What costs $1,500m, makes no electricity, but “saves money”?
South Australia has used federal subsidies to build more wind power than it can use. They’ve spent half a billion already on diesel powered jet engines and a battery that can power the state for “minutes”. For 139 hours last year the state produced so much wind power it supplied 100% of the states electricity needs and then some, and the problem of excess electricity is only getting worse as wind generation keeps increasing and solar PV uptake is rampant.
When government rules and regs have created an inefficient, expensive problem, what do we do? More of it. A new report suggests that South Australia needs a direct transmission line to NSW which will cost $1.5b. We could spend that on a reliable generator instead, or get the government out of the way and let the private sector do it for us, but instead we need to pay for another transmission line to connect up different zones-of-subsidy-rent seekers and hope we get $30 off the bill? It’s a savings in the statistic margin of error…
South Australia didn’t even have an interconnector til 1990. Now with decentralized and renewable power they need two?
It’s another hidden cost of unreliable power. Put the interconnector on the “Renewables Tab”. It appears to be the direct line from the wind farms that are supposed to change the weather to the proposed Hydro 2.0 scheme we didn’t need.
Image: Marcus Wong Wongm
Power savings in NSW-SA interconnector: ElectraNet report
-
SA Bureau Chief, The Australian Adelaide @mjowen
Consumers will save up to $30 on their power bills if a new interconnector between NSW and South Australia is built, electricity transmission company ElectraNet says in a draft report into the Marshall government’s proposal.
The report, released by ElectraNet today, finds a new electricity transmission link “would deliver substantial economic benefits”.
ElectraNet chief executive Steve Masters said net market benefits were estimated to be around $1 billion over 21 years. But on current estimates, Mr Masters said a new interconnector would cost $1.5bn across both states. The link would be operational between 2022 and 2024.
From Anero.id we can see why SA now wants an interconnector that it didn’t need.
The total demand in SA is around 2,000MW, so we can appreciate the fun the guys must be having in the control rooms of the SA network as 1,400MW comes and mostly goes. (Graph below).
The megawatt mayhem in South Australia was backed up with Victorian brown coal. Now that Hazelwood is shut, they need coal power from Queensland, or if there is any to spare, from NSW. SA has excess renewable power to sell (sometimes) to collect those renewable forced RET payments from too.
SA Wind power, graph, June 2018
As TonyfromOz says on THIRTEEN occasions this month (so far), the ENTIRE 1800+ MW wind turbine capacity in SA failed to generate 50 MW of electricity.
South Australia already has more renewable power than it can use
All up SA has 1,806MW of wind power and then there is 781MW of rooftop solar meaning on a sunny, windy day at midday SA needs to dump some excess on other states. This works like mosquito repellent for any reliable baseload generator, effectively sucking all the fun out of owning a billion dollar resource.
Wind power is already often running in excess of the state demand — AEMO:
Wind penetration was over 100% [in SA] for 139 hours across the 2016–17 year, on 30 separate days across the year. On these occasions, South Australia could have supplied its local demand entirely from wind generation, with surplus wind generation available to export to Victoria.
“Over the next year, the 220MW Bungala solar project and the 212MW Lincoln Gap wind farm, both near Port Augusta, will also come on line, taking the state up towards 65 per cent renewables, and there are numerous other projects said to be near the point of financial close.
“AEMO also expects the amount of rooftop solar capacity in South Australia to double and reach over 1500 MW by 2025, by which time the state’s minimum demand could on occasions be met entirely by rooftop solar…” — Renew Economy
At all times the wind and solar power need almost complete back up standing by at the ready. Wind power is constrained if there is not enough back up sitting around waiting to spring into action.
The entire point of all this extra infrastructure is to reduce CO2 emissions and change the climate for our grandchildren. The electricity it produces is virtually always surplus to what existing infrastructure could produce.
Thought of the day
Through some freak of nature, even though South Australia has the *cheapest* electricity generators known to mankind, it also has the most expensive electricity in the world.
Lest we forget, as I keep saying –there was a cheaper option:
Not long back, Port Augusta had a thirty-one year old coal plant generating 520MW. The Premier could have spent $30 million to keep it going.
h/t to William B in comments on The Australian’s site.
The concept of “often running in excess” must be somewhat different in Australia. The equivalent of 5.8 days over the course of a year doesn’t seem to quite reach what I’d consider “often”.
150
UPDATED: Good question, I’ve added a few paragraphs into the post to address that. See …. It’s a bit more complicated than that. …
Thank you.
190
So what is to be done? Both major political parties have swallowed alarmism and renewables albeit for differing reasons. Turnbull is a dyed in the wool alarmist who BELIEVES in AGW and thinks renewables are the answer. Don’t forget this is the man who gave us $15 lightbulbs and has already spent $6 billion on a pumped hydro scheme which already exists at Tumut and is not used because it costs too much. Shorten doesn’t believe in anything but knows that Industry Super run by his union mates makes a motza from the billions in subsides paid by the taxpayers for renewables so he will keep that ponzi scheme going and ramp it up; and he has an insane left wing part of the ALP who are just as loony as the greens to deal with. Minor parties have some good sceptics but won’t make a difference in the house of reps. That leaves the senate.
I think it would make an interesting post to look at the various parties in the senate and rank them in terms of their resistance to alarmism and renewables from a sceptical perspective. Apart from stocking up on candles that’s about all the average punter can do and a post on that issue may provide some guidance.
271
“pumped hydro scheme which already exists at Tumut and is not used because it costs too much.”
Government costs too much to run. The system, unlike Tumut, has no “off” switch. There is ONLY an accelerator labelled “VOTED BUYING” using free money.
If votes could be bought by turning the Tumut water pumping ON, it would be ON.
This is how soft, democratic socialism works. No storm troopers or brown shirts required while the low interest rate land price boom continues. When the Federal Reserve increases rates it all goes to hell. The money supply shrinks as land values fall.
I doubt 30% of mortgages could withstand a 3% rate rise. 10% will go under with 1%.
Australia is on the brink of reality.
150
We have a broken parliament and a crooked government. No hope.
Bring on the revolution. Clean out the swamp.
GeoffW
191
And a crooked Opposition, and even worse.
131
reflecting on such brings on a feeling of depression and powerlessness.This nonsense need not be so. We are short of practical thinking politicians. Curse the present lot.
51
I see everybody around the world complaining that their governments are utterly corrupt to the point of uselessness. I fear we are doomed to enter a period where tensions continue to rise until civil riots start breaking out. Interesting times ahead.
50
The Post on the selection and safe use of candles and matches would be both a necessary post for the coming emergencies in power supply and for bringing awareness to our crazy politically run electricity system.
A couple of years ago our suburb went without power for 10 days. Unable to recharge our torch batteries we bought new at Bunnings.
KK
81
You don’t get whole days of excess. You get your excess in shining moments and glorious hours (which are only added up to days for the more pedestrian-minded).
