It’s just another day of profligate waste in Renewable World
It’s barely spring in Australia and already we’re reaching the point where there’s too much solar. There’s such an excess of useless energy, prices are negative, meaning the hapless generators have to pay people to take the poison power away. And on Sunday, at a time when investors ought be making their peak profit for the day, they were rushing to turn 80% of their panels off.
Feel the pain — the stunted curve of the solar plants (below) is supposed to be the same shape as the rooftop PV.
In reality, this is how we make the parabolic curve of orbital solar physics fit a rectangular box — by building five times as much as we need and wasting most of it.
Bear in mind, this is just the start of a the lumpy road to nowhere. Even though we already have more solar panels than we can use, we’re supposed to be installing 22,000 more panels every day in Australia to reach our mystical NetZero target.
Paul McArdle of WattClarity noticed the dire situation. As he says “rooftop PV is killing it’s big brother!”
He has calculated the curtailment levels were often around 40 to 50% for large solar plants in the last week of August.
Who would want to invest in a solar plant?
And at the moment, there’s a bite out of the daily peak, every day.
Call it “spillage”
We’ve reached this surreal point because there is more wind power than usual and it’s spring. The weather is mild, so householders don’t need as much electricity — thus the minimum demand on the grid is falling dangerously low. That’s a problem because the giant coal plants and other reliable generators need to keep running, to supply the frequency stabilization and so they can ramp up to fill the gaps.
Wild winds blow up solar farm profits
Angela Macdonald-Smith, Australian Financial Review
[Josh Stabler, managing director at adviser Energy Edge] …said the available wind and solar resource almost exceeded total demand, but noted that renewable “spillage” – where renewable output is not made use of – was also at a record high.
“Spillage and abundance will be continuous features of the electricity market into the future and will become more common, especially during spring,” Mr Stabler said.
It’s mayhem on the market:
The 24-hour average wholesale price was negative for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, according to National Electricity Market data, with NSW only just in positive territory at $16.81 a megawatt-hour for the 24 hours to 3am on Monday. That compares with the four-week average price in NSW of $206.23/MWh.
So wholesale electricity prices are six times higher than they used to be, and we have an overdesigned grid with twice as much infrastructure as we need and most of the time, a lot of the capital assets are sitting around doing nothing.
And people think if we just do more it will “be cheaper”.
Someone will always find a good use case for excess free energy if the market signals are right.
If we want to talk about wasted energy, it’s physically impossible for a coal-fired power plant to be more that 50% efficient.
Efficiency = 1 – Tc/Th where Th is the temperature (Kelvin) of the furnace, and Tc is the temperature of the environment.
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It is physically impossible for solar power to be more than 50% efficient as it does nothing at night. The PV efficiency is at best, 17%. Capacity factor is about 20%. That means an overall efficiency of 3.4% .
It is physically impossible to exceed the Betz limit of 59.3% efficiency for wind turbines. Even theoretically. With a CF of 30%, that means an overall efficiency of 17.8%.
Simon, everything fails or succeeds by irrelevant standards.
A CCGT plant can achieve an actual efficiency of 58%. https://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node67.html
None of the useful, produced, delivered, energy, from any source, is free. Useful energy has a fuel cost, production cost, transmission cost, distribution cost, maintenance cost, management cost, and financial overhead cost, and for wind/solar, storage and backup costs. Prove me wrong. It is only by ignoring all of these costs and the delivered efficiency of a given system that wind/solar proponents sell the lies of being “the cheapest form of generation”. Not including actual costs does not mean they don’t exist or that they don’t need to be paid, it is simply dishonest accounting.
Give us an example, anywhere, anytime, where end user costs were lower when wind or solar comprised more than 20% of any generation mix.
I’ll wait.
840
Can you dial up more wind or solar when you need it, no, what you see is what you get, learn to love it.
350
We noticed!
Went for a drive on Sunday down The Razorback from llford to the Turon. At midday the Crudine windmills were not turning! On the Razorback there was a useful breeze.
On the return journey they were turning.
