JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Jo
WRT Hillary’s disclosure
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/i-wouldnt-trust-them-with-my-security-why-should-you/
61
Victoria and Queensland need to think hard about their future energy security at their next elections , not only that but how much more they will be paying for electricity .
With both Labor governments hell bent on spending billions on unreliables , taxes will also skyrocket .
71
And, unless history suddenly doesn’t repeat itself, so will electricity prices
51
The cost of things like planning permits has rocketed lately…thanks Daniel Andrews and co.
41
New South Wales voters should too, in fact no matter where we live our future energy security and the cost of electricity should be high on our list of priority issues.
20
Well, on Wednesday evening I attended the Rockhampton meeting for the Queensland 50% Renewables Panel round of public consultations.
The meeting was actually well attended in fact, with around 75 paople turning up. Some had already done a TV interview out front with the local TV people, and they were the usual ‘agitators’, all appealing for a 100% renewables target.
Once inside, the meeting was (very very) tightly controlled, with a facilitator, a representative from the Government and two panel members. All three gave long involved scripted little talks.
While the meeting was ostensibly about a public ‘consultation’, the whole thing was just to push the Panel, and by extrapolation, the Queensland Government agenda.
Any input from the people at the meeting was controlled along lines the panel wanted them to be, as it (extremely) light on any engineering and technical matters at all.
There was little opportunity for me to say anything at all, and when I did, they looked at me like I was from Mars.
I did raise a point that even on their own slide they had on the screen, the 2030 target they showed still had coal and gas fired (Thermal) power at just over 60%, and when I mentioned that the slide did not show the 2030 target at 50%, it was again greeted by a totally dumbfounded look and then some waffle about how the remainder of that power would be exported to NSW.
I also mentioned the fact that there was no proposed closure of any coal fired power plants at all, again with the waffle that the power would be exported to NSW.
I also wondered in the form of a question that if there were to be no closure of coal fired plants, how come they were envisaging a reduction in CO2 emissions of 28% Minimum. Again, there was no effective response.
Virtually every other of the questions indicated the total lacking of any knowledge about renewables whatsoever.
They hope to install a Nameplate of 5,500MW, and with the existing total for coal fired power of 8200MW that doesn’t even come in at 50% of Nameplate, even with the addition of all currently existing renewables here in Queensland.
They harped on about the huge expectation for rooftop solar and how it will be supplying huge amounts of power, but again, they have quite considerably over rated how much power this will actually generate, and the fact that even their own Issues Paper questioned whether rooftop solar should even be considered as part of the equation as that is not commercial large scale power plant of itself. No mention was made of actual power generated, and when the puzzling matter of no coal fired closures was brought up again, it was waved away that each plant will be generating less power and delivering less power, but no figures were given.
After this tightly controlled meeting was over, I asked one Panel member if any of the actual submissions from the public were actually read by panel members, he replied that no they didn’t read any of them, but had someone who did read them.
So, all up, a total and utter waste of two and a half hours.
They didn’t actually want any input from the people who were there, just confirmation that what they were doing was good better, great.
I think the time is fast approaching that I move away from all of this. There’s no point anymore.
They hope to install 5500MW of renewable power plants here in Queensland, and that’s almost double the existing total for large scale renewable power plants in ….. the WHOLE of Australia, and they hope to have it in place by 2030, with no plans for anything yet in even a thought bubble.
By the way, there was mention that they have hopes that Superannuation Funds could be a good source for funding.
It will not be done.
I think I have just about nearly had enough of all this now.
Tony.
361
Hi Tony,
Understand why you would be so despondent after all the effort you have put into drafting a submission and then attending the Rocky meeting.
No matter what happens though, in the end, consumerism WILL win out. It doesn’t matter how many government funds, how much or little CO2 tax or whatever other impositions are made to the generation of power (baseload) someone, somewhere be it an individual, corporation or country will invent/design/renew something that overcomes all the so called problems with current generation that makes these utterly useless renewables redundant.
Additionally, it won’t be long before the fake theory of “globull warming/climate change also blows up in the faces of all the freeloaders and sycophants.
I just hope and pray that I’ll still be around to see it happen.
That will be a fun time to watch all those “believers” wriggle and backflip with triple pikes – oh, how beautiful it will be!!
Cheers,
160
Sorry I got you to get involved with this, Tony – what a total sham.
If it’s any consolation, I wasted time putting my submission together too.
I’m hoping South Australia has enough blackouts in the next year that our governments will come to their senses. With 2 years until our next state election, an immense amount of damage could be inflicted on Victoria and with 4 more years for Queensland, it could be even worse.
Luckily for Queensland, you lot are starting from a low base. Luckily for Victoria, our grid is holding up South Australia so any generation shortfalls will most likely pull them down before most of Victoria is affected.
Sorry South Australians – your role is to continue as the canary in the coal mine.
211
My new generator should be installed soon, in preparation for blackouts on hot summer days. Like the proverbial “taking an umbrella in case means it won’t rain” I expect a cool summer with no days over 40℃ when the turbines shut down – if they are working.
90
Analytik:
You Victorians are always taking cheep, cheep shots at us. Well, I can tell you that our Premier is dumber than yours. And we got a Treasurer in the championship class for fools as well.
131
The Treasurer of SA who says he believes that software caused the statewide blackout.
Maybe somebody should explain to him why pressure vessels have safety valves?
101
Cannot agree. Daniel Andrews has just had less time to stuff things up. Victoria had a much stronger electricity network to start off with thanks to Sir John Monash and probably Sir Henry Bolte.
71
Yes, I also resent the notion that our Marxist Premier is in any way an inferior dumba$$ to your South Australian one. Where South Australia does have a definite lead is the sustained stupidity of your leadership – at least Marxism in Victoria has had sporadic interruptions of conservative fiscal recoveries (or at least delays/reductions in waste).
As for Treasurer’s I suspect per capita waste is on par once the broken contract for road infrastructure is factored in.
