I have to agree that if the fatal flaws associated with nukes could be resolved, they would be a wonderful solution. However, for the moment it appears such a reality is unlikely.

The example of a SMR that the Coalition has been referencing has been cancelled due to rising costs:

Small modular nuclear reactor that was hailed by Coalition as future cancelled due to rising costs (msn.com)

This is the company behind the project and it seems that, while the Idaho project has been ditched, they still hope to work something out in other regions. Not a good or encouraging look for the moment:

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Agree to Terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) | NuScale Power

Regards
Paul

[Mr Brush]

Not at all surprising. Dutton never lets facts get in the way of playing politics. Meanewhile, in the earth's atmosphere.......

[ian]

Not sure of the relative cost of undersea cable costs compared to overland, but expect it is a lot less. Part of an east -west link could be undersea across the Bight and pick up some wind generation along the way. Couldn't cost any more than Snowy 2.0!

Elsewhere in this thread I've suggested -- only slightly tonge-in-cheek -- that Snowy 2.0 should really be referred to as Snowy 20 (Billion).

As to relative costs, my expectation is that there's at least an order of magnitude cost differential between an undersea DV cable and an overland DV line.
As well as ample insulation, the former requires lead sheathing so that the cable will remain well anchored to the ocean floor.
The latter "just" requires that one string an uninsulated aluminium conductor between steel towers across the Nullarbor.

For adequate redundancy both options would require two, or perhaps three, separate transmission lines.

[Bushmiller]

Elsewhere in this thread I've suggested -- only slightly tonge-in-cheek -- that Snowy 2.0 should really be referred to as Snowy 20 (Billion).

As to relative costs, my expectation is that there's at least an order of magnitude cost differential between an undersea DV cable and an overland DV line.
As well as ample insulation, the former requires lead sheathing so that the cable will remain well anchored to the ocean floor.
The latter "just" requires that one string an uninsulated aluminium conductor between steel towers across the Nullarbor.

For adequate redundancy both options would require two, or perhaps three, separate transmission lines.

Ian

I don't pretend to be really well up on the technical aspects of transmission lines other than they are expensive and incur problematical placement as soon as they emerge from desert regions into populated areas. However, a line for each phase is required. Often when viewing transmission lines some idea of the voltage can be deduced by the spacing of the wires, which is necessary to prevent a phase to phase fault developing between the bare wires.

Aluminium is an excellent conductor, but not terribly strong. It is used for rigid busbars in switchyards, but for long transmission lines it is sheathed in steel for strength. Spans between towers usually depend on the topography to maintain the safety clearances. Spans across a valley can be very long. The spacing of towers is more dependent on clearance than strength.

I don't think economics permit redundancy. The consequences of failure rest with repairing it asap. The insurance people would call it accepting liability.

Regards
Paul

[Lyle]

Hi all. A little off topic.... but.
We are on a driving holiday and are exploring the Eyre Peninsula in SA. I'm wondering why the Iberdrolba wind turbines not turning today (13No2023). They were last week when we went past, but today all of them seem to be "parked".
Tried googling but couldn't find out.
Lyle

[Bushmiller]

Hi all. A little off topic.... but.
We are on a driving holiday and are exploring the Eyre Peninsula in SA. I'm wondering why the Iberdrolba wind turbines not turning today (13No2023). They were last week when we went past, but today all of them seem to be "parked".
Tried googling but couldn't find out.
Lyle

Lyle

I expect that they were "parked" because the wholesale price was negative. It is not so obvious with no moving parts, but it is most likely many solar farms were switched off too. The wholesale price goes into the negative region because of oversupply. The wind farms and solar farms can switch off their machines. The coal fired generators have to pay out money.

Regards
Paul

[BobL]

Couple of things, and apologies if they have already been mentioned.

To reduce power loss this sort of transmission is done as Super High V DC (millions of V) where the current travels across the surface of rather than through the conductor so standard AC trans does not apply. Conductors can be a lot smaller than AC Trans.

Solar is nominally 300W per square meter at the earths surface so 6 GW would require 20 million sqm or 20 sqkm which allowing for access spacing is about a 5 km by 5km array.
An area of 10,000 sqkm (100 x 100 km) could theoretically power all of the USA.
Doing this in one giant array would be impractical (grid issues, available land, spreading the solar accretion across longitudes, etc) but 400, 25 sqkm arrays might be do-able.
Of course you wouldn't do it all by solar but use a diversity of methods including where the sun don't shine much using nuclear.

RE: Nuclear E in Australia - I used to be a cautious promoter of NE (I even did my PhD on feasibility of long term NE waste disposal) until I saw what the Govt did with the NBN - if they can't get this relatively simple thing done half right do we really want to trust them with NE?

[Bushmiller]

Couple of things, and apologies if they have already been mentioned.