100
Ted,
Were they turning because there was enough wind or because they were driven to prevent damage to the bearings? I have seen enough windmills being turned when there is no wind – the bigger they are the more they need turning or the bearings deform and eventually they destroy themselves.
70
Not a bad idea Simon has there. I’d suggest pumps to pump water into the inland river systems while energy is negative price.
142
I second the motion.
63
Plant and equipment, as well as construction costs, for pumping water inland would surely be prohibitive . .
10
“find a good use case for excess free energy”.. one use case is bitcoin miners which can be turned on and off in a twinkling of an eye to buy that excess load. I hear it’s happening in Texas to stabilize the grid. See, for example, https://www.solunacomputing.com/blog/can-bitcoin-be-a-catalyst-for-renewable-energy/
42
Cycling a data center is not a trivial thing.
Without a robust UPS, they would suffer significant drive, power supply, and memory damages.
Wouldn’t a stable power source be a superior solution?
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What exactly is bitcoin mineing?
40
Basically using bulk computing power to create new Bitcoin. Here is one explanation but it assumes a lot of other knowledge. (Hthe start of the rabbit hole)
https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-does-bitcoin-mining-work/
01
What does Bitcoin taste like? Can you eat it?
At the moment it seems you can. But I can’t see that if people get really hungry they won’t find it is just another Ponzi scheme!
00
Plant and equipment, as well as construction costs, for pumping water inland would surely be prohibitive . .
00
What happens when there are cheap batteries? All this power is going to allow well off households or those favoured by government subsidy to disconnect from the grid. The grid is going to get to be very expensive for anyone who needs reliable 7/24 three phase. They will ALL leave. Most have already gone.
The ONLY government lever left to falsify the GDP number is inflation of house prices. Increasing immigration increases land values.
The end game has arrived.
41
What could be more right than energy you get paid to take?
This whole renewables scam is close to falling over as the insanity of a fatally flawed business model is exposed.
100
Yea make nitric acid via the eyde process, We all known what that is used for Labor would never allow it boom boom
00
Not really. Spring started on 1 September. (/nitpick)
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Well 22nd Sept is the equinox- natures bound.
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That depends on what you think spring is. If it’s an amount of daylight, 22/9 is good. But to me spring is more about the cold of winter giving way, and we have already had some warm days. How do you feel about the solstices? It just never made sense to me that winter should only start on the very shortest day of the year, when you’ve already been feeling cold for weeks.
The Aus. approach of first of the month might not appeal in terms of geometry, but it has seat-of-the-pants sense about it.
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Depends a bit on where you live. I used to live on the east side of Lake Ontario. The lake seemed to delay the change of seasons somewhat as the water soaks up or gives out so much energy. I would argue that the winter did not really start in earnest there until the 21st December.
20
Fair point Robert. I did fix that this morning. I meant to say thanks. The “spillage” has been going on for about ten days at the end of winter and that was what I was marveling at when I started the post…
20
Not to a traditionalist like me. Spring starts at the Spring Equinox, Autumn at the Autumn Equinox.
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Dr. David Evans postulated with evidence that there is a one eighth delay in the timing of sun related occurrences. For example the hottest part of the day is around 3 PM or 1/8th of a day past midday when the sun is closest and overhead which should be the hottest part of the day. Likewise the coldest part of winter is about late July or six weeks after the winter solstice. The hottest part of summer is in late January or six weeks after the summer solstice.
10
We need to build a lot more solar.
If we add more and more, not only will we be able to curtail the generation to match demand during the 11-2 period but we’ll get to the point where they have too much available not only during the day but at night too. /s
Bowen will announce this plan later today.
280
Australian Labor Party Zero Emmissions Policy for Australia summed up by Spooner Cartoon today in the Australian
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary
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EnergyAustralia will build two batteries after securing underwriting from the Albanese government under its capacity investment scheme.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/renewable-energy-economy/energyaustralia-secures-taxpayer-support-for-two-batteries/news-story/8e61ce780f688d7d485924f6e3d4119a (Paywalled)
The Wooreen (350 GW (sic), 4 hour’s storage, and Hallett 50MW 200 MWh battery systems are due to be completed by 2026. As usual, no mention of the estimated full cost , or the actual amount of govt subsidies.