Where Victoria takes a definitive lead is in the ineptitude of the Energy Ministry. Liliana D’Ambrosio clearly has less understanding of energy issues than Tom Koutsantonis. The South Australian Minister for Finance, State Development, Mineral Resources and Energy has a strong grasp of the issues facing the South Australian grid as evidenced by the request to the AEMC back in July for a rule change to limit flows on the Heywood Interconnector in order to force more thermal generation to be online at any time. The request was made in recognition of the lack of contribution to stability by PV and wind turbines – ie it was a plea for help (and more market distortion to support renewables).
see Appendix A – page 10
http://www.aemc.gov.au/getattachment/073a6ab7-ca4b-4408-8a0e-8833e3c497f2/Rule-change-request.aspx
Of course, he never acknowledged that there were any issues at all with the SA grid in his public statements but that’s merely çorruption – not incompetence.
31
Liliana D’Ambrosio
– studied english, philosophy and politics at the university
– holds a Diploma in Public Policy
– Parliamentary Secretary, Victorian Communities, December 2006 – August 2007
– Parliamentary Secretary, Community Development, August 07 – January 2010
– Minister for Community Development, January 2010 – December 2010
http://www.lilydambrosio.com.au/aboutlily.html
Perfect background for an energy minister.
90
Back in the mid 1980s a journalist, questioning the soundness of NSW ALP government policy, asked treasurer Ken Booth: “But what if the government goes bankrupt?”
His reply: “It’s not possible for a government to be bankrupt”.
The election of the Greiner government saved NSW from this stupidity. But Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia all suffered in the financial disasters that that policy created. And in all three of those states the ALP governments won early elections called before the news got out that the government was in deep financial trouble, giving the perpetrators another three years in office. Two of them initiated the ALP policy of appointing a woman as premier after the wheels had fallen off.
What it all boils down to is that the ALP believes that the government doesn’t have to pay its bills.
81
Ted
Maybe he was nearly right – Obama’s debt explosion hasn’t sunk the US – yet
20
It would be difficult to have a Premier more stupid than VIC’s Dopey Dan Andrews, the one that placed an order for $27 million of desal water while VIC is in flood.
41
I reject that claim Anylitic , our premier is clearly dumber than yours .
01
This bone of contention is sure to be revisited 😀 but two more points to consider (on top of the excellent example of stupidity brought up by David).
Dopey Dan made the Marxist move to impose a union on to a beloved and critical organisation of volunteers in the midst of the federal election, losing the election for Labour. A few weeks delay would have made Labour victory shoe in.
Drongo Dan (abetted by Loopy Lily) decreed a 40% renewables target AFTER seeing the effects of high renewables penetration on South Australia. Jay, Tom and Mike have the (pi$$ poor) excuse that they were pushing the state into uncharted territories – Dan and Lily have no such justification.
20
Please give details of your new generator.
Make, model, capacity, fuel (which fuel, exactly) consumption, output, how connected to your house (exactly, all details and costs), your expected demand (how measured), any local council permits or neighbour issues, ventilation, ease of access in the pitch black, total capital cost, expected running costs … and so on.
I’m not being smart@rs3, these details are absolutely needed for most people to survive. I’m in the same process here in NSW since I have every reason to believe LINO Baird will pull the same stunt as SA/Vic/Qld, albeit more sneakily.
I notice TonyOz has finally admitted Cassandra’s suggested, if repetitive, message. TonyOz is well respected for the efforts he made, but the propaganda power of the MSM combined with the illiteracy and innumeracy of a majority of the populace is too strong and always has been.
I’m aware this comment will not be much liked, but you will admit Cassandra’s suggestions have been accurate. This is the whole point to the Cassandra myth.
71
ian . It’s not real easy, unless you just want to keep the freezer going on rare occasions.
Genquip at Chipping Norton sell a range of generators at very competitive prices. https://www.genquip.com.au/generators/ I found them good to deal with.
I expect the cost of wiring it in would be high. Also remember that they must not be operated indoors, the exhaust gases are deadly without ventilation. Even blowing back into the house can be a problem if too close.
For expected occasional requirements a smaller, hand started model with an extension lead to the fridge and a bit else might do.
They have there a 5.5kva diesel powered and “silenced” (quieter) model at $2,199. it has electric start, and remote start, but there again is a problem, you must maintain the battery so that it will work when you need it. It could be started with a set of jumper leads from a car. It has wheels so could be wheeled out of the garage for ventilation when needed. That is a Chinese built machine with I expect an exact copy of a Yanmar diesel motor.
33
“Cost of wiring in could be high”.
No point in wiring in unless you are choosing to go off grid. If you have to survive power outages a stand alone unit is probably ok.
Hopefully proper cheaper power will be restored eventually.
31
ian8888:
I haven’t even paid for it yet let alone installed it. Model is Yamaha EF3000iSE which is rated at 2.8kVA. OHV 4-stroke air cooled petrol driven. 13L fuel tank with shut off valve so lines can be drained and petrol remain ‘sealed’ in tank to avoid gel bits.
Maximum output 4kW. Electric starter system. Inverter for sign wave suitable for computers. At a 25% load they claim 20.5hours operation. My consumption averages 7.7 to 9.4kW per day with higher demand overnight for an electric hot water service.
Location will be under a roof but otherwise open to air circulation, noise not likely to effect nearest neighbour (who has one anyway) and accessibility in pitch black not an issue, I have enough LED torches and lanterns to avoid that. It will not be an auto-start. Don’t know the final cost including wiring it up.
41
Thanks – much appreciated.
The max 4kW seems a little skinny to me, just adding up the wattages of my most-used appliances.
Other colleagues of mine are doing the same process. All of us expect affordable, reliable 24/7 to become “a thing of the past”.
10
Graeme, you should apply to be a contracted FCAS supplier for the South Australian grid. At least you can guarantee supply with your gennie – something the wind farms CANNOT do.
41
You could even ask for “night solar” rates
11
I can’t see Mike Baird rushing in to join the Marxist fools that are running South Australia, Queensland and South Australia. He might make noises about it but they’d a revolt in the NSW parliament if he tried to table it as policy.
NSW is the safest state in terms of electricity security with the ‘low CO2 emission’ black coal plants AND access to the Snowy Hydro scheme.