In fact, SA renewables are so poetic they can even lead to candle-lit dinners at peak times. (Just remember beeswax is more sustainable than tallow…but don’t burn last holiday’s citronella candles inside.)
190
Finding out the number of those short term instances would also be interesting.
On again off again supply.
20
Almost like Alternating Alternating Current.
Although with renewables it’s direct current so we get: ADC.
40
From the AEMO link:
‘The maximum instantaneous wind penetration in 2016–17 reached 143% on 30 October 2016 in the
five-minute period ending 1:55 pm. At the same time, there were only three thermal generating units
online in South Australia, producing a combined total of approximately 87 MW, and a total of
approximately 410 MW was being exported to Victoria across the two interconnectors (Heywood
and Murraylink).’
Not even 15 minutes of fame.
160
For a limited time, JoNova readers can send me a hundred dollars and I will send them up to thirty dollars depending on market rates (but only while stocks last!). This is a potential thirty percent saving, fully non-deductible, which you can spend any way you like on future remittances to mosomoso. (Terms and conditions apply. Offer expires June 2039. Participants must have mental age of eighteen months or less.)
240
mosomoso:
Wrong market, try readers ar Renew.
180
Renewable energy in South Australia is entering a phase of gluts and shortfalls typical of high penetration RE. There will be a push to spend more on storage (or an interconnect to it). Then the push will be on for more RE generating plant because there are times it could store more. This cycle, if left unchecked will continue in the pursuit of 100% RE and increasing reliability; like a crack junky chasing a fix, the cost is immaterial. “Just a bit more storage, a bit more RE plant and we’ll be OK.” You will need in the order of 10 times the RE nameplate power rating compared to conventional baseload in order to get to 100% RE. It will require vast storage and ongoing maintenance on distibuted infrastructure. There will always be gluts that mean decreasing profit; then shortfalls, increasing costs. Its the nature of chaotic weather-based systems. It is a waste and a pipe dream with current technology.
291
RobK, I think you mean ‘increasing unreliability’ at the your above comment.
Regards GeoffW
60
Well, they would be chasing increased reliability with ever increasing expenditure.
10
Note to Jo:
There seems go be a problem getting to comments via clicking on “comments” on the lead-in article.
[Rob, thanks. I know not why, but I see what you are saying and I’ve added a hotlink at the bottom of the post in the meantime. Thanks to TdeF too. – Jo]
50
I’ve got a great idea.
Instead of building a new interconnector,
tear down the other two FROM Victoria and let
South Australia show the rest of the world how
good their power production REALLY is.
In fact, you don’t even have to tear them down.
Just open the circuit breakers at the Victorian
end, lock them, and put a tag on the locks,
“Remove these locks and tags at your own risk”.
This should save the rest of us hundreds of dollars
a year in electricity charges….NOT just $30.
Crikey, who believes this amount they are talking
about, anyway?
381
There is no way the politicians of any colour will allow you to reduce the amount they take from the pockets of the public to pass on to their subsidy farming friends and merchant banks.
220
Just Thinkin and Ivan,
A neat little package.
🙂
KK
20
Thank you, KK….
It’s the ONLY way the rest of Australia would understand
the fruitlessness of the “ruinables”.
20
It does rather remind of the scene in the Wizard of Oz movie when the screen falls down and the booming voice is revealed to be this small bloke with a sound amplifier….”
Pay no attention to the man behind the screen” he says…and then the jig was up….
70
Yes but at least the Wizard of Oz had a happy ending. In our case it won’t be.
80
Not too many wizards in our Oz at present.
30
I’d say if they get the interconnect make them pay a much higher price for the power they use through it. After all aren’t they now saying coal fired power is more expensive than renewables? Let them eat their own words.
140
I think SA are total hypocrites…they still want the “power” from the polluting black carbon..
Left them stand by their convictions….and face the music ….rolling blackouts !
90
Some comments at
“FAIL: California’s expensive global warming law lags in results compared to other states”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/29/fail-californias-expensive-global-warming-law-lags-in-results-compared-to-other-states/
“Joel Snider
Hmmm. Achieved the opposite result of what they claimed they were shooting for. Who could have seen that one coming?
3 Reply
June 29, 2018 11:40 am
Leo Smith
Anyone who could actually Do Sums
Of course that excludes the whole membership of the Democrat party and most of the Republicans too.”
Similar for our lot IMO
110
And then
“Climate Communicator: Reimagining Disney Princesses as Climate Scientists”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/29/climate-communicator-reimagining-disney-princesses-as-climate-scientists/
40
I recall during summer that SA at best could only produce 2/3 of its power requirements consistently…..thats a bit of a gap…the existing interconnector was kept busy.
120
Tonight around 9pm…S.A. wind production was Nil….and increased Gas ( 1511MW) was the sole supplier in that state….
The demand balance amount, was meet from Vic and Tas 633 MW…….What a joke !
60
If they think they can get rid of their “excess” unreliable power with an interconnector they are wrong.
Even over a continental landmass such as Australia the wind tends to be all blowing or all not blowing at the same time. So unreliable generators everywhere will tend to be all working or all not working. They will all be producing “excess” or nothing at all at the same time.
142
Isn’t that known as synchronising?
51
All fixed now DM, they built a giant Tesla battery and it made the electricity cheap again.
True story.
50
Why windmills can never be an economical source of electricity in a 24/7 world.
Answer: Because when the wind doesn’t blow, there must be a reliable generator on standby to provide dispatchable power, so effectively you have to invest twice to provide reliable electricity. That is why electricity costs have risen, because there is now more capital invested in generators to deliver the same amount of electricity.
Take as an example the Ararat wind farm in Victoria, nameplate capacity 240 MW, completed in April 2017, capital cost $450 million, “feeding enough renewable energy into the grid to power 120,000 homes, 37,000 of them in Canberra”. If we assume a capacity factor of 30%, that’s an average generation of 72 MW so an allowance of 0.6 kW per home, 5,256 kWhr per year.
But for Tues-Thurs this past week Ararat produced zero electricity, in fact it consumed about 3 MW to keep those blades turning. Canberra, how did you cope without any electricity? Parliament was sitting, so those pollies must have been even more in the dark than usual. Was that Minister Frydenberg’s contribution to “downward pressure on electricity prices”?
The grid must be able to cope with output from Ararat of 0-240 MW, not in response to demand, but at random depending on wind conditions.
As it happens, just 110 km away from Ararat there are open cycle gas generators at Mortlake with a capacity of 560 MW. Mortlake represents an investment of $810 million by Origin, including the associated gas pipeline from a gas plant in the Otways. So those generators can also provide backup for Ararat, as well as the 190 MW wind farm at Waubra, 420 MW at Macarthur, and 110 MW at Bald Hills, all in western Victoria. Combined wind capacity 960 MW, average delivery 290 MW.
The cost of electricity from Ararat must therefore be calculated factoring in the additional cost of 72 MW of reliable generators, coal, gas, diesel, or hydro available on demand. But it’s worse than that, because in high winds, Ararat delivers over 200 MW spasmodically, so on those occasions it lowers the utilisation of additional generators, reducing their cost effectiveness, and adding to the unit costs of electricity.