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You humorously make a key point Ian. Hardly anyone in the political class understands the key components and interaction in the grid even at a basic building block level. They appear to make no effort to find out and are just driven by ideology and ignore multiple red flags here and overseas.
The general public, whose interests they are supposed to serve, are also ignorant and will be surprised by the coming train wreck
280
I am quite sure that Bowen does think that if we just add more solar power, it will start to produce electricity at night when we need it. He also believes in Leprechauns.
370
BOWEN = Boofhead Opining Wind Energy over Nuclear?
Bungling Oldie Wrecking the Energy Network?
280
This is a generation of extreme left communist woke politicians who have never had a real job and never had to make a living. So what’s a billion on a Quantum computer which doesn’t exist? Or a billion on solar panels no one wants? This is an entrepreneurs paradise. No care and no responsibility and rolling in other people’s cash.
Joe Biden for example went straight into the Senate and never earned more than $140,000 a year. But his family are all millionaires. No one seems to notice he was a crook.
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Excellent. now do Albanese. I’ll get you started – A lazy…
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I wonder how meaningful the number is to politicians or senior public serpents?
Could they even write the number in decimal or scientific notation?
To be honest, I doubt it.
And I guarantee they couldn’t write it in hex. 3B9ACA00
72
If we use ‘Thousand Million’ when talking about Government [i.e. taxpayer] ‘investments’, many people sit up and take a little notice.
A Thousand million is a LOT of money.
6 billion – much less so.
Try it.
Auto
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A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you’re talking real money – Old US Congress saying.
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I’d go Oaf over Oldie
40
What Bowen knows is that the crash of 1987 which was engineered by his predecessors Hawke and Keating did not deliver the scorched earth that was planned.
H&K were outsmarted because the people on top of the piie could still remember the 1930s. There’s not much fun on top of a pile that is flat. So they took losses sufficient to ensure that the pile did not fall flat, which left them still on top and H&K still on the outer.
Bowen and his mates only know that their first plan failed. Hence their blind, headlong rush to increase debt and cripple the means of production.
What will October bring?
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Nothing a gigantic filter capacitor wouldn’t fix…
/electrical joke
/dc anyone? 😆
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We could also be the world’s leading supplier of dehydrated water. And sell the hydrogen too.
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As I’ve mentioned before have noticed marked decline with our solar given more houses have installed it in our street and surrounds. The feed-in performance is particularly noticeable on cloudy days when the 15-odd installations suddenly en masse throw a burst of higher output when the cloud moves and full sunlight resumes. Obviously there is a period of lost/shed production somewhere as the local network can’t cope. Factor in the various surcharges/increased tariffs/reduction of feed in etc and within next 2-3yrs we will be back to paying them every quarter not just during winter as at present.
The other week relatives were down in Tasmania and commented on the extended period of high winds to the extent that their caravan overflow accommodation was abandoned during the night because of the buffeting it was taking and remained unoccupied for the 3 days remaining of their stay. A quick check of the King and Flinders wind power success stories revealed diesel still pumping up the voltage no doubt because the spinners were throttled/(off?) to avoid damage from their life (and death) source the wind.
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I have a retired friend in Alice Springs with a power agreement that allows him to recharge his batteries when power prices are negative (so they pay him to take the power) then he discharges back to the grid for a profit when the prices are (again) in his favour.
Perhaps the utilities could install free battery systems to our homes so that we can absorb this useless solar power and turn it into usable power at night
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Sounds good, but someone will have to invent a free battery system first.
Isn’t it a byword at Jo Nova’s that “free stuff” is *never* free?
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Not in my place thanks. Certainly don’t want a large fire risk located anywhere near my residence. And most likely it would have to be ripped out in 10 years.
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Do you have a mobile phone?
Do you have a portable computer?
Do you have any battery powered tools purchased in the past 10 years?
Do you have a portable vacuum cleaner?
It is almost impossible to avoid lithium battery powered devices in modern living. Each carries a similar fire risk as a household battery.