31
The Snowy scheme is as much Victorian but very limited capacity. Like gas it allows a lower base load with far less waste. Each year it produces 4,500 GWHrs against National electricity use of 250,000GWhrs, so under 2%. It would run Melbourne for a few days before it was empty.
Black coal produces only 6% less CO2 per kwhr as brown coal but half the generation capacity is mothballed as brown coal power is much cheaper. Unless someone believes CO2 is poisonous, why anyone stop using brown coal power is not understandable.
Victorian extreme Greens want to close Victoria’s brown coal generation and buy power from NSW, arguing that Brown coal has twice the CO2 of black coal, but that is an urban myth. Where closing Hazelwood leaves SA and Tasmania is not a concern to the Victoria Greens and NSW is the major customer for Hazelwood.
The real problem for everyone is the devastating and insidious RET (Renewable Energy Target). This is far worse in every sense than a carbon tax and is intentionally destroying coal power plant viability. It is not a direct tax but fake certificates in a fake trading market, just like an ETS. It pays for all the windmills through your private electricity bills.
So the Victorian Government will not have to close Hazelwood. The French owners will do it but will expect State compensation in hundreds of millions a year, like the French desalination plants around Australia. This is an EU solution, paying companies to not operate as if the governments have money to burn instead of coal. Our money, our debt in the hands of climate extremists and marxists.
Everything in electricity was going fine around Australia until the Greens decided to close all our working power stations. Labor love it because it punishes the privatized companies and indirectly puts politicians back in charge of electrical power.
71
None so blind and uncomprehending as those who are wilfully so Tony. You made a huge effort in trying to bring to light all this nonsense and should be proud of your stand against their deliberate and blameworthy utter stupidity.
91
Tony
Sounds like the ALP side of vegetation management IMO
31
Union Superannuation Funds Tony, of course.
61
I’m really saddened and angered to hear of this Tony, the complete arrogant idiocy of a government panel is a virtual given but the waste of not heeding your extremely relevant information is second only to the deplorable disrespectful way you were treated, have some solace in knowing that many Australians hold you in high regard for your honesty and tenacity.
211
Reminds me of an incident described in the book, “Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust” by Miron Dolot, about Stalin’s forced collectivisation of Ukrainian farmers.
There was a meeting where the officials were persuading the farmers to join the collective. Many did, but some didn’t.
“As the farmers continued to keep their silence, and the situation was becoming embarrassing, Comrade Professor offered a suggestion. He thought it would be appropriate to celebrate such a “highly patriotic and happy occasion” by sending telegrams to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, to the Soviet government, and to Comrade Stalin. And, without waiting for our consent, Comrade Professor produced a piece of paper out of his pocket and started to read. This was a telegram which stated that, after having attentively listened to the “highly patriotic and educational” speech of the district representative, and after having realized what advantages a socialist agri-cultural system had over that of an individual one, the farmers of the First Hundred (it was our good fortune to belong to the First Hundred, and we were often called upon by officials to prove ourselves worthy of being Number One) solemnly promised to achieve one hundred percent collectivization by the first of May.
“This was a ridiculous promise, as far as we were concerned, but none of us dared to criticize the telegram. It was adopted unanimously.
“The chairman then returned to his previous business. He tried to smile this time.
“Well, since we agreed upon, and promised to achieve, a hundred percent collectivization,” he said casually, “there is no point in wasting time. eh?”
In other words, the decision had been made and the meeting was pointless, like yours, Tony.
30
Seemed more like a sermon.
You need to practice saying “Amen” and “Hallelujah!” at appropriate points in such presentations. 😉
20
Cold Air Outbreak in SWWA.
‘The cool airmass following this front will keep temperatures below average for most southwestern centres for the first half of the week. With another cold front due on Thursday, it’s shaping up to be a cooler than normal end to October for much of southwestern WA.’
Weatherzone
Anecdotally the warmists are saying “its typical spring weather’, but if CAOs persists into summer we’ll have them on the run.
Another east coast low forecast to form off Sydney on Thursday, only nuisance weather.
52
Huh!
Who would have thought eh?
The South Australia power blackouts, and I guess this will have already been buried, the report from the AEMO, the actual regulator, shown at this link.
Update to preliminary operating incident report into the South Australian state-wide power outage
Hmm! I wonder where that might have been mentioned before.
My Comment here at Joanne’s site 29 Sep
My Comment here at Joanne’s site 30 Sep
My Comment here at Joanne’s site 06 Oct
My Comment here at Joanne’s site 10 Oct
Where I said basically the same things.
Tony.
101
Don’t get too frustrated Tony.
Y2K sucked everyone in – until it came to pass – and nothing came to pass.
The modern world is still drinking bottled water – for some obscure reason.
72
TonyfromOz
Thanks for the AEMO link. The updates are very informative. The bottom line is that five transmission line faults, resulting in six voltage disturbances downed the network.
Hopefully other states and nations are reading this report to understand how serious faults led to a cascade of events that were compounded by the wind generator inability to ride through transitory faults. Grid frequency stabilization still appears to be an issue on this part of the grid system.
Due to this event there are now plenty of green jobs for electrical engineers and their suppliers. However is the cost of providing such employment what customers wish or are willing keep paying for with this unreliable, high maintenance cost, power generation system?
70
How much money for how little reduction in emissions?
http://notrickszone.com/2016/10/01/germanys-social-violence-against-the-citizens-green-feed-in-tariffs-set-to-jump-painful-15/
51
TonyfromOz –
don’t lose heart. you have educated so many of us, for which we are grateful, and, if the MSM was anything but the monolithic propaganda tool it has shown itself to be, you would have been contracted to write at least a weekly column in a major newspaper, in order to inform the Australian public at large.
no way am I going to wade through the whole update, but my quick guess is this is telling:
Page 6: AEMO then worked with each of the operators of these wind farms and determined that their ‘voltage
ride-through’ settings were set to disconnect or reduce turbine output when between three and six
‘voltage ride-through’ events were detected within a given timeframe. Investigations to date indicate that
information on the control system involved and its settings was not included in the ***models of wind
turbine operation provided to AEMO during NEM registration processes prior to connection of the
wind farms.