Wait a minute, what about a big battery like the Musk/Tesla 100 MW battery at Hornsdale wind farm in SA? That big battery cost a reported $50 million (although the SA govt refused to publish the cost) for 129 MWhr. So that would provide 2 hours of backup for Ararat. Therefore, to provide a one week battery backup for Ararat would require 12,000 MWhr or 94 Tesla big batteries at a capital cost of $4.7 billion! Affordable electricity? I think not.
Dr Finkel reported the levelised cost of wind generation to be $92/MWhr, but he did not include any backup costs to provide dispatchable, reliable electricity.
The AEMO grid has survived to date because there has been backup hydro, gas and coal available when the wind doesn’t blow. But as more wind generators come onstream, utilisation of other generators decreases, putting more pressure on prices and eventual closure of some generators as we have seen in SA and Vic. The government has argued that under the NEG, there will be more supply, putting downward pressure on prices. But if prices drop, plants with low utilisation will close.
In SA they now want to spend $1.5 billion on another interconnector, despite having 1,800 MW of wind generators, built at a capital cost of over $3 billion, delivering on average about 540 MW, but sometimes zero. SA has a demand on the grid that varies from 1,000-2,000 MW, and probably even higher in summer. So despite all that wind power, they need to have on standby at least 2,000 MW of reliable power supplies. That’s what drives their costs. Last summer they even added 250 MW of diesel generators to ensure the lights stayed on after they shutdown their last coal-fired power station.
Conclusion: Electricity costs must rise with intermittent supplies like wind (and solar) generators because you must also invest in backup generators to supply reliable, dispatchable power to meet demand 24/7.
391
Good summary.
Also if an another interconnector is built between SA and NSW, it will then spread the SA disease to NSW by completely destroying any viability of the NSW baseload coal power stations, as they become forced to shutdown when wind power from SA floods the system. And if anyone was to get a reduction of $30 on their bill (seriously how are these ludicrous numbers calculated?), it would be in SA whereas in NSW electricity costs would escalate. A recipe for national suicide of the electricity supply.
100
Excellent post. I wonder what people would think of coal fired powered stations if they could only be turned on about the same amount of time each day as wind and solar are available? Of course they would laugh them out of existence. Yet intermittent wind and solar get all the fanfare and coal fired power stations are treated as evil monsters by the major parties and much of the public. I think we need a lesson in common sense taught the hard way – a large does of long blackouts. I believe it’s the only way the message can be made loud and clear to all except the real die hard lefties who want our nation to crash and burn.
100
Just imagine if South Australians lived in a coal generated power paradise like they used to. They would still have cheap power that they could rely on and wouldn’t have to spend lots of taxpayers money ($1.5B), to make it cheaper, but still more expensive than it was before the death of coal. Oh the irony!!!!!!!!!!!!
160
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
More inter connectors won’t make electricity affordable again.
The experiment already failed in the Province of Ontario.
150
A major stakeholder in Electranet is State Grid International Development Asia & Australia Holding Company. The international arm of the State Grid Corporation of China.
Should we be alarmed?
110
How could we trust the governments when ministers are prepared to make deceptive comments to hide the facts from us.
Example last week in the 2GB Radio Ray Hadley programme when Minister Frydenberg in support of increasing wind and solar based energy claimed that the US has reduced coal fired power stations to about 30 per cent of total electricity generators. He failed to say that the US has many nuclear and hydro power stations and wind and solar are a small segment of the energy source mix.
Or that since President Trump overturned the Obama administration coal use penalties new coal fired power stations are now being planned fir the US.
161
Gas powered electrical generators have popped up all over the place with the demise of coal. Fracking kept gas supplies plentiful and prices low. This is why the US has been able to reduce CO2 emissions as gas generation has grown with coal generations’ decline.
70
nuclear war to get rid of Trump anyone? if ever we needed proof phony CAGW zealots are mad, here it is:
29 Jun: Rolling Stone: A Conversation With Tom Steyer, the Liberal Billionaire Bankrolling Trump’s Impeachment
By Tim Dickinson
For many progressives, it’s obvious that President Trump deserves to be impeached. From his campaign’s collaboration with Russia to his admitted obstruction of justice in firing James Comey to his profiting from the office of the presidency to his ceaseless lying and attacks on the free press – the articles of impeachment almost write themselves…
Steyer, who made his fortune as a hedge-fund manager, built the Need to Impeach campaign as an offshoot of his group NextGen America, best known for climate advocacy…
STEYER: It’s very hard for me to believe – as the father of four millennials – that the way to convince them that we are trustworthy, that we are moral, that we take things seriously and that we have their backs, is by burying the truth…
STEYER: It’s like being at a dinner party and somebody makes a racial slur and you speak up and say, “I think that’s really wrong, and you should take that back,” and everyone says, “Ooooh, you’re making a big fuss here.” Like, yeah, we’re making a big fuss – because something is wrong. Everyone’s acting as though it’s somehow impolite to stand up for American democracy…
STEYER: I remember 2006. What happened is that George W. Bush, he put us in two disastrous wars and we were headed toward the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression. So if the answer is that we need those three things to happen for a course correction, I’d prefer to move a little quicker. How about that? But I take your point.
***Maybe we can have, like, a nuclear war and then we get a real course correction…
DICKINSON: Wow – that’s…sobering.
STEYER: We’re trying to do what’s right. And 2006/2008 did not happen because George W. Bush didn’t get impeached, is what I’m saying. I should be a little bit more tempered: I take back that remark about nuclear war. The correction happened because the United States got screwed, and American citizens lost their houses and American citizens lost their lives – and, by the way, there was a terrible ***climate-related crisis, New Orleans, that the president fumbled. So that course correction was based on the suffering of American citizens. We’re trying to act expeditiously to avoid the suffering of American citizens…
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/who-is-tom-steyer-w522136
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WARRINGAH UPDATE
Given the decisions before the government about energy policy, I’ve been talking a lot about the need for reliable, affordable power.
The decisions we make now on energy policy will determine the shape of our economy for decades to come. My fear is that we are sleepwalking towards de-industrialising our country and that would be disastrous.
We need to ensure that we have affordable, reliable power, and the only way we can do that is if we get more coal-fired power into the system.
I talked about this with Alan Jones this morning, which you can listen to here.
Yours sincerely
TONY ABBOTT
150
https://www.2gb.com/we-have-a-duty-to-speak-up-tony-abbott-takes-dead-aim-at-malcolm-turnbull/
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Oh, Niki Savva is going to get upset now. Tony thr wrecker.
40
the BBC Weather video has a totally sober weather report! huh?
VIDEO: 30 Jun: UK Express: UK weather warning: Britain set for FORTNIGHT of sun in longest heatwave for 40 YEARS
BRITAIN will roast in at least another fortnight of blistering sunshine amid predictions for the longest heatwave in more than four decades.
Some forecasters are mooting the possibility of freakishly high temperatures holding out through the rest of summer.
