Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Bushmiller]

WP

That is an interesting dilemma and in fact one I have mentioned before regarding the solar farms. From the article you have linked it is only in SA and WA, for the moment, that the rooftop panels can/are being switched off remotely.

Once a solar plant is in place it really only has fixed costs to cover, which are fundamentally the same whether it generates it's maximum power or nothing at all: This is quite different for the fossil fuel generators. In principle they have four thresholds of generation.

The first, and best for them, is where they make a profit.

The second is where they generate at a price point above the cost of their fuel, but not at a level that contributes to an overall profit. This merely minimises how much money they lose.

The third point is where the market price is less than the cost of their fuel. Under this situation the station will reduce load to a practical minimum. Ideally they would come off line, but do not, because of start up costs and startup times.

Fourthly the station would stop generating as the price goes into negative territory for a protracted period. A Gas Turbine plant may do this ( in fact they will probably do it at step three above), but for coal fired plants it is not an option for the moment. It should be mentioned that it would also be a problem for the grid. Even the fast response units may take two hours to come back on line. Mostly the generators wear negative prices and pay AEMO so they can stay generating.

However it is important to note that as times goes on this will be less and les likely acceptable to AEMO and viable to the generators Fossil fired stations will eventually shut down. The last stations will be there courtesy of a combination of economic efficiency and flexibility.

The solar farm is only going to stop generating when supply is too great, until storage facilities become available. There will be a balancing act between generation and storage for many years to come.

Regards
Paul

[russ57]

An article i read today (edit - actually the article quoted above...) suggested that curtailment would likely be a feature forever. Sufficient {solar} capacity to provide for winter loads really means overcapacity for summer, and that would be cheaper than enough storage to utilise the summer excess in winter.
On the issue of curtailment generally, if home owners were compensated in some way, eg by tariff reduction for that period, there would be far less impact.
The way i see it, with my current wholesale rate, (via amber) curtailment when prices are negative would actually be good. But if i was paying peak prices to run my aircon rather than using my (free) solar, I'd be unhappy...

[woodPixel]

As an interest, I've been reading up on community generation and storage.

I feel there will be a rapid move (<24 months) towards small regional generation, storage and release.

I'm unreasonably excited about suburb level CAES and building-level batteries.

Two investments are going absolutely gangbusters. There will be a huge problem with satisfying demand for suburb and small city CAES.

[Bushmiller]

One issue I have with switching off rooftop solar, and this is my impression, is that the solar to your house is also switched off. Under normal circumstances of rooftop solar it is only the surplus generation that is fed into the grid. If the solar is switched off to the grid you also have to buy any power that you may need for you household. I am guessing the issue is that the panels, once isolated from the grid, have nowhere to direct their surplus energy and the inverters at this stage cannot switch off panels. Consequently, everything gets shut down and the householder pays the usual kwh price!

Regards
Paul

[Beardy]

Origin Energy to shut Australia'''s largest coal-fired power plant by 2025

[Bushmiller]

Thanks for that information Beardy.

NSW has twelve units that are similar to the four at Eraring, but they are not identical. There are two at Vales Point, which is the oldest version of the formula. Bayswater has four units and Mount Piper has another two. All the units started out as 660MW machines. The Eraring units were re-rated to 720MW; The Mount Piper units were increased to 700MW and three of the four Bayswater units received approval to generate at 685MW.

Kogan Creek in QLD remains the largest at unit at 750MW and the last coal fired generator built, being commissioned in 2007.

The power stations situated on Lake Macquarie suffer from expensive coal supplies compared to stations that were built later and sited either on or very near coal mines. These coastal stations would struggle to compete on price.

Regards
Paul

[woodPixel]

Coal. BBIIGG problem.

Maybe not our biggest.

Over the last few days I've been chatting with a few people on a Reddit environmental sub and I showed them this video.

It is well worth watching. Its not STRICTLY to do with this conversation, but it is parallel, as the group behind these videos considers electricity generation to be one of the first things we should change.

Please don't see it as Doom Gloom, its MORE than that. Everything is backed up with good reading on their website.... but the video is a good intro....

(May PERSONAL view is that woodworkers GET IT... we love the environment. We love wood and we love materials. We are all, in many ways, environmentalists)

[woodPixel]

The numbers they are talking about now are HHUUGGEEEE

"‘Green hydrogen is now competitive with fossil fuels’ | ArcelorMittal among offtakers at massive 7.4GW project in Spain"

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-...in/2-1-1169455

[woodPixel]

Fortescue tables plan for 5.4-GW wind-solar hub in Australia


I suspect we'll be seeing quite a few of these monsters rolled out in rapid succession. most excellent!

Dubbed the Uaroo Renewable Energy Hub, the project envisages the installation of as many as 340 wind turbines with a maximum combined capacity of 2,040 MW and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels of up to 3,333 MW in total, alongside a battery energy storage system with a design capacity of 9,100 MWh.

[Bushmiller]

Thanks WP

It sounds as though some countries are moving forward. Good

I can't help noticing that when the traditional (oh OK, the dirty fossil fuel contaminators) generators quote their power outputs they refer to the number of MWs they can produce in one hour. The station I work at has a rated capacity of 850MW (twoo unit of 425MW), which is small. Also that is under optimum circumstances: High temperatures may limit the amount that can be produced. In addition a small amount of that power (about 5%) goes to power our auxiliary equipment. The amount that we can put "over the fence" or in other words down the transmission lines is just over 800MWs. This is a similar situation for all coal fired stations. Converted to gigawats (GW) we produce potentially 0.8GW/hr. Eraring, which has just hit the headlines, because it is going to close sooner than anticipated, is rated at 2880MWs or 2.88GWs: Every hour. Did I see they are replacing it with an 700Kw battery?