The wind farm operators and the turbine manufacturers are working to propose improved ‘voltage
ride-through’ settings for consideration by AEMO. As they are re-configured, the wind farms are
removed from the reclassification and returned to normal operation. At the time of this report, five of the
wind farms that suffered sustained output reductions in the event have been removed from the
reclassification…
https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/-/media/9027D5FB69294D408E4089249F38A36D.ashx
***models schmodels…
70
Nothing wrong with modelling an electrical grid as long as you have the right information – you aren’t able to do a trial to assess performance.
I still think the wind farms should be held liable for lack of disclosure – those ride through settings would be critical information for the AEMO to assess the likelihood of non-credible events. Lacking those, the AEMO assumed that the wind farms were more tolerant of line faults than they were which is why more thermal generators weren’t online at the time.
RenewEconomy has gone into feral attack mode to try and deflect blame on the wind farms and are saying the AEMO should have known better. Perhaps there is a slight amount of merit to this as the AEMO did not specifically ask for the fault ride through settings. Of course, if they had, then the wind farms would have been curtailed many times in the past and the renewables crowd would have been saying that the AEMO was discriminating against the wind farms.
The uprating of the ride through settings continues to puzzle me. If they were low, I would have thought it was for good reasons in terms of turbine operational lifetimes. What are the ramifications of upping them so much without any hardware changes?
131
… if they [safety trip levels] were low, I would have thought it was for good reasons in terms of turbine operational lifetimes
Yes. I’ve been looking for the answer to that question for days now. The question, at least in the MSM, has not even been asked.
I expect if the AEMO ever actually answers it, the answer will not be made public. “Commercial-in-confidence” is the most likely excuse.
81
Analitik,
“The uprating of the ride through settings continues to puzzle me. If they were low, I would have thought it was for good reasons in terms of turbine operational lifetimes. What are the ramifications of upping them so much without any hardware changes?”
And that is the big problem with the application of variable power sources on to a grid. The supplied current from wind generator’s output goes up and down, from zero to its maximum rated output, at the rate of a breeze. So how can you fix the protection, at windfarm, and further down the line so it does not trip too early or too late?
41
A change in the gloom direction.
If Trump were to win the election then there will be consternation in the Republic party. He will have a recalcitrant (to coin a word) Congress obstructing and delaying any changes he tries to make, at least until the mid term elections when they might get a reminder of what people wanted. In the meantime the banks would continue gambling.
Trump could let at least one Merchant Bank go bankrupt when the next financial crisis happens. I am not sure of USA bankruptcy law..do they allow clawback of sums paid out in the period leading up to bankruptcy? Is so, then the opportunity to strip officers and risk takers exists. It would send clear signals to the financial industry that they were no longer “too big to fail” and that “the Government would always bail them out”.
20
THEY HAVE LEARNED NOTHING! just a glitch in an experiment for which the Australian public will continue to pay the price:
19 Oct: AFR: Mark Ludlow: Wind farm failure during SA storm worse than thought
But an update into the investigation released on Wednesday found nine of the 13 wind farms online at the time did not “ride through” – or continue normal operations – after the six voltage disturbances, resulting in a loss of 445 megawatts of generation – 130 megawatts more than originally thought…
The latest findings is expected to provide further ammunition to critics of renewable energy who argue wind and solar do not provide the same energy security as synchronous generation like coal-fired or gas-fired generation…
But the AEMO report also highlights the failure of two gas-fired generators…
***South Australian Treasurer Koutsantonis on Wednesday again defended SA’s pioneering approach to renewables energy and said the second AEMO report showed the problems weren’t the result of being too reliant on wind energy or other renewables sources, but a ***”software glitch” by the wind operators…
“It wasn’t the intermittent nature of the generation that caused the system black. It was a software issue. So yeah, the software needs to be fixed up,” he told The Australian Financial Review on the sidelines of an Energy Users Association of Australia forum in Adelaide.
Australian Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said the latest AEMO report reinforced the need to change the way the electricity grid is managed to deal with the influx of renewables…
“South Australia is a living ***experiment in how we manage high levels of renewables in modern electricity grids. It is hard to anticipate and test for real world situations like this until they occur,” Mr Warren said…
Mr Frydenberg said SA’s recent blackout was a “wake-up call” which underlined the importance of energy security, saying ***multiple reviews would be looking at the issues of the resilience of wind and solar in the NEM…
“Importantly it was the settings within the majority of the wind farms which meant they could not ride through the voltage disturbance caused by the storm.”…
Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said the damage to more than 20 electricity pylons and three transmission lines during the once-in-50 year storm remained the main cause of the SA blackout.
“No power grid in the world is designed to manage the rapid consecutive collapse of three major transmission lines like the SA system sustained on 28 September.”…
AEMO will provide a final report on the SA black-out to the Council of Australian Governments energy council in December. There is also a review headed by chief scientist Allan Finkel which will look at the integration of renewable energy into the NEM. With Simon Evans.
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/wind-farm-failure-during-sa-storm-worse-than-thought-20161018-gs5c89
50
What has happened to the tons of food waste caused by this outage?
Hundreds probably thousands of tons of food has been thawed out and is now rotting, giving off lots of stinking gas. Not very green.
All because the techknownothing lefties wish to inflict unreliable power on Australia.
Imagine the food waste if this scenario is extended countrywide, food shortages by the end of the week.
50
truly pathetic:
19 Oct: ABC: SA blackout: What do AEMO’s findings into the statewide power outage actually mean?
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has updated its preliminary findings into South Australia’s blackout last month.
But deciphering what these findings mean is ***tricky business — so ***political reporter Nick Harmsen has broken it down…
Why did the wind farms stop producing?
That’s yet to be settled. But after preliminary talks with wind farm operators, AEMO says it is likely it was due to “voltage ride-through” settings which had been set to disconnect or reduce turbine output when between three to six disturbances were detected within a defined time period.
It’s also important to note that the intermittency of wind farms (that is, the variation of output with wind strength) was “not a material factor” in the blackout event.
