Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[FenceFurniture]

...consumers don't want to pay too much.

I believe that this has come about because of all the cheap junk that has become available in our throwaway society. If decent quality goods that were repairable were all that was available then consumers would pay for them, and probably without much complaint.

Perhaps we need to think more like the Norwegians do. Highest rate of EV take-up (AFAIK), on a fast track to renewable energy (with LOADS of oil available to them), and regularly voted the happiest country in the world.

[Warb]

I believe that this has come about because of all the cheap junk that has become available in our throwaway society. If decent quality goods that were repairable were what all that was available then consumers would pay for them, and probably without much complaint.

People are greedy. I suspect it's an evolutionary trait, we are basically carnivores and/or hunters gathers. We take the easiest path; farming came about because when our camps grew to the point where food to "gather" wasn't enough, we had to find another way to feed ourselves. The same applies to consumerism - we want "stuff" but we don't want to work hard or pay too much to get it. So cheap rubbish becomes the norm. It's always fascinated me that people want to be paid more to make stuff, then buy the cheap stuff from overseas and wonder why their company goes bust and they lose their job!

Equally, of course, the same greed means companies have to make ever more profit, and that doesn't happen if you sell products that last forever. Things are therefore designed to just about survive the compulsory warranty period and then fail or need replacing for some other reason.

We are also foolish/greedy enough to fall for the advertising that says our phone must have twelve cameras, and be foldable, small, big, made of metal or whatever. I'm fairly certain that the evolutionary need to attract the best possible mate makes it easy to manipulate us - "wear this brand of clothing and people will think you're great"!

You're right that people would buy repairable items if they were all that was available. But the point is that someone would instantly grab the market by making something cheaper and less durable, so the cycle begins again!

Perhaps we need to think more like the Norwegians do. Highest rate of EV take-up (AFAIK), on a fast track to renewable energy (with LOADS of oil available to them), and regularly voted the happiest country in the world.

I have often considered the difference between the Scandinavian countries and many others. I have concluded that the climate up there has resulted in the development of a society in which everyone is committed to the common good, simply because on our own you freeze to death! The "warm country" option to sit around, sleep in the open and survive on very little doesn't apply when you need to consume a million (!) calories a day just to maintain your body temperature! Equally, if you get hurt whilst hunting for your family's dinner, your family starves unless others help you out until you recover. But those others will also (historically) cast you out to die if you take the mickey and don't pull your weight. The result is Scandinavia working together for the common good. That approach is perhaps not so ingrained in warmer countries, if it exists at all.

[FenceFurniture]

Agreed Warb, except I just don't get this bit:

We are also foolish/greedy enough to fall for the advertising that says our phone must have twelve cameras, and be foldable, small, big, made of metal or whatever.

I'm not disagreeing – you are sadly right, but I always do my due diligence when spending any significant amount of money (say $50+) because I want the best bang for buck. Some things I just won't buy online unless they are easily returnable "in case of crap product".

[woodPixel]

This will blow you up with the opportunities.

A bit of imagination and we can now generate methane out of sunlight, water and CO2.

Production of Methane by Sunlight-Driven Photocatalytic Water Splitting and Carbon Dioxide Methanation as a Means of Artificial Photosynthesis.

CO2 concentration is getting easier. I saw a sponge-like thing only last week. Its (yet another) perovskite discovery .... it absorbs CO2 as air passes through it and its squeezed to release it.

Farmer Joe will soon be able to pull fuel from the very air using sun/water. Even the water can be pulled from the air! We seem to have the sun part covered....

[rwbuild]

Toyota in partnership with a Chinese auto company have developed an internal combustion engine that uses ammonia as the fuel, very interesting development, it cuts noxious gases by 80-90% and can be blended with other fuels depending on the application of the engine.

[doug3030]

Production of Methane by Sunlight-Driven Photocatalytic Water Splitting and Carbon Dioxide Methanation as a Means of Artificial Photosynthesis.

From the above link ...

morethanseveralmonths.png

Things like this make me wonder about how good the rest of the information in the article is.

How long is "more than several months"?

Presumably, it's longer than just "several months"?

What's next?

more than nearly several months,

Almost several months,

almost more than several months,

almost more than nearly several months.

I hold no great hopes for the future of the human race.

[GraemeCook]

... Perhaps we need to think more like the Norwegians do. Highest rate of EV take-up (AFAIK), on a fast track to renewable energy (with LOADS of oil available to them) ...

Thanks, FF, I had a look at Norway's energy situation.
Electricity production - Energifakta Norge

Their actual sources of electricity in 2021 were as follows:

	Hydro	90.0	%
	Wind	6.4	%
	Solar	1.6	%
	Thermal	2.0	%

Thermal production was only by industrial complexes for their own use. Major investment in additional hydro and wind was in construction.

Norway was a major exporter of electricity, so their actual production from renewables was over 100% of their usage.

Unfortunately, Australia does not have the topography or the rainfall of Norway to replicate their model.

[FenceFurniture]

Unfortunately, Australia does not have the topography or the rainfall of Norway to replicate their model.

No, we just have a staggering amount of sunshine.

[GraemeCook]

No, we just have a staggering amount of sunshine.

True, but not at night.

We need lunar panels!

[FenceFurniture]

Yeah. We need batteries yesterday. Maybe saltwater batteries, which IIRC, are not very energy dense for their size, but have several other virtues such as scalability (and relatively cheeap IIRC). We have lots of space in our cities (thick of all those abandoned factories – blow 'em up and bring in the saltwater shipping container batteries). We really do have to start.