Fire risks are ever present. There are regulations on battery installations to minimise the risk of damage from a fire. No such regulations on where you place you phone to charge it. Or the loose paper sitting around your laptop. In fact, if the household battery regulations were applied to BEVs, there could be no charging points in garages attached to houses unless there was an appropriated fire wall to separate the garage from the living spaces.
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Some different sizes and different chemistry in that list. And I’ve not seen any reports of fire from mobile phones or laptops. Have you?
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Risk does increase with size and complexity. Has to really. I am surprised that the large battery packs are as reliable as they are.
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The most volatile technology is used in phones. And they have complex charging techniology to achieve rapid charging.
I regard a phone as higher risk than my large format Winston cells.
I have had some exciting experiences with very small Li/Poly cells. The only type I have actually set on fire.
The risk increases with lack of appreciation of the risk and not taking steps to lower the risk. Life is a risk. The only safe state is death.
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This is iPhone 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoU2mXJJ3k
A recent release of Samsungs phone were notorious for catching fire. This is Galaxy Note 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fL9qaZXalE
This is a laptop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aOICtMyKTk
I forgot to include on the list surveillance cameras. The latest ones are battery powered and have long battery life so a lot of battery inside.
You cannot take any battery for granted. I store LiPoly outside in a plastic box away from other combustibles.
My off-grid battery comprises large format Winston cells. These will burn but not explosively:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9xZf4p8PkQ
I have had lead/acid battery catch fire and the plastic case was burnt down to the acid level.
There is some lithium technologies using non-combustible electrolytes that do not add fuel to the fire.
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Just do a search…lots of examples.
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If you think that a mobile phone, portable computer, power tools or a vacuum cleaner is remotely in the same ballpark as a home battery then you are deluded.
10
Sounds like Snowy 2
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They’re called Teslas.
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Cars, not the battery packs.
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Why not install your own battery and leave the grid to the poor sods who are stuck with the ever rising cost.
In the past week in the NEM, batteries were paid $10/MWh to take power and pumped hydro $28/MWh. The batteries were then paid $50/MWh to discharge while pumps got $30/MWh in generation mode. So the big players are doing the same as your friend in Alice Springs.
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I haven’t looked the exact size but between Benalla and Wodonga in Victoriastan there must be hundreds of hectares of solar farms either built or under construction .
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On what used to be productive farmland. What an eyesore that cannot be beautified
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Australia will soon be importing natural gas from Singapore. Too bad it’s our own gas. All gas goes by ship and the MUA has made it too expensive to ship to Australian ports, so our gas goes to Singapore.
Meanwhile we are building 30,000km of transmission towers for solar and wind, enough to cross Australia ten times. And not a single underground pipe to bring the gas to the East coast. It’s not as if we have an ocean in the middle.
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We can talk serious about shipping electrical power under the ocean to Singapore, but our transmission towers are in the air. Why? Is it so expensive to dig a trench and bury a cable?
50
Why does nothing the government says make economic or even practical sense? Why $1Billion on a Quantum computer which doesn’t exist? Why $1Billion on making solar panels in the middle of a glut? Why not just upgrade the coal plant to HELE with the same cash and actually drop CO2 output?
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How much longer can this fiasco go on?
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Have a talk to your average Joe on the street. A long time.
The reason we are still installing lots of solar panels on roof tops is because people are now convinced it’s the way to lower their power bills. Everything else is too complicated to understand and the attention span wears out.
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Yes, its greed driven prices. The subsidized solar panels (half comes from your electricity bills with Green certificates) means spiraling electricity bills are a direct result of people buying solar panels. It’s positive feedback in a runaway. And does nothing for anyone but drive up prices. A bit like any promotional scheme, in this case for Chinese solar panels.
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Looks like Ponzi to me.
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Australia will soon be importing natural gas from Singapore.
Could this be as a result of the domestic shipping costs (ie WA northwest shelf direct to Melbourne) costing more than the shipping to/from Singapore (NW shelf to Singapore to Melbourne)?