That is, it was the wind farms’ self-protection settings, rather than the nature of wind power itself, that caused them to stop…
So renewables are off the hook?
Not exactly…ETC
LINKS:
Weatherzone: SA blackout: What do AEMO’s findings into the statewide power outage actually mean?
Adelaide Now: Daniel Wills: The second AEMO report on statewide blackout raises questions about why system wasn’t better prepared for the storm
Yahoo!7 Finance: Blackout report points to wind farm issues
The Guardian: South Australian windfarms revise safety settings after statewide blackout
The Australian: SA Blackouts: Wind farms first to fall in cascade of errors
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-19/what-do-aemo-findings-into-sa-blackout-mean/7946490
40
I’ve still seen no numbers for how many turbines “cut-out” when the wind speed reached and/or exceeded their magic number of 90 kph, as a possible explanation of the unwelcome voltage variations.
Does anyone know if the wind speeds at each turbine are logged somewhere? Each one has an anemometer on its nacelle, and cut-out is initiated at 25 metres/second, according to the specs for the Snowtown devices.
Cheers,
Dave B
41
You would have to get that information from the wind farm operators – only they would know. Since this was not a significant factor in causing the blackout, there won’t be any outside investigation.
20
Yes, that’s what the AEMO stated , but without justification. And they upgraded the loss of windpower to over 400 MW, also without exploration. Nor do they explore reasons for the variation in voltages which they ultimately blame.
I have established that turbines are designed to cut out at specified speeds (25 metres/ second, equating to 90 km/hour for Snowtown), and that those speeds were exceeded on the day. So my question remains: how many turbines automatically cut out that afternoon, and when?
Cheers,
Dave B
00
Look at the wind farm output figures prior to the trips/blackout – nothing to see except for Snowtown 2.
10
There is likely sound technical reasons for the existing trip settings.
A feature of many wind farms is that they are located in relatively remote areas; possibly hundreds of km from the large loads. Cost of interconnection is a consideration in their economics and no doubt there is not a lot of excess capacity. Under fault conditions the skinny interconnectors are more prone to instability and automatic protection has to take this into account. Ideally load would be dumped progressively before generators are dumped, hopefully without triggering over voltage or overspeed protection.
Grids with a high proportion of their generation from wind turbines definitely have more frequent and higher voltage and frequency excursions. To combat outages, users make their loads more resilient by widening the protection tolerance – I have first hand experience of this with large users in Tasmania responding to increasing proportion and consequential fluctuations from wind turbines. That means loads tend to hang in longer under fault conditions; in turn increasing risk of instability.
As grids become more fragile with increasing renewable production there will be growing need to get into more detail on the protection settings of both loads and generators. In the long term, distributed battery storage could improve stability or even allow sections of grid to disconnect under fault. There are some trialling with distribution scale battery systems in Melbourne aimed at deferring expenditure on increase line capacity by use of distributed storage during peak demand periods. The particular system under evaluation can also operate stand alone during grid failure.
41
“Under fault conditions the skinny interconnectors are more prone to instability and automatic protection has to take this into account. Ideally load would be dumped progressively before generators are dumped, hopefully without triggering over voltage or overspeed protection.”
They might as well have the wind farms make steam, and power a real generator from that. Much more controllable, but the losses much higher.
😉
21
Rick,
We used diesel gennies in small town bush camps, that had a large lump of resistive metal in a drum of water for dealing with sudden (few minutes) excess generation. There must be a much more elegant solution for large windmills. Can one assume that they do not rely solely on dumpingbto a grid, that each unit has a means to cope for cases like a broken line between it and the nearest grid? What do they do with generation to open circuit happening suddenly and unplanned?
Geoff
30
Yes they do (dump raw output into the grid) – the renewables crowd regard the grid as a battery.
If there is an open circuit to the grid connection, the wind farm trips – a thermal generator will do the same.
20
Indeed that is a foundation of much of the poor thinking about the grid.
The grid is a power transmission network; much more like the chain between the hub of the wheel on a bicycle and the sprocket on the pedal crank; or the V-belt between the crankshaft pulley and the alternator in a car.
20
The power that a turbine can extract from the airflow is limited either by the velocity of the flow or capacity of a the generator. In the either case the turbine speed will be around 80% of its unloaded speed. Hence sudden loss of connection does not mean instant runaway like a steam turbine or even diesel generator. The speed increase is a moderate rise. A steam turbine and diesel both have governors that should prevent sudden increase in speed although these controls have some response time. If you were dumping power into a resister it may have been due to slow response of governors or to maintain a minimum load to keep the diesel doing some work. That would allow them to respond quicker when loads comes back on.
In extreme conditions turbines need to feather their blades and brake the turbine to prevent damage. So they will be off line in any case.
As far as I know there is no effort to control wind or solar energy into the grid. It is regarded as the highest merit order supply because there is no fuel cost. Without grid storage the realistic limit for average supply from wind power seems about 30% of total supply. With that level there will be times when wind production will be close to 100% of supply. There may come a time when wind energy suppliers have to manage their production but right now the grid has to take what they can produce. My understanding is that Germany is sometimes paying neighbouring countries to absorb their excess power as there is a cost to have generators running that are under utilised, hence unable to recover costs through power production. I think SA is being paid for any power it exports into Victoria but that is likely penalising Victorian base load plants without any means of cost recovery.
10
no problem opening all the damage control pieces but, for the first time ever with the Advertiser, I’ve been forced to recover the page so many times, it now requires subscription. presumably, it takes a more negative view:
23 Oct: Adelaide Advertiser: Chris Kenny: South Austalia’s Power Blackouts Fiasco Should Put the Wind up Weatherill and Koutsantonis
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/chris-kenny-south-australias-power-blackouts-fiasco-should-put-the-wind-up-weatherill-and-koutsantonis/news-story/092a3f2bb0f168631f6db3e4991f60f3
20
pat: The Friday (Oct. 21) edition devoted 6 pages to blasting Weatherill. After discussing the blackout they had an editorial accompanied with 12 Letters to the Editor in a similar vein (not happy, Jay). There was some balance with 2 plaintive letters saying that the Premier had a difficult job, begging for the obvious retort.