To reduce power loss this sort of transmission is done as Super High V DC (millions of V) where the current travels across the surface of rather than through the conductor so standard AC trans does not apply. Conductors can be a lot smaller than AC Trans.

Solar is nominally 300W per square meter at the earths surface so 6 GW would require 20 million sqm or 20 sqkm which allowing for access spacing is about a 5 km by 5km array.
An area of 10,000 sqkm (100 x 100 km) could theoretically power all of the USA.
Doing this in one giant array would be impractical (grid issues, available land, spreading the solar accretion across longitudes, etc) but 400, 25 sqkm arrays might be do-able.
Of course you wouldn't do it all by solar but use a diversity of methods including where the sun don't shine much using nuclear.

RE: Nuclear E in Australia - I used to be a cautious promoter of NE (I even did my PhD on feasibility of long term NE waste disposal) until I saw what the Govt did with the NBN - if they can't get this relatively simple thing done half right do we really want to trust them with NE?

Thanks Bob for this input.

One of the disadvantages of solar is in fact the vast area it requires to replace equivalent thermal power and is only second in the fatal flaw stakes to when the sun doesn't shine at all. The advantage of a DC conductor has not been broached on this thread at all so that is completely new information for us.

As far as nukes are concerned, an accident there can easily become a catastrophe from which there is no return. I know this area of physics is your domain and anything you care to share with us is welcomed.

The government (any and all of them) seem reluctant to enter the electricity stakes so fortunately we won't be treated to their mis-management and I feel that in the Australian market there will be a dearth of private investors.

Thanks again.

Regards
Paul

[BobL]

Thanks Paul. My objection to nuclear is less about safety and more about cost (if it's expensive elsewhere, then given we have virtually no one here with a nuclear tech skills it'll be WAAAY more expensive for Australians - haven't we learnt that yet ?). I also have major objections on a philosophical level that NE is yet another highly centralised form of utility. My preference is that where possible, if consumers are able to meet some of their own demands then they be left to do it as they will take more notice of their usage and generation and react accordingly.

It's interesting that the proponents of nuclear are often supporters of freedom of choice and an individual lifestyle. If they were true to their own philosophy they would be putting in place subsidies and policies that would heavily favour things like small scale renewables etc. NE is not like this - it's a huge long term financial and potential millstone around the neck (especially) of societies that take it on from scratch.

NE can have a very important role to play in places when the sun don't shine much for half the year and where there little available land and is a high population density. This is not Australia.

As for the area usage problem I dont think were trying hard enough. Multi use of areas covered by solar collectors is poorly researched but appears highly possible as the ground underneath collector is cooler and protected by the collectors. There is also a lot of solar infill that has yet to take place with only about 20% of homes in my (older) street having any solar.

Meanwhile whenever I can I put all my excess (5kW) solar into my EV battery. I'm charging the EV almost exclusively at home and after some 5 months of ownership I note my solar produced about 60% of all my needs (ie home and EV) in July. During October the solar produced about 120% of my needs although about 40% is produced when I am not at home so that gets exported. In Dec-Jan the over production will be even higher but most of that will be soaked up by AC use. I am currently exploring gizmos to better align EV charging to come just from solar.

FWIW the new Tesla Cybertruck being released in a couple of weeks (not yet in Oz unfortunately) will come with a 240V outlet to provide up to 11kW of power to be drawn from the large battery. This would easily allow for a decent sized welder or machinery to be operated remotely eg on a remote worksite. There is no word about it being "vehicle to home" compatible.

[FenceFurniture]

FWIW the new Tesla Cybertruck being released in a couple of weeks (not yet in Oz unfortunately) will come with a 240V outlet to provide up to 11kW of power to be drawn from the large battery. This would easily allow for a decent sized welder or machinery to be operated remotely eg on a remote worksite.

How would the battery go with the amperage required for a welder?

[Bushmiller]

NE can have a very important role to play in places when the sun don't shine much for half the year and where there little available land and is a high population density. This is not Australia.

As for the area usage problem I dont think were trying hard enough. Multi use of areas covered by solar collectors is poorly researched but appears highly possible as the ground underneath collector is cooler and protected by the collectors. There is also a lot of solar infill that has yet to take place with only about 20% of homes in my (older) street having any solar.

Bob

I agree that the Aussie situation in terms of resources is vastly different to so many other places in the World. Space and population being the foremost of these differences. We are the 6th largest country and the 55th largest population, which is great for some things and diabolical for others.

I am still waiting for solar panels, and ideally batteries too, to become mandatory on new house builds in the same way that in many areas it is mandatory to connect a water tank on new builds. That should also extend to commercial and multi-story buildings. For the moment, storage is the area where we are falling so far behind.

Regards
Paul