By Nathan Rao
Weather charts show roasting air smothering the country into the middle of July keeping thermometers persistently locked above 30C (86F).
A government alert for ‘dangerous weather’ has been extended for another four days with no immediate end in sight to the blowtorch conditions…
John Hammond, forecaster for Weathertrending, said: “I see no quick end to our parched summer weather.
“Computer forecast models are often far too hasty in bringing such spells to an end – and they’re at it again. I suggest we prepare for the long haul.
“Water restrictions will increase as fears of drought heighten.
“Earlier indications of more widely cooler weather and rain by the weekend are fading.”…
Temperatures are expected to push past the 30C (86F) mark again tomorrow making this the most persistent heatwave since the historic scorcher of 1976.
Almost two weeks of relentless heat and widespread sunshine is due to an unusual buckling of the jet stream, experts say.
As a result a huge area of high pressure has become locked into position over the UK leading to a so-called ‘omega block’…
Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge said: “The weekend may be a little less hot than the past few days, but there is still a chance we will see another 30C somewhere, most likely in the south.
“If we do it will be the longest spell of 30C daily temperatures since 1976, so it would be the longest heatwave since that summer…
“Apart from this though, next week looks like staying warm and dry with high pressure still in charge into next weekend.
“We think temperatures will push up into the high 20Cs again or possibly higher.”
Britain roasted in another day of freakishly warm weather today which saw the mercury touch 32.5C (90.5C) in Porthmadog, Wales, by early afternoon…
Ladbrokes is offering 4/5 on a hosepipe ban this summer with 1/3 on June going down as the hottest on record…
Coral is offering 1/3 on the hottest summer ever with 1/2 on a hosepipe ban and 3/1 on this summer beating the all-time UK high temperature of 38.5C ()…
https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/981631/uk-weather-forecast-hot-uk-heatwave-how-long-heatwave-last-met-office-long-range-forecast
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30C is a blistering heatwave? I guess if things arent set up for heat it is
Sounds like they are having summer this year
72
The North Atlantic Oscillation is in positive territory, which explains everything.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html
If it was below the line the UK atmosphere would be cool and wet.
51
One other point, this from the Guardian.
‘The heatwave roasting Britain has given Glasgow its hottest day on record at 31.9C – leading to weather conditions known locally as “taps aff”.
‘The Met Office said the temperature on Thursday exceeded a previous peak of 31.1C, recorded in 1950.
‘The forecaster Sophie Yeomans said it was the warmest day of the year in Scotland, but it failed to beat the June record of 32.2C set in 1893 at Ochtertyre, in Perth and Kinross.’
———-
So what do the dates 1893 and 1950 have in common?
60
Too much CO2?
40
The “saving” is purely from a South Australian perspective. NSW will become another effective battery for South Australia with the power rating of the link and infinite capacity. That will threaten the survival of coal generation in the State as the imported volatility will be served by gas generation.
The wholesale price in Victoria in Q12017 was $79/MWh. Following the closure of Hazelwood the Q12018 price was $102/MW. Why did Hazelwood close – because it could not operate economically in a market where its demand is up and down like a yoyo due to the variable supply/demand across the link between SA and Victoria.
The chart above on the wind generation in SA for June 2018 provides a good example of the issues. With 1810MW of installed wind capacity in the state, the peak generation is being capped at 1300MW, the average output is around 700MW so the moderately constrained Capacity Factor is still an impressive 38%. All good apart from the fact that for 10 days the average was only 150MW. The Victorian monster “battery” was taking up to 600MW when the wind was blowing but supplying up to 600MW when the wind was not blowing.
Assuming the wind was supplying an average load of 700MW, there was a 10 day shortfall of 550MW. To put the value of the Victorian link in perspective that is 550MW by 2400hours equals 1,320,000MWh or 11,000 Horsndale Power Reserve. In round figures, the cost of that would be $1,000,000,000,000 (A neat Trillion dollars).
One of the untested arguments for more interconnection across the NEM is to enjoy the miracle of geographic diversity. This is an interesting chart in that regard:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgwaWgsMEeRv-O0ho
At a glance it appears to be the same as the one above but if you look closely you will see the scale is different because this chart has the output from the 5222MW of wind generation across the whole of Australia rather than just the 1810MW in SA. Benefit of geographic diversity is a fairy tale as applied to the geographic expanse of the NEM.
100
Correction – there are 240hrs in 10 days so 1,100 HPR at cost of $110,000,000,000. What another zero when it comes to spending money on electricity supply! (A trillion dollar battery would almost do the whole of the NEM.)
70
RickWill:
There are a couple of small problems with the forecast renewable paradise.
Firstly, those new wind farms near Pt. Augusta are connected to? – Adelaide via the existing transmission line put in for the coal fired plants. That means excess electricity has to flow 320-340 kms. and then aother 390km. (approx.) to join up with the interconnecter to SW NSW. I don’t know what the demand is in SW NSW but the exported electricity will need to pause and draw breath if it has to push onto the east coast where the demand is high.
A minor quibble is that wind turbines MUST have conection to the grid to align voltage, current and phase angle. No doubt extra money would be spent installing artificial target generators.
Secondly: That solar PV generation is from roof top installations. Anything they generate only goes into the local neighbourhood, not into the main grid at large. How it is blocked at the transformer I don’t know but I think it is a safety necessity. SO rooftop PV solar might power the suburbs but won’t power industry or commerce. I think I can safely say that any remaining industry will be forced to use their own diesel generators, but what of shops? How will the Greens prepare the general public for the horrors to come? NO tumeric or soy milk latté coffees!
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Graeme#3
The solar energy generation is not blocked. The transformers work with power flow in either direction. The generators in power stations all operate at lower voltage than the transmission lines they connect to. Each generator has a transformer to increase their output voltage to the transmission voltage.
AEMO are already forecasting ZERO NEM demand in SA by 2024. That is why they are evaluating synchronous capacitors to ensure voltage and frequency stability when there is no need for gas generators to produce power. It also means all those grid scale wind and solar generators will have no load in SA and why larger capacity connectors are required between SA and NSW. There is a chart here that shows the rooftop solar contribution to the energy supply in SA:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-pushes-south-australia-to-record-low-demand-again-47836/
There can certainly be local issues where the distribution network does not have the capacity to handle the high midday output from rooftop solar. In that case the voltage in the area increases to the point that the grid connected inverters either reduce output as the 255V control point is approached or just shutdown at the 258V limit. All grid connected inverters in Australia since 2016 must have over voltage control.
20
Not what I have been told but will have to believe you.
So what happens in SA when a cloud obscures the sun? Especially on a hot humid day in summer when the demand is around 2800MW? Do we put in another 3 interconnectors? We won’t have CCGT gas turbines remaining in a dead market, and would OCGTs be suitable (and cheap enough)?
My old inverter 2010 installation shut down at 255V. I put this down to being in a local high concentration of solar PV as other residents elsewhere in the township didn’t report loss.