They also covered the manoeuvrings that got him the top job 5 years ago, and another article listing the ministers and their chances of replacing him. My reaction to that list is that most of them wouldn’t be any use in the Army even for digging latrines because they couldn’t be trusted with a sharp tool nor to dig a proper hole. On the other hand I have a strong belief that all of them are well equipped to fill any hole.
51
Graeme No.3 –
thanks. I missed the whole thing. will try to catch up with some of it.
if anyone can copy from the Chris Kenny piece, please put a few excerpts up, if possible.
30
pat:
The Kenny piece was published in the Sunday Mail (Adelaide). I have a hard copy. Some excerpts.
Jay Weatherill and Tom Koutsantonis will insist last month’s statewide blackout had nothing to do with their renewable energy push.
They seriously contend that every time a large storm comes through and knocks over some transmission towers, the normal consequence is for the entire state to be blacked out; even – get this – when most of the towers fell after the blackout.
Weatherill and Koutsantonis must think states such as Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are just dead lucky; they’ve been hit by severe storms, had transmission lines torn down and somehow escaped statewide blackouts.
As more detail emerges about the blackout emerge, we are seeing additional levels of vulnerability built into the electricity system by the push to wind energy.
Anyone who has followed this issue knows the push to renewable energy has made the state increasingly – and dangerously – reliant on the interconnector.
This is irresponsible infrastructure planning and economic self-harm. The only people it helps are the coal miners and power workers of Victoria whose job security is improved by taking up the slack from South Australians who lost their jobs at Port Augusta and Leigh Creek.
But it gets worse. The AEMO reports show the trigger for overloading the interconnector and shutting it down was not the felling of transmission towers but the sudden loss of 445 megawatts of generation from wind farms.
And now we know this sudden loss happened because they automatically shut down in response to “voltage disturbances”.
30
Hi, y’all, from Texas.
I’ve been following the Progress in the SA power failure analysis. The idea that a tunable runtime parameter (fault ride-through count range over time period) is a ‘software issue’ or ‘glitch’ is disingenuous.
In any software system which has such things, it is incumbent on the suppliers and Implementation consultants to 1) system supplier to document the parameters’ existence and relevance, and 2) system implementer to understand the relevance and choose the desired setting.
In case 1.. If not documented, and not otherwise disclosed during the selection cycle and implementation… The vendor can and should be taken to task.
In case 2…the implementers either determined the default was the best value, or they did not examine the implications of the parameter. The first is a bad decision, the second is a failed process.
If there is any good to come from this situation, it is that wind generation farm operators everywhere else are checking these settings for correctness. Personally, I think wind generation is overpriced, disruptive, and inadequate and unnecessary for modern societal use.
Best regards.
60
I tried the link and had a message that it was a premium article that requires a subscription.
30
Increasing mass balance on Greenland and a bitter winter on the cards for the NH.
http://notrickszone.com/2016/10/22/early-europe-winter-and-greenland-sees-record-12-billion-tonnes-ice-growth-in-a-single-day/
31
Rockhamton right now. Summer approaching here in the North. Long term October average maximum temperature is 30C
5PM here and the current temperature 14.5 degrees C. Maximum today was 15.5C.
Man, bring on those solar power plants. No output today, totally overcast.
Tony.
72
Just think,
In the old days people from Queensland and NSW would take their summer holidays in Tasmania to escape the heat!
81
Hey, overcast in Rocky, latitude 32 degrees, late Spring?
!!?? Oh solar-mio, consider solar in Britain ‘n Germany …
minus seven times twelve, night-time, and there’s the little
matter of the seasons and latitude, London and Dusseldorf,
51 degrees north, Birmingham ‘n Berlin, 52 degrees north,
say the wheels of industry will turn exceedin’ slow with
oh-so-intermittent-inefficient renewable energy… Clouds
and rotation of the earth are such a bitch.
21
Yesterdays AWAP map has a hot spot right in the middle of a huge area of cold. So come on fess up. Who let of a nuke?
Will they homogenise all the other places up to it?
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=maxanom&year=2016&month=10&day=22&period=daily&area=nat
21
Good point Sliggy.
You deserved more than one green tick.
The only BOM recording station in the area is Birdsville. They recorded a maximum temperature of 14.7C at 12.445pm on the day! So I do not know where the “Hot Spot’ came from.
00
The mangos will not be ripening well in Rocky with temps below 20 C.
10
Finally. Yes!
Farmerbraun in Godzone was out and about this morning at 3 a.m. (checking Maternity, as you do). His electric SUV was recording an outside temperature of 15deg C. : . . . . rain . . . (WARM RAIN) was falling softly. Hallelujah !
“About bloody time ” he was thinking . . . . about a week until Beltane.
That’s quite late to be warming up.
Still, warm rain falling on two hundred acres of pasture silage aftermath , just harvested ( and covered) with bugger all clover in it.
It’s late to be so cold here.
Probably nothing.
00
TonyfromOz, close to freezing in SEQ (lol) – had a sweater on all day! frost warnings in SA too, I gather.
no need to endorse usually, is there Lloyd? no difference between the two “sides”. wild card this time though:
23 Oct: Breitbart: Charlie Spiering: Goldman Sach’s CEO: “Yes, So Flat Out, Yes, I Do” Support Hillary Clinton
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein confirmed that he supports Hillary Clinton for president, despite his reluctance to endorse a candidate throughout the campaign.
“I’m supportive of Hillary Clinton,” Blankfein said, according to a CNN transcript published by Bloomberg. “Yes, so flat out, yes, I do.”
Blankfein was careful to say he didn’t agree with all of Clinton’s polices or with her political record.
Clinton was paid $675,000 for three separate speeches to Goldman Sachs in 2013 — a fact that her primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders said proved that she was too cozy with Wall Street.
Sanders repeatedly called for her to release the transcripts of the speeches with Goldman Sachs, but the campaign refused.