The battery systems, such as the Tesla, are exhausted after one or two hours if they can't be replenished. The solar systems may last for up to eight hours under optimum conditions, but depending on location, time of year and climatic conditions will perform well below that.

Let us assume that they can average six hours a day (I suspect it is well below this on a yearly average, but I don't have figures: I could be well adrift either way). This means that to replace the Millmerran Power Station (remember I called it a small station) they would need 3.2GWs of capacity to provide for the dark, dim and cloudy hours. Actually I know the power required is more than that for two reasons. Firstly, we have not taken into account cloudy days in those six hours of generation. We get clouds even in Queensland. Secondly, as transport is converted to either directly to electricity or indirectly to hydrogen (using renewable electricity) and the hydro stations pump back up to their storage dams during the day, the demand for electricity will be much more than it currently is. We have not taken into account phasing gas out.

My point here is that before we get too excited, we need to be aware of just how much more solar and wind we need compared to the capacities we currently have. The enormity of the task ahead cannot be overstated. I was interested to see that even the likes of Origin have snubbed the federal ministers and appear to have given up on them.

Regards
Paul

PS: I am sure some will see me as the harbinger of doom, but I am a believer in solar. We have two rooftop solar installations. However, overall the road ahead is difficult.

[woodPixel]

Heres another 100 billion 40 GW project for the Hunter Valley.

Im on Reddit tonight and it is FLOODED with these types of notices....

NSW flooded with $100bn in renewable and storage projects for Hunter renewable zone | RenewEconomy

The NSW Government revealed that it had received interest from 24 solar projects, 13 onshore and seven offshore wind projects. This was joined by eight pumped hydro energy storage projects and proposals for 35 big batteries.


Combined, the projects could deliver the equivalent amount of power provided by ten large coal fired power stations.

Now to store the stuff!

Store store store!

[Bushmiller]

Now to store the stuff!

Store store store!

Agreed. That is now the crux of the matter.

Regards
Paul

[havabeer69]

Thanks for that information Beardy.

NSW has twelve units that are similar to the four at Eraring, but they are not identical. There are two at Vales Point, which is the oldest version of the formula. Bayswater has four units and Mount Piper has another two. All the units started out as 660MW machines. The Eraring units were re-rated to 720MW; The Mount Piper units were increased to 700MW and three of the four Bayswater units received approval to generate at 685MW.

Kogan Creek in QLD remains the largest at unit at 750MW and the last coal fired generator built, being commissioned in 2007.

The power stations situated on Lake Macquarie suffer from expensive coal supplies compared to stations that were built later and sited either on or very near coal mines. These coastal stations would struggle to compete on price.

Regards
Paul

Its a catch 22 while lake maqs coal might be more expensive, we dont have to worry about water supplies drying up. Vales is actually an old tangential fired boiler, not like eraring which are cross fired.

Vales actually owns the coal mine next door as well so coal prices are a bit of a wierd one for us at the moment.


But origin (eraring) are a big gas owner, it seems like a smart move that if the government is going to pump 100 billion dollars into gas and renewables, and you had a business you could shut down that would pump the demand for gas up you would have to consider shutting your large coal power station.

Eraring as mentioned also struggle a bit with coal and their ash dam is also in need of expansion. But i think this is just a way to pump up the gas side of their business

[Bushmiller]

haveabeer

Thanks for that additional information. I did wonder how Vales was placed regarding coal, but refrained from mentioning it specifically as I was not sure of the facts.

Millmerran has Air Cooled Condensers for the main turbines each comprising 36 large cooling fans. We do use water to cool our auxliary systems, but this is much reduced compared to solely dependant water cooling and the supply is recycled water pumped from Toowoomba. While ever Toowoomba exists we have an almost inexhaustible supply of water for our limited needs. years ago Toowoomba reject the concept of recycled water for domestic use so we are not even detracting from other potential uses.

Our bottom ash disposal is the dry ash Magaldi system (similar to that retrofitted to Eraring). Our Magaldi was also retrofitted many years ago.

Regards
Paul

[woodPixel]

Sold down all of my WHC (Whitehaven Coal) shares on Friday. Got a smashing price of $3.22¹.

What a crazy ride that was - they declared an 8 cent divvie.

EIGHT CENTS..... On a ~$3.14 share.... ppiisssss poor.

I suspect this is the way of things for the coal delivery industry now. The last two years of owning those WHC's I saw every excuse in the book. Management blaming meteorites, the Chinese, cyclones, shipping, COVID, cane toads and The Gods..... Its crazy fragile and WHC are the best of all of them (well, their coal type anyway).

The futures are looking grim too.... (below)


SO, where does this leave us? Renewables!

This popped up today: Australia’s Biggest Coal Plant to Close in 2025, Seven Years Early - The Energy Mix

These dudes have seen the writing on the wall.... time to HIT THE EXITS!!!



¹ the promptly dropped to $3.01... booyah!

coal futures.JPG