10
I suspect Graeme that on cold winters days the localised system won’t have to cope with too much fluctuation, and of course they will be using the big battery and quick response gas.
As you suggest, the big drama will be the intermittent appearance of cloud cover in summer.
Interesting. The whole business is stupidity to the Max.
10
Possible intervention to manage power system security in South Australia (SA) – 28/06/2018
http://nem.mwheeler.org/notice/NEMITWEB1_MKTNOTICE_20180628.R63279
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Power shortages in NSW already, can’t afford an aluminium smelter.
https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5456848/tomago-aluminium-hits-out-at-power-shortage/
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The OZ, front page news yesterday:’The largest peace-time warship
building program in Australian naval history has been awarded to
British defence giant BAE Systems under a $36 billion contract
to deliver some of the most advanced anti-submarine warfare
vessels in the world.’Note the word, ‘deliver,’ ha ha, …to be
built in South Australia. 🙂
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They still have time to build a nuclear power plant and with so much yellow cake underfoot it should be considered an option. This blurb from Westinghouse.
The AP1000 PWR is the safest and most economical nuclear power plant available in the worldwide commercial marketplace. The established design of the AP1000 plant offers three distinct advantages over other designs:
Unequaled safety
Economic competitiveness
Improved and more efficient operations
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I believe we already have a devastating anti-submarine plan. It’s called MDFOSALC (Make Dodgy French Oiler Subs in Adelaide Late in Century). The plan is to proceed, irrespective of cost. A steely-eyed Malcolm has been spotted in Pyne country wearing hard hat and fluoro jacket. When you see that fluoro, he means business.
The submarines. They shall not pass.
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Ils ne passerons pas!
40
They will not pass. Muster.
50
’tweren’t nevah … ne jamais, about passing muster,
in logic of the situation sense, but rather, about
mustering the sheeple, in a politial sense, comme
cli-sce was ne jamais about the science.
10
Miles Kington (RIP) would be proud of you! He wrote about Franglais….the sort of French the average Briton would use while in France!
30
And why does Australia have aluminium smelters, better why did Australia have many aluminium smelters until Labor’s carbon tax, 23 per cent RET and other anti-business government impositions forced closures and others considering closure, loss of jobs, tax revenue, etc?
To smooth our the electricity supply from power stations during off peak periods, to add value to the mining of bauxite, to produce aluminium for Australian manufacturers and for export markets.
Today’s Paris Agreement blinkered politicians are traitors.
150
It was only a week ago that sinister minister Freudenburgh was quoting the Manager of Tomago Aluminium as saying he was onside with the new NEG and was sure Tomago would “power” on into the future.
I didn’t believe him at the time and this has confirmed it.
How can the liberal party allow themselves to be led by people like our President and his magnificent Energy Disseminator Freudenburglar.
These people have no strength, no pride and no integrity.
Over the last forty five years our governments have shown complete disinterest in planning for a transition from largely manual work to the modern world and bought votes with a couple of major schemes designed to give the appearance of them doing something.
Major Schemes.
The dole. ” unemployment benefits” so high that this is seen as an excellent “job” in itself. The main benefit is that it makes people think that the politicians really care for them.
University for Everyone.
This is the biggest and bestest. Governments created more university places and “living”, or was that “playing” allowances to let people know that they were cared for and that their undoubted intelligence was seen and acknowledged.
Last great scam is “Saving the Planet” by cutting emissions of CO2. Apart from the Elephant in the room, which is never mentioned in polite society, this scam has everyone under control. The elephant, of course, is that you can’t stop the oceans from “emissioning” the dreaded CO2.
Any scientists stupid enough to go against the new orthodoxy are summarily ridded.
Our country is not well served by politicians whose sole focus is to get to the end of the qualifying term for their massive Parliamentary Superannuation Package.
Revolting.
KK
40
30 Jun: Guardian: ‘We’ve turned a corner’: farmers shift on climate change and want a say on energy
National Farmers’ Federation head Fiona Simson says people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes
• Podcast: Why farmers are getting behind the science on climate change
“We have been experiencing some wild climate variability,” Simson tells Guardian Australia’s politics podcast. “It’s in people’s face”.
“While we are a land of droughts and flooding rains, absolutely at the moment people are seeing enormous swings in what would be considered usually normal. They are getting all their rainfall at once, even though they end up with an annual rainfall that’s the same, it’s all at once, or it’s in so many tiny insignificant falls that it doesn’t make any difference to them.
“And the heat. We’ve had some record hot summers and some weird swings in seasons”.
Simson acknowledges there are “always going to be some outliers who are going to have some wild ideas” in farming or in any other sector of the Australian economy but she says “overwhelmingly, I think it’s got to the point where the science is very acceptable”…
Simson isn’t trying to pretend black is white. She acknowledges the Neg looks a whole lot like the emissions trading scheme that her group shouted down only a couple of years ago. “I think the Neg for us is some sort of ETS potentially. It certainly talks about carbon and putting a value on that. There will be a price on that and there we go.”…
She is supportive of the efforts of the agriculture minister, David Littleproud – a next-generation Queensland National – to reset the resting disposition for the Nationals on climate change and energy. Littleproud is happy to acknowledge that climate change is happening and he characterises the shift to renewables as “exciting”…
Simson says dissenters need to get out of the road of a settlement. Consensus needs to be reached because the damage inflicted by the last decade of policy warfare is going to take time to unwind, and the key to unwinding the destruction is policy certainty…
She says farms are often at the end of the power grid and are not well served by the status quo. She says the Neg framework could allow farmers to band together, and small communities to band together, to build their own energy infrastructure.
“We can work with this general framework. There is lot of opportunity”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/30/weve-turned-a-corner-farmers-shift-on-climate-change-and-want-a-say-on-energy
22 Jun: Guardian: Farmers’ federation lines up against Tony Abbott on national energy guarantee
by Paul Karp
On Friday the federation’s president, Fiona Simson, said the Neg was “the best game in town at the moment” and farmers did not want to see it “politicised”…
On Friday Simson endorsed the Neg, telling ABC’s AM that although it “doesn’t give us everything we want” it was “the best game in town” for the energy-dependent agricultural sector…
“We want affordable, reliable, secure energy supply and we know that we have to trend to lower emissions as well to keep in line with our international targets,” Simson said…
Later the prime minister endorsed Simson’s comments and said the Neg had “enormous support” including from the NFF and manufacturers…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/22/farmers-federation-lines-up-against-tony-abbott-on-national-energy-guarantee
10
NFF’s Fiona Simson probably gets her CAGW science from Guardian and ABC:
30 Jun: Guardian: More Saddleworth-style fires likely as climate changes, scientists warn
Saddleworth fires will also exacerbate problems as the UK’s peatlands store huge amounts of carbon that they will release
by Matthew Taylor
As the army joined firefighters to tackle the blaze near Manchester and a second fire was reported on nearby upland, scientists said similar events are increasingly likely in future, with potentially devastating consequences for the environment and human health.
Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London, said recent studies showed “climate change is expected to increase the fire frequency and severity of wildfire in Europe”.
He said the effect is predicted to be “even more pronounced in northern Europe, including the UK and Ireland”.
Dr Richard Payne of the University of York agreed, saying that “devastating events like we are seeing today at Saddleworth Moor are likely to happen more often in the future”. He also warned the fires would exacerbate climate change, as the UK’s peatlands store huge amounts of carbon that is then released…
Campaigners have also warned that the use of UK uplands for grouse shooting makes fires more likely. Guy Shrubsole, an environmental activist who is writing a book on land ownership in England, said there was “a strong correlation” between the fire on Saddleworth Moor and “the tell-tale signs of intensively managed grouse moor”…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/29/more-saddleworth-style-fires-likely-as-climate-changes-scientists-warn
00
Not unlikely at all. This alleged variability can most likely be laid to rest at the feet of the magnetic pole shenanigans. It’s not Anthropogenic Climate Change from CO2 and other emissions. As the ‘pole swap’ comes closer, and the planet’s magnetic field becomes weaker, the weather is going to swing, and probably swing quite wildly, and suddenly.
There’s no point trying to fix that. Lightning is not controllable: the charge between earth and the top of the atmosphere will be equalized regardless and anyone in the way vapourized. While our protective magnetic field decays as it prepares for the pole swap, then there is going to be more `equalizing’ (lightning storms)—the sun is not going to stop dumping charge (the Solar Wind) into our atmosphere just because the farmers are becoming disturbed. Nor are more windmills, PV panels, batteries, blame slinging and prayers going to do anything to help cure it. They’re a waste of time and money although the latter may comfort some.
It’s a case of Mind over Matter: the Sun doesn’t mind and we don’t matter.
To get through it, we need fossil fuels.
50
The #1 Risk to Earth is not a bit of Carbon Dioxide from burning Fossil Fuels.
Watch and Think!
20
This is not a doom thing, is it?
.
.
.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe this is ocurring …
.
.
.
“This is not an Amway thing, is it?”
40
WXCycles asked:
I have no idea. I’ve never lived through a magnetic pole swap before. Neither has anybody else. We’re all on the same roller coaster whether we like it or not so we’ll all find out in due course.
The last one was about 780,000 years ago, known as the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal. The magnetic poles had a bit of a flirtation and played swapsie in the Laschamp event about 41,000 years ago. They decided they didn’t like each other that way then, and swapped
back. The Laschamp affair lasted about 440 years with the actual change of polarity lasting around 250 years. Fickle things, those poles.
The point to take away is that the planetary magnetic field weakened to about 5% (!) of its normal value. It’s now at about 85% of that value having lost about 15% of its strength over the last couple of decades. That means Cosmic Ray exposure will grow significantly and the Solar Wind will be able to wreak havoc in our atmosphere. Cloud cover caused by the increase in Cosmic Rays will be higher, but who knows by how much? Lots and lots? Just lots? Or just a bit more? More is certain. That means an increase in albedo and less TSI reaching the surface. Will it or won’t it? Colder times is an easy prediction. This is going to add to the reduction in Solar Activity predicted by some in 2030. That renders PV power generation moot.
Lots more cloud and colder temps will raise more storms thanks to the SW penetration into the atmosphere. Wind mills might actually be useful but the current attitude of neglect by their owner-operators and lack of control will be exciting. Watch the blackouts.
It’s easy to see that continuing using fossil fuels will save lives and maybe save civilisation. Maybe not. It’s uncharted waters but I do think that Global Warming is DED. (Done, Expired and Dead) out to 2100 and maybe well beyond. The IPCC’s claim of “warming out to 2100” is fraught with insecurity and I would go so far as to say it is 97% unlikely. Perhaps we need to build more coal and nuclear starting right now?
20
I see you’re taking this seriously Soph, fine, and yes one day that may occur, possible, but I have seen too many projections (and other varieties of prophecies) to buy into the ‘great tribulation’ type naratives. They’re all much the same, and I’m comfortable with being mortal-ish, not afraid of the inevitable if it is such. If I awake tomorrow fine, if I don’t, it’s not like I’ll be writing a complaint about it. I expect the polish-flipping will have some rather pretty sun sets amid all the calamity and carnage.
As it turns out people who are having a panic attack will calm down amazingly quickly if you look them in the eye and calmly tell them to, “just breathe deeply with me”. And 30 seconds later they’re usually fine. You see people get so afraid that they don’t think or even breathe properly, then their body becomes anxious, but the person does not realise their fear of what they are thinking about is slowly starving their blood of oxygen. Bit of positive feedback later and they are having a full-blown panic attack and have a strong general sense of doom and feel like they are dying.
All of it is triggered by their own anxious thoughts spiralling and building, and the their fear responses amplifying while breathing is being neglected, which sums to pure fear and absolute panic … about the imagined and projected.
Recognise your thoughts trigger the fear, pay attention to *here-now-real* and keep breathing deeply, which equals no fear or panic, pure relief, good feelings, no worry.
Anyway all the best Soph, every breath achieved now is better than everything when you can’t get you’re next one, or some peace of mind.
Good sleep, deep-breathing, and a lack of imagination are all very under-rated.
30
29 Jun: Port Macquarie News: Climate Change Australia to hold silent vigil in Port Macquarie on June 30 as a rally to put an end to new coal mines
The vigil is part of a national day of events all around Australia and has a call to action to end to new coal mines and coal power…
CCAH president Kerri-ann Jones said her group considered a silent vigil to be in keeping with the seriousness of the problem as climate change impacts worsen around the world, driven mainly by burning coal.
“With coral reefs dying, heat records smashed, the biggest storms and droughts in history, ice caps melting and island communities fighting for survival, we are facing a climate emergency,” Ms Jones said.
“Ending coal mining and coal power is a matter of urgency. Fossil fuel companies continue to dig up coal and spew CO2 into the atmosphere, supported by state and federal governments. The fossil fuel industry still has plans to produce far more CO2 than is considered safe,” she said.
“All the carbon in proven coal, oil and gas reserves is four times the amount scientists tell us we can pour into the atmosphere by mid-century and still have any hope of avoiding dangerous climate change.”
The 2018 Lowy Poll found that 84 per cent of Australians are in favour of renewable energy rather than coal…
Attendees are encouraged to wear red or black, bring sun protection and water.
https://www.portnews.com.au/story/5494627/silent-protest-vigil-to-end-reliance-on-coal/
LinkedIn: Kerri-ann Jones
Climate Change Australia – Hastings Branch
Co-ordinator
Starting 2014
Friends of the ABC: Mid North Coast Branch
Committee Member
Starting 2014
https://au.linkedin.com/in/kerri-ann-jones-98a87439
01
Climate Change Australia: Hastings Branch in New South Wales
President: Kerri-ann Jones…
***Our Patron is Rob Oakeshott.
http://climatechangehastings.org.au/index.php/about-us
11
Oakeshott of all people, what an ultra-lightweight.