In October, however, the contents of the speeches were published by Wikileaks.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/22/goldman-sachs-ceo-yes-flat-yes-support-hillary-clinton/
AUDIO: 21 Oct: Breitbart: Dan Riehl: Pat Caddell: ‘Polling Is All Over the Place… Shock Potential Is Enormous’
Pollster and analyst Pat Caddell discussed recent presidential election polling on Friday with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow, saying, “Something is going on in this country in these polls.”
“All of the tracking polls keep holding at Trump being ahead,” he continued. “And then all of these other polls that are one-off polls, or whatever … I don’t know how they’re doing some of these university polls. You just put the name of some university and apparently it becomes credible, whether they know what they’re doing, or not.
Caddell was pointing out the discrepancy between the different types of polls. “But in any event, polling is all over the place…. Something isn’t adding up,” said Caddell…
“Something is going to happen here, I just sense it,” he concluded. Either “Hillary will glide into the White House, or we’re headed for one of the greatest shocks in American politics. I think it’s a very close call. I think the shock potential is enormous.”
7,890 COMMENTS
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/21/pat-caddell-polling-is-all-over-the-place-shock-potential-is-enormous/
bring on the “greatest shock”.
20
22 Oct: ZeroHedge: Tyler Durden: GOP Sues Pennsylvania Over “Poll Watcher” Restrictions
Pennsylvania has become ground zero for “election rigging” concerns over the past two election cycles. In 2012, Romney’s performance in Philadelphia drew a huge amount of suspicion when he received exactly 0 votes in 59 voting divisions within the city. In fact, the vote count within those 59 divisions was an astonishing 19,605 to 0. While no one would argue that many Philadelphia neighborhoods tend to skew democratic, it certainly seems incredibly unlikely that, out of nearly 20,000 voters, not a single person preferred Mitt Romney…
So it should come as little surprise that the GOP recently filed a lawsuit seeking additional oversight of polling stations in Pennsylvania. According to the Washington Examiner, the GOP is specifically looking to lift restrictions that prevent poll watchers from serving in any county outside of their specific county of residence…
Pennsylvania’s Republican Party wants to overturn a court order that restricts who can volunteer as poll watchers…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-22/gop-sues-pennsylvania-over-poll-watcher-restrictions
22 Oct: PhiladelphiaInquirer: Caitlin McCabe: A confident Clinton at Penn pushes McGinty’s Senate candidacy
Speaking to a crowd of more than (?)7,000 on a particularly blustery October night on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus…
8 COMMENTS: Frankie75: I wonder if Hillary realizes that there are 67 counties in PA. Seems like she only spends time in Philly. I realize there are lots of votes in Philly, but seriously, this is pathetic. This is why the PA General assembly despises Philly. It’s a big state. It’s not just Philly. In fact, most of the state is nothing like Philly. She may win PA, but I’m thinking she’ll be lucky to win 5 counties. Just breeding more resentment towards Philly in Harrisburg.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20161023_A_confident_Clinton_at_Penn_pushes_McGinty_s_senate_candidacy.html
comment at freerepublic: The venue only holds 5,700 so they are lying again.
10
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/no-to-coal-how-sa-labor-killed-reliable-power-supply/news-story/f1038963e074427c34f8917ad5e9ded3
31
Chief Scientist on the Spot?
The Chief Scientist appeared before a Senate Estimates Committee on Friday 21 Oct 2016 and was questioned by greenhouse sceptic, Senator Malcolm Roberts.
https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedOzPol/videos/348548855480844/
There are several versions of this video but this one shows the whole episode.
Senator Roberts was given a special briefing by the CSIRO on 26 Sep 2016 on the issue of greenhouse and global warming. He said he would consider their evidence.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/26/malcolm-roberts-says-he-will-consider-csiros-evidence-on-climate-change
Now he is asking the Chief Scientist the same questions!
Dr Alan Finkel seems to be treading carefully, but I wonder if he will wind up trying to defend the indefensible?
What is Malcolm’s next move? Will he ask Dr Finkel to explain NASA’s adjustments to the temperature record in order to make the global temperature seem to go up and up and up.
61
It would be interesting if Senator Roberts asked why the government did not proceed with due diligence (independent audit) at the BoM following the BoM management admission that the climate change personnel media releases contained errors & omissions, or in other words did not match BoM historic record data.
41
I hope that question is in the works. BOM has also a record of adjustments. The annual one day whitewash of the audit committee needs a Malcolm Roberts review.
31
‘….words did not match BoM historic record data.’
Taking this a little further I would like to see old temperature data, going back all the way to the First Fleet and William Dawes. He set up camp on this Point.
http://cdn.sydneybarani.com.au/assets/first-fleet.jpg
If the Central England Temperature is regarded as legitimate, then why not ours? I’m aware of the Stevenson Screen argument, but we could overcome any problem with a bit of adjustment to modify the raw noise.
00
Yes So would I.
” If the Central England Temperature Record is regared as legimate, then why not ours?
I agree again. I had a reason to investaigate the CET recently because I was arguing with Dr Sarah Perkins (UNSW-Climate Change team).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
If you check the referenced paper by Manley.
G. Manley, “Central England temperatures: monthly means 1659 to 1973.”, Quarterly J. of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 100, pp. 389–405 (1974).
You will see that the CET from 1659 to 1973 is total speculation, based on a few diaries where people recorded some temperatures from inside their homes.
00
‘What is Malcolm’s next move?’
Hopefully he will find the time to tell everyone that regional cooling has begun and we aren’t prepared for massive floods.
Finkel is a warmist of the first order and has a smart alec smirk, the greenleftoids like him and denigrate Malcolm Roberts as an ignorant student who simply won’t learn.
41
The weekend Australian lift-out Magazine featured a demolition job on Malcolm Roberts.
A sad piece linking Mr Roberts to all and sundry that is likely to give offense to good God Fearing Australians.
While the piece had to deal with Climate Change there was no science at all except to say that Malcolm’s judgement in all other matters (see above) was flawed and therefore his opinion on CO2 Induced Death by Global Warming could not be trusted either; no science just innuendo.
A sad day for us all when one of the few papers I had some regard for does that. Maybe my last purchase of that “news” paper; it’s starting to read like the SMH.