Plenty of articles in this search to choose from.

[FenceFurniture]

Matt Ferrell talking about harvesting electricity from air....with a lot of big "ifs":

[FenceFurniture]

another day, another new battery tech

I guess technically this ones old (70's), but a company wants to mass churn it out
NASA Battery Tech to Deliver for the Grid - IEEE Spectrum

hab, I had seen (and posted) the following video some months ago, but I just watched it again. If they can solve the Platinum/Palladium problem (and one guy thinks he has) then it sure sounds pretty good.

[Bushmiller]

This article commenting on the likely changing pattern of electricity consumption reflects much of what we have discussed on this thread: We should be transitioning from a market that is driven by low demand at night to one that is driven by cheap availability though the day.

Households face rethink on electricity amid these 'massive shifts' (thenewdaily.com.au)

This was a particular statement I extracted:

Even an age-old adage like putting the dishwasher on overnight faces being flipped on its head.
In a world where the grid relies more heavily on renewables, power will be cheapest and most plentiful in the middle of the day.

Strangely, the market, for the moment, is pretty much dictated by rooftop solar. We had a discussion with our traders last week and they commented that the solar farms and wind farms are pretty much shut down as the prices go negative which starts from 0600 to 0700hrs during these longer days. Rooftop solar in many locations does not have the facility to be shut down remotely: I know there are a few places, mainly where the installation is more recent, and the prerequisite smarts are installed, where this is possible, but in the main rooftop solar generates regardless.

The irony is that the solar farms in particular find there is no demand for their product at a time when they are most able to deliver. When they are most required, during the morning peak and more so again in the evening peak their ability to generate is low or nonexistent.

We are fast moving towards a situation, where in Spring and Autumn primarily, the minimum generating capacity through the day of the coal fired generators will exceed the demand even with all the renewables offline. At that point AEMO will not ask a generator to come off line, they will tell them "Come off!"

But... who do they chose? Is it the generator that has the highest minimum load? Is it the one with the fastest restart? Is it the one which will produce the least disruption to grid stability? Because come the evening peak, AEMO will want that station back online again.

A Conundrum and one that is likely to play out in about a year, give or take a few months.



For the moment the market should be encouraging daytime usage and minimising nightime consumption. In fact it is a similar dilemma to worldwide food. Plenty of food is produced, but not necessarily in the right place. So it is with electricity in Oz. Plenty of it, but not always at the right time.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

We should be transitioning from a market that is driven by low demand at night to one that is driven by cheap availability though the day.

Here is the evidence to back that up. Prices for me today are forecast to be down to single digits between 10:30 and 16:00. Yesterday it was mostly 5c / kWh (actual, not forecast) for that whole same period.

Capture.jpg

On Saturday I used 9.1 kWh for a cost of 94c, so average price for 24 hours of 10c / kWh.

[Warb]

Rooftop solar in many locations does not have the facility to be shut down remotely: I know there are a few places, mainly where the installation is more recent, and the prerequisite smarts are installed, where this is possible, but in the main rooftop solar generates regardless.

Whilst I can see the reasoning here, the practicality is interesting;

1/ Assuming we are talking about shutting down EXPORT, rather than rooftop PV entirely, it flies in the face of the free-market economy that one person should be prevented from selling a product in order to protect the sales of another (though it wouldn't be unusual!). The variable pricing structure seems more fair - people export their power for (say) the "spot" price, and have control to stop their exports if they don't like that price (i.e. it goes negative), exactly as the commercial renewable generators can (and do!). If they have batteries they can export at night, and so forth. Encourage people to become part of the solution!

2/ Forcing people to shut down ALL domestic rooftop PV cannot (I would think) be done. But that still means that the market for power during the day is shrinking, which the commercial generators won't like.

3/ With the high retail price of power, more and more people are installing PV to offset the rising costs. This applies not only to domestic, but also to commercial enterprises. I know several small businesses that have installed rooftop PV, and even large companies like Ikea are covering their roofs with panels. This shrinks the market still further.

4/ Given a high uptake of PV, the commercial generators will (do?) struggle. But they are still needed, at the moment, for those days when there is minimal sun.

It is an interesting problem, that has been compounded (caused?) by the industry upping prices to increase their profits. Perhaps, given the technologies currently available and emerging, there needs to be a rethink? Perhaps the days of the large power companies owning the market are coming to an end, and smaller local power sharing arrangements will take over?

Another interesting thought is that we are focussing on batteries to store power. Perhaps the 80:20 rule should apply here - batteries are great for transient and short-term cover, like nighttime and single cloudy days. But for those times when there are several cloudy days in a row, perhaps we should take a leaf from the off-grid book? Maybe small generators? On average through the day my house draws around 500W of power and exports (limit) 5kW. On a good day that means I have 20kW of PV doing nothing. Even on an overcast day like today, my PV is outputting 5kW and will have charged my batteries by late morning. If I could use my spare generation capacity to create a longer-term energy store, I could then use (and share) that during a longer-term cloudy spell. It wouldn't matter if it were an inefficient (lossy) system, because it would be using my otherwise unrealised production capability. Maybe if we stopped worrying about the large commercial generators profit margins, we could build local hydrogen plants - I believe there are already petrol stations that make their own hydrogen - which together with rooftop PV and private (or community) batteries could make "big energy" irrelevant for domestic users.

Haha.