60
This 84% figure maybe a bit dodgy, but taking it on face value the ginger group will need to get cracking. Resurrecting the climate wars would kick start the debate.
30
Friends of the ABC: Mid North Coast Branch….says it all really.
With that “traitor” Oakeshott as patron..tells us even more…!
People of the Lyon Electorate havent forgotten him…!
Trouble with Port Macquarie, they have too many retired City Slickers, trying to tell the locals they “know it all “!
Maybe they should talk to the struggling farmers in the area ….
40
Personally, I think their “silent vigil” is their incoming obituary, observed early but then they won’t be around to observe it later. Burning coal, on the other hand, might just save them. (see my comments at #22.2.2.1 etc)
20
I do not understand what universe the people writing this report are in.
Just on a reall fundamental level, they think that:
– Taking the most expensive electricity in Australia(maybe they world)
– Spending $1.5 Billion to send it into NSW
– Injecting intermittent power into NSW at unscheduled times, thereby increasing complexity and decreasing stability of a core service
will result in a cost saving to end consumers ????????????????????
how? because magic? how has adding cost and complexity ever reduced the cost of the end product?
110
We here in NSW are to become a milk cow for South Australia.
70
Everyone is a milk cow for SA and Tas.
Please send more GST – as instructed.
20
I just wonder if I am missing something. I wonder what mental gymnastics and financial contortions you have to go through to get a saving?
Perhaps they mean the Feds pay for the interconnector (another item never to make it to the accounting for renewables) and SA reaps benefits and gives the tortured souls there some relief. The rest of us pay and SA customers get some relief maybe?
30
Something like that, maybe, possibly, I think that’s it….is it? Isn’t it.Eh?
21
No, you got it.
40
29 Jun: RenewEconomy: Tesla batteries arrive for world’s first wind-solar-battery project
By Giles Parkinson
The first Tesla Powerpack batteries have arrived on site in north Queensland, ready to be installed at what will be the world’s first grid-connected project combining large scale wind, solar and battery storage.
The first stage of the Kennedy Energy Hub will comprise 43.5MW of wind, 15MW of solar and 4MWh of the Tesla Powerpack 100kWh batteries, which arrived on site earlier this month.
Construction is due to be completed later this year, and will be the second leading battery storage project in Queensland, following the connection late last year of the Lakeland solar and battery project – the first to connect to a grid in Australia – at Cooktown further to the north.
For Tesla, it is the third major big battery storage project in Australia, following the ground-breaking and world’s largest battery at what is known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, next to the Hornsdale wind farm, and the 20MW/50MWh battery now being installed at the Ganawarra solar farm in Victoria…
(Windlab CEO Roger) Price says the wind and solar at Kennedy are highly complimentary.
“Of course, you get solar in the middle of the day, the wind resource picks up as the sun starts to set, blows through night, then then continues until after the sun rises, where it drops off,” he told the Large Scale Solar and Storage conference in Sydney this week.
Price says that the battery will help the project more effectively “clip the peak”, and dispatch at time of high demand. At Kennedy, it will also help in curtailment issues.
The site is currently limited to a 50MW connection point, potentially leading to around 3 per cent curtailment, and so the decision to “stuff” any surplus into the battery and release it at other times.
Price says that a bigger battery may be appropriate, but the economics of battery storage were still “marginal”, although “getting better quickly”…
Windlab has previously talked of its plans for “Big Kennedy”, potentially combining 600MW of wind and 600MW of solar, which along with storage would be able to deliver “baseload” renewables at a far lower price than any new coal-fired generator that some have called for.
Price says that the area has potential for 2GW of wind energy, at a very high capacity factor of around 45 per cent – which he notes does not blow or produce at the same time as wind resources in South Australia and Victoria.
Those plans will depend on new network infrastructure, but Price says it will be critical to help Queensland meet its 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-batteries-arrive-worlds-first-wind-solar-battery-project-98998/
29 Jun: Yale e360: Solar and Wind Will Supply Nearly One-Third of Australia’s Electricity by 2030
Renewable energy will provide one-third of Australia’s electricity in the country’s populous eastern and southern states by 2020, according to a new analysis (LINK) by Green Energy Markets, an energy research group. This represents an almost doubling of the share of renewable energy in the region compared to 2015, when it supplied just 17.3 percent of annual electricity consumption…
Green Energy Markets predicted that by 2030, renewable energy would account for 40 percent of electricity generation in the National Electricity Market, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (LINK)…
Last month, existing renewable energy in Australia avoided 2.4 million tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of taking 9.2 million cars off the road.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/solar-and-wind-will-supply-nearly-one-third-of-australias-electricity-by-2030
20
(Windlab CEO Roger) Price says the wind and solar at Kennedy are highly complimentary.
“Of course, you get solar in the middle of the day, the wind resource picks up as the sun starts to set, blows through night, then then continues until after the sun rises, where it drops off,”
These people tell blatant lies, re prediction of sun and wind weather on an “ongoing basis”..
Gee not even the BOM can forecast with that accuracy…
Do these people really listen to what they are saying and selling??
Australia has become increasing FULL of BS artists, and snake-oil salesmen.!
50
Indeed, what “Kennedy” of what planet is he talking about, where the sun shines reliably all day to be neatly relayed by a wind at night? A wind blowing till sunrise? With a battery of marginal economic effectiveness (his words) to help “clip the peak”? (I’ll bet “clip the peak” is currently regarded as a masterpiece of management-speak, and even now all the cool young execs are aspiring to “unpack” and “process” the significance of “peak-clipping” for the benefit of adoring secretaries and coffee-fetchers.)
Surely Price could not be CEO of a solvent company and believe that such regular climatic conditions exist anywhere in this solar system. Surely he could not be addressing a room full of adults anywhere in this solar system…without being pelted with what objects come to hand. Surely any adults would have clipped his peak.
Or have all the adults left since Elon’s Upholstery in Space? Maybe that’s it. Maybe the adult have just given up.
30
The Price ain’t right.
20
No Shannon, this Kennedy windy thing is the real-deal, this one’s gonna work and show the way forward.
And even if it turned out to be like, a total freakin crock … hahaha! … yeah, as if … well, it’s sitting right at the northern end of the Galilee Basin’s epic coal measures province.
40
Whoo hoo! More random ignition bonfires!
00
30 Jun: Bloomberg: World’s One-Time Biggest Solar Manufacturer Delisted From NYSE
By Jim Efstathiou Jr
Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., once the world’s biggest solar-panel manufacturer, has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange as its value has plummeted.
Trading was suspended after the exchange told Yingli it failed to maintain an average market capitalization of at least $50 million for 30 consecutive trading days, the Baoding, China-based company said in a statement Friday…
Yingli has been unraveling for years…
Wall Street has held a dim view of solar manufacturers in recent years. Other public companies including Canadian Solar Inc. and JA Solar Holdings Co. have looked to go private as panel prices have fallen and shares have followed suit. Trina Solar Ltd., which replaced Yingli as the largest manufacturer, went private last year.