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The major problem is the cost of any backup storage to smooth out the power fluctuations from solar and wind. There is no storage medium available that is low cost and has a long lifetime.
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If you are going to back up solar and wind then you may as well just build the back up system and blow up the wind and solar.
The storage systems by their very nature are simply arbitrage machines. Buy low, sell high. Profits guaranteed.
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Quite so. Big discussion on this very point in this morning’s The Australian.
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Solar panels do not have a long lifetime. Replaceables, not renewables. Like electric cars.
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My panels are now 13 years old and there is no noticeable deterioration.
This is a story about a panel after 30 years of operation:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/testing-a-thirty-year-old-photovoltaic-module
The Chinese mad panels on my off-grid system are 12 years old. The original white infill has yellowed but the panels still function as new.
The technology is improving such that modern panels produce more in dispersed sunlight. Some of the panel replacements are due to rooftop system upgrades where it is just cheaper to start from scratch than trying to reuse old panels.
The coal fired power stations that were built in the 1940s were obsolete by late 1950s and those built in the 1950s were obsolete by the 1980s. Obsolescence is playing a role with solar panel upgrades already. Same roof but maybe different mounting hardware and more efficient panels.
Wind turbines have a much more defined operating life because they are subject to cyclic loading and limited fatigue life. The same applies to the foundations. Offshore turbines are also subject to high corrosion environment. Bulk carriers are good for about 20 years due to the high fatigue and corrosion environment they operate in. I expect offshore turbines to be similar.
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My 12 year old panels (250w) appear to be down rated by 5-7% compared to the newer (390w) panels on the same roof.
Where technology has advanced is in the design and capability of the inverters that connect the panels to the grid.
The old controllers were dis-approved about three years after installation. IE new installations could not use them.
The current set of inverters also have the ability to add a battery. If they ever become financially viable. Or if the grid becomes so unreliable to make the batteries system useful.
20
You don’t know how long they will last. Good luck.
As for power stations being obsolete, Hazelwood ran from 1971 to 2017, 46 years. In its last month of operation it was still generating at 98% of original design. Tony from Oz watched it. It was a tragedy. Basically all the machinery, conveyors and handling were intact. And there’s plenty of coal. In what way was it ‘obsolete’?
The owners spent $2.5Bn on rehabilitation and you would have to assume they expected it to last longer. But it could not make money in the current market as you have to pay $1 to wind generators if you pay $1 to buy brown electrons. Then as Daniel Andrews tripled the price of coal when they were deciding.
These are factories and so last as long as you want. Obsolete? You can always upgrade. Certainly for the price of Snowy II which is over $20Bn currently and that’s not to generate any power but a battery with 30% losses. Who is going to pay to charge it?
So good luck with going off the grid as a solution to the rocketing price of electricity from all the Green taxes on electricity. And you should save enough to buy new Chinese panels anyway, if you have an income. Either way, all the money’s going to China for something we used to own and our independence as a country.
But our manufacturing is closing completely because we cannot get commandable steady or night power from solar and wind to run factories or smelters or chemicals or plastics or explosives or food processing or paint or… And our coal is going to China so that they can make everything including solar panels which we are now forced to buy. Because we have no choice. Soon, if the UK is any guide, we will be forced by law to buy Chinese electric cars. Like Britain, we will even stop making steel from our own ore and coal thanks to 35% CO2 taxes. Australia’s independence as a country is being taxed and legislated out of existence.
And its each person for himself? Off the grid completely. I’m all right Jack.
All to save the planet? No. It’s all a scam.
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And the owners learned. They also owned Pelican point gas in South Australia, which was also forced to close. But they stalled. And then when the State went dark, they charged like wounded bulls for emergency power. And presumably still do. Two can play this pricing game and it is the public who suffer.
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This is what happens when the lunatics run the asylum. In this case they build expensive intermittent RE that can’t displace the existing generation system and prices rise as we now pay for parallel generation systems. To solve the higher energy price problem they subsidise rooftop solar so we don’t use the expensive grid energy, which results in us dumping the excess grid energy at midday. At the same time, we decommission coal plants and stop exploration of new gas reserves, so we have a huge glut of electricity at midday but nothing to keep the lights on at peak demand in the evenings and through the night. As the grid stars to collapse, the government legislates to force us to use electric vehicles which can’t be charged at night due to the lack of generation. In desperation, we now start building gas terminals so we can import gas, instead of using our own gas that the green alarmists claim will kill the planet.