KK
71
Earth faces another ICE AGE within 15 YEARS as Russian scientists discover Sun ‘cooling’
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/723481/Earth-ICE-AGE-big-freeze-solar-activity
22
Its a beatup Don, it’ll take hundreds of years to reach Maunder’s depths.
30
Inevitably, insurance companies are going to be trying to recover the payout for damage claims made as a result of the South Australian blackout and the target trail ends at the wind farms.
From The Australian via WUWT
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/22/victims-of-the-south-australia-statewide-blackout-to-sue-wind-farm-operators/
The court cases will be well worth following.
51
Google cache of the article from The Australian
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:20Usayw6wm4J:www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/lawsuit-looms-over-south-australia-wind-shutdown/news-story/cd3712fbccccff765826c7135af9a2f6+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
11
Since it is an ‘unthreaded weekend’, I figured this might be relevant to recent JoNova topics:
Fixing breakfast for my family this morning (Sunday-go-to-meetin’ breakfast in Wyoming), a former Maryland governor (Martin O’Malley) was being interviewed on Fox News. Not once, but multiple times, Mr. O’Malley called Donald Trump a ‘fascist’, and by implication, anyone who would happen to prefer Trump over HRC must also be a ‘fascist’.
I wonder if Mr. O’Malley knows that fascism is a totalitarian form of government, and not a limited government, as was established by the Founding Fathers? I wonder if Mr. O’Malley knows that to a limited-government Conservative (such as myself) the only difference between Communism and Fascism is the spelling?
I guess we’re “Deplorable Fascists” now? How about a slogan, “Deplorable Fascists Unite!”
I’m sure we can make something obscene out of the initials … … … … …
… … … cue Ruairi … …
Vlad
60
Analitik
No matter the result of any legal actions the increased cost to insure the wind farms will end up coming from the consumers and/or taxpayers. Does anyone really believe there will be a happy ending to all of this?
30
Jo
Stern in the news!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/23/climate-scam-exposed-taking-credit-and-money-for-anothers-work/
30
This idea has merit, rehabilitating old mines would take people’s minds off climate change and refocus on basic fundamentals.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-23/rehabilitating-abandoned-mines-could-fill-mining-boom-job-void/7949778?section=qld
00
I hope this thread is still getting some attention, since it’s Monday morning here.
I just received this information. I can’t vouch for it personally. However, some of it is identical to what I have been getting from other sources. So IF this is accurate Donald Trump just may have a chance of winning the November 8 election.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting to see a victory but at least this is encouraging.
20
*YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON FOLKS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! IT MIGHT BE A
CONFIDENCE BUILDER!*
This is very interesting for those of YOU who DO NOT use *social media!*!!
Let’s see if the election is *’rigged’*!
*Just stay Positive! *
*Below are The 5 Facts That JUST MIGHT Prove Trump might be ACTUALLY
Beating Hillary! *
*Here are some the facts that the media completely ignores or covers up.
Instead, they have been giving Clinton the lead despite the fact that she
has not been able to get anyone to even show up to her rallies.*
*FACT #1: **Trump has nearly three times the amount of followers on
Facebook.*
Trump: 12,174,358 likes.
Clinton: 4,385,959 likes.
Look what *Trump live stream videos do when compared to Hillary.*
Trump Live Stream Post 21 hours ago: 135,000 likes, 18,167 shares, 1.5
million views
Clinton Live Stream Post 25 hours ago: 9,000 likes, 0 shares, 121,000 views
That does not look good at all for her!
*Fact #2:* *Trump has 18.6 million twitter followers*.
Hillary Clinton has only 6.1 million.
The best part is that most twitter followers of Hillary are actually fake.
According to the Washington Examiner, 41 percent of the followers of
Hillary are not even real people.
In contrast, The Daily Caller says that the Trump followers are 90% real
with 90% of them having a previous voting record.
*Fact #3:* Trump *averages 160k viewers per live stream.*
Clinton averages 400 viewers per live stream.
Wow. That is bad. Trump also gets 5,000 percent more eyeballs focused on
the screen than Clinton. Yep. She really is that boring to the folks.
*Fact #4: **Instagram.*
Trump has 6.2 million followers.
Clinton has 800,000 followers.
Instagram is a platform with mostly all pictures and not much substance,
exactly what Hillary supporters love. And still she does very poorly in
this medium.
*Fact #5: **On Reddit*.
Trump: 297,696 subscribers
Clinton: 21,429 subscribers
But on *Hillary for Prison*: she gets *255,228* subscribers.
Trump has more subscribers than Clinton on every major social media outlet,
but what is even funnier is that there are nearly 3 times as many people
subscribed to Hillary for Prison, than there are subscribed to the Clinton
page.
The best part is that the DNC’s leaked emails from *WikiLeaks have proven
that Clinton pays people to support her online*. Trump supporters on the
other hand willingly actually like and follow him on Social media.
Trump actually has the support of the people. He is going to win this
election come November no matter what the mainstream media would like you
to believe.
Right now, every single patriot needs to share this article with friends
and relatives. We need to fight these rigged polls that seem to come out
every day. Hillary Clinton has a big bag of tricks and is trying to trick
the American public into voting for her*. Show America the truth.*
Can you share this e-mail? *We have to fight against the mainstream media
and their attempts to steal the election
40
“every single patriot ”
It seems to be coming dowm to that.
Citizens of the U.S. – patriotic . . . much?
00
It’s interesting that Clinton’s social media support is not only low, much lower than Trumps but how much of it seems to be faked.
But as I said, don’t hold your breath.
30
Trump has the features for a credible “White Knight “, coming to rescue “we the people”.
Who should be portrayed to the people as the necessary Arch-Villain ?
Soros might have what it takes 🙂
10
It seems evident that the Circus Maximus is greatly expanded in these “modern” times.
Time to re-instate the thumbs down vote on the “ballot papers” , perhaps ?
00
The meme that I most like from this election (so far) is the way that we the people took to our new tribal name , bestowed upon us by Hilarity.
Deplorables seem to be everywhere.
00