Welcome to the land of the loony left !
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‘ … we now start building gas terminals so we can import gas …’
The electorate can see the folly, so governments have a couple of years to get the mix right.
Politically its why they are seeking the gas option to stabilise the grid. Albo has been talking to the West Australian gas giants for quite awhile and struck a deal to give the citizens in eastern Australia affordable gas.
Everyone is sitting on their hands until the pipeline is agreed upon, then of course there are the gas fired power stations to be built. Snowy2 monies.
44
So why aren’t retail power prices lower in the middle of the day to promote greater power usage? The lowest retail electricity prices are still at night when excess solar and wind generation does not occur.
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Some are. My son gets free energy from 11am to 2pm every day of the year. So it is a matter of finding the right retailer:
https://wattever.com.au/free-electricity-plans-how-to-make-the-most-of-zero-cent-power/
10
According to Bloomberg’s teams guesstimate Australia needs to spend a lazy 2 trillion $ to increase toxic W & S by 7.5 times (???) and also become a Green Hydrogen Super Power.
The return on this lousy investment would be SFA and a number of days every month would see a severe shortage of energy.
Green Hydrogen is just more BS and lunacy and perhaps Bloomberg’s team of donkeys could ask Twiggy Forrest why he suddenly gave up on this delusional hydrogen fantasy?
https://about.bnef.com/blog/report-shows-pathway-and-cost-for-australia-to-meet-climate-goals-and-become-major-hydrogen-exporter/
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The other interest data point was this article in WattClarity, a few days before the current topic:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/08/29aug-cumulativeprice-vic-negative/
The cumulative price is the aggregated cost of electricity over an entire week. Its primary purpose is for AEMO to trigger an administrative cap on electricity prices when they stay consistently high over a period of one week.
However, what the first chart in the above link shows is that, for the week from 23-30 August, in Victoria the cumulative price consistently decreased until eventually, it went negative. That situation is so rare on the NEM, it triggered the above article. However, what the author didn’t explain is what caused this negative cumulative price.
There is only one explanation for that smoothly declining cumulative price. Consistent negative prices, day after day, for the majority of 5 minute bid periods across the entire week. That means all Victorian generators were losing money for an entire week!
No one can make money under these conditions! It’s been a few years since WattClarity documented that that the number of bid periods with negative prices is rapidly increasing:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2021/02/negativeprices/
30
Wind Paulie, wind. It’s been blowing a gale now in Victoria for about 10 days.
30
Not all the time Ross; it’s quite intermittent here. North Central Vic.
30
You are drawing a conclusion based on the wholesale price. It is just a number that is not entirely indicative of what the generators actually earn. All grid weather dependent generators garner $46/MWh directly from consumers using the retailers as their bagmen. All dispatchable generators get FRACs income that is not included in the wholesale price. Any cost of AEMO orders to generators to stay on line for stability and running reserve is not included in the wholesale price.
It its still good news though and shows the power that rooftops have to destroy the economics of the grid. That used to be the sole domain of the wind generators but rooftops are the dominant actor in accelerating the pace to grid oblivion.
This is something I forecast years ago. It is simple engineering and Australia is the best place in the world to see how it unfolds because anyone owning a roof can make their own electricity at lower cost than grid based intermittent sources.
The present grid in Australia evolved to take dense energy stored in coal from coalfields to industrial, commercial and residential users. It is lunacy to take dispersed energy from remote locations and use the same grid to send it to places where the same dispersed energy can be collected directly at the load.
The penny will eventually drop that any roof owner can quite readily leave the grid so that the poor sods who do not own a roof are burdened with the growing cost of the NutZero fantasy that all the governments are pushing.
The market for off-grid systems will grow rapidly in Australia as people realise it is not an expensive step. The recent Melbourne HomeShow had four home battery sellers offering systems. As BEVs lose favour, the cost of home batteries will become relatively cheaper due to the rapid growth in battery plants into wha is now a highly competitive market..
Lithium is still expensive but it is now 30% of what it was just a year ago. A dramatic fall:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
15
Totally agree with your first point.
Renewables generate 1 Large-scale Generation Certificate per MW of renewable energy they generate:
https://www.southpole.com/sustainability-solutions/lgcs
These are currently trading at around $46 per LGC, meaning that renewable generators can sustain negative prices down to -$46/MW and still break even.
There are other ways generators can earn income on the grid. Did you mean FCAS – Frequency Control Ancillary Services? Ten different categories, as explained here:
https://wattclarity.com.au/other-resources/glossary/fcas/fcas-cost-recovery/
However, only some generators can participate in the FCAS market, primarily thermal, hydro and battery; wind and solar are charged FCAS regulation costs:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/05/regulation-fcas-costs-in-2023/
I guess that FCAS costs of rooftop solar is simply ignored, because it doesn’t participate in the NEM.
20
This is not accurate. Most of the grid scale solar are tracking arrays. They run near constant output from around 9am to 4pm if they are not offloading for economic reasons.
You get some idea by looking at the curtailment curve (faint orange) at this link:
http://nemlog.com.au/gen/region/nsw/
The curtailment includes both wind and solar but the lunchtime solar curtailment tends to dominate over wind in NSW.
No grid scale solar is economically viable, even with the RE theft, unless it has tracking arrays because it is competing directly with rooftops that are only now getting a price signal. But rooftops will not curtail at lunchtime on a day-to-day basis. More will choose to install batteries and get closer to seal-sufficiency.
11
I’m not sure that the majority of the current large-scale solar installations are tracking. Do we have any numbers showing which are tracking and which are fixed?
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I could not find a list that has all the existing farms but the majority are using tracking arrays.
This talks about the tracking suppliers:
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2021/06/02/epc-loyalty-culminates-in-two-companies-commanding-australias-tracker-market-analysis-finds/
I can recall seeing a list that specifies the type of array in each farm but I can n longer find that.
There is no way that fixed arrays can compete with rooftops. The tracking arrays have a small window for profitability by maximising power output early morning and late afternoon.
10
Thanks for the response Rick. Actual data on these solar systems is hard to come by, especially their actual construction cost, and also how much their power will cost us.
At one stage I tried to establish how many solar systems used automatic cleaning systems, and eventually realised virtually none.
20
This is a follow up on my nw Sanden heat pump HWS.
With just two of us in the house, it is taking less than 2 hours to reheat. It consumes 800W when running. I have it set to start at 8pm and it is recharged by 10pm. It will give a short burst after the last shower.
I was talking to my son and he sees merit in using such a system to avoid any water heating energy cost by setting the timer to run on his free electricity from 11am to 2pm. In fact, anyone with electric HWS could use the free lunchtime energy. A large tank with good insulation is a low cost battery.
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Net Zero use of grey matter was achieved in the UK sometime ago and, unfortunately, we have had the politicians that go with the package. Thatcher was probably the last UK PM who was fit for purpose with Blair, Cameron and Starmer being about equally unfit for purpose (Starmer is not even fit to be a party leader).
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This is nuts!
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Nut Zero?
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“Who would want to invest in a solar plant?”
Who will want to invest in Australia? This is the question that several of the states and cities in the US are asking themselves.
Now, of course, there will be investors, but the market will have to find a price.
Price deflation can be good in manufactures; TV’s, phones and the like gaining capability as prices plummet, but it is devastating to
a society when the fixed stock of buildings, residential & commercial, drop in value. China is facing devastating problems due to over- and
misplaced investment, but energy poverty can also devalue property assets. This is happening in US areas where new hookups are unavailable due
to grid saturation. It is happening to farmland where resource squeezes limit the productivity.
24/7/365 reliable energy in copious quantities will be available in leading edge economies; other places will be less exciting places to live to the degree they have less re;iable energy and greater expense..
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[…] From JoNova […]
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