Yingli, which has warned investors that it may not be able to pay debts, will remain subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements for foreign issuers, according to the statement. The company will cease issuing regular quarterly earnings statements.
Yingli’s ADRs ceased trading at $1.43, an all-time low
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/world-s-one-time-biggest-solar-manufacturer-delisted-from-nyse
20
Tasmania’s interconnector was initiated on a promise of ‘net economic benefit’.
Instead – over it’s 13 year life – Tassie’s interconnector has delivered an additional cost to the Tasmanian economy of between 50 and 100 million dollars (despite Gillard’s attempt to tax CO2).
However and besides the ‘lived experience’ – the Tasmanian Government are now considering a second $1+billion connector in order to drive a net economic benefit that the first interconnector has not delivered.
They (the politicians) are all laughing at the stupid arse taxpayers, all the time.
40
” … Tasmania’s interconnector was initiated on a promise of ‘net economic benefit’. …”
—-
garhhahahaha! …. heh, yeah … a lot of people fell for that one.
40
This sort of stuff is hard to read when it exposes, once again, the gigantic misdirection we as taxpayers and consumers are being dealt.
Renewables in all forms, are;
1. Obscenely expensive to build.
2. Only able to function with outrageously expensive storage systems: batteries.
3. Only functional for a fraction of the working life of reliable coal fired generators.
4. Disgustingly dirty in terms of pollution during essential mining operations for the “ingredients” prior to construction.
5. Windturbines and concentrating solar are the cause of outrageous numbers of beautiful birds being killed needlessly.
6. Demolition of defunct generators is frequently “avoided” and becomes a burden on the future.
This mess has been created by politicians overriding basic facts in order to accumulate votes and thus guarantee their early retirement pension of approximately $200,000 pa.
There is a further, more cynical, aspect to this in that the price transfer lottery that constitutes our electricity system has very specific beneficiaries hidden deep in the woodwork.
This mess is NOT the creation of Engineers.
KK
161
29 Jun: Reuters: Planning a wind farm in Norway? Connecting to grid from 2019 may cost you
by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos
A Norwegian plan to force big power consumers and producers to pay for grid upgrades and extensions could disrupt new projects from wind farms and data centers to ventures in the oil industry, companies told Reuters.
Beginning in 2019, Norway’s water resources and energy directorate (NVE) wants firms benefiting from grid additions to pay up to half the investment cost, often a major sum in remote regions seeking to attract industry and jobs.
NVE, which by Monday will issue an amended draft of its plan, aims to cut overall costs and distribute them fairly by encouraging big consumers and producers to build their facilities in locations that already have strong grids.
Investments of around $17 billion are planned to take place between 2016-2025, the regulator said, and companies consuming or producing power fear they would have to foot a significant part of the bill…
Norway’s Oil and Gas Association said the rules could raise the cost of supplying electricity to offshore oil platforms, as well as for grid upgrades planned at onshore facilities, such as the Nyhamna gas processing plant.
A transitional regime, taking into account binding commitments made before January 2019, will be included in the plan, NVE said. The regulator has the authority to unilaterally impose the changes
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-power-investment/planning-a-wind-farm-in-norway-connecting-to-grid-from-2019-may-cost-you-idUSKBN1JP1CV
20
behind paywall, Irish edition. (Oireachtas aka the Irish Parliament)
30 Jun: UK Times: TDs dismayed by International Energy Agency’s support for oil drilling
by Seán McCárthaigh
Members of an Oireachtas committee said they were surprised and disappointed that the International Energy Agency (IEA) was still advocating investment in fossil fuels despite global efforts to tackle climate change.
Tim Gould, head of the IEA’s world energy outlook team, said there were falling levels of investment in oil and gas exploration globally, which could lead to supply issues in the early 2020s.
He told the committee on communications, climate change and the environment that continuing investment would be necessary to bridge the gap between the decline in production of fossil fuels and the growth in energy demand, which cannot be fully replaced by environmentally friendly sources…
25 Jun 2018: Oireachtas: The Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment will focus on future exploration, energy supply and energy security on Tuesday,26 June 2018 when it meets with Tim Gould, senior energy analyst at the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
Chair of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment Hildegarde Naughton TD said: “Energy supply and energy security is a key challenge facing Ireland today. Ireland is highly dependent on imported oil and gas – our oil dependency was the fourth highest in the EU in 2013, at 49% of all energy use, according to a report on energy security in Ireland by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. All of Ireland’s oil is imported. In 2014, 96% of natural gas used in Ireland was imported compared to an EU average of 65%…
It is an opportunity to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing policy-makers as Ireland transitions to a low-carbon economy, reducing its demand for imported fossil fuels and promotes the use of renewable energy.”…
Oireachtas: The Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Publications
(SCROLL DOWN TO)
Published on Tue, 26 Jun 2018: Opening statement, Tim Gould, International Energy Agency
Statement by Tim Gould on future exploration, energy supply and energy security DOWNLOAD PDF
(INCLUDES)
The future is electrifying
India adds the equivalent of today’s European Union to its electricity generation by 2040, while China adds today’s United State…
Conclusions
A profound shift in investments is needed to meet sustainable development goals, but investment in new oil and gas projects is required even in deep decarbonisation scenario…
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/publications/?committee%5B0%5D=%2Findex.php%2Fen%2Fcommittees%2F32%2Fcommunications-climate-action-and-environment%2F&topic%5B0%5D=briefing-papers&topic%5B1%5D=correspondence&topic%5B2%5D=opening-statements-submissions
10
29 Jun: CBC: Sask. government calls on Doug Ford to help fight federal carbon tax
Minister Dustin Duncan says it’s ‘nice to have an ally’ that supports Saskatchewan’s position
by Ashleigh Mattern
The Saskatchewan Government is looking to other provinces in its fight against a federal carbon tax.
In April, the government submitted a reference case to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals in April to determine if the federal carbon tax is constitutional…
“It’s certainly nice to have an ally in government across Canada that seems to support the position of the province of Saskatchewan,” Duncan said.
He said the Saskatchewan government is willing to share information with Ford, both about the tax-free climate change strategy they’re developing and the legal arguments they’ll be making at the court of appeal.
The Saskatchewan government has said it believes carbon emissions fall under provincial and not federal jurisdiction…
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-government-doug-ford-federal-carbon-tax-1.4729561
29 Jun: National Observer: Fedeli says quitting carbon market shows Ontario is ‘open for business’
By Fatima Syed
Ontario’s new finance minister says he believes that withdrawing the province from the cap-and-trade carbon market signals that Ontario “is open for business.”…
“I think you heard very clearly from Premier Ford today that what we need to do is open up the books in Ontario to get an understanding of where the province truly sits,” Fedeli said in an interview with National Observer. “Now we were once the engine of confederation and today we are no longer in that position.”
Fedeli said the previous Liberal government had created policies that saw an exodus of 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the province and created some of the highest energy rates in North America…
Fedeli said elimination of the cap-and-trade policy would “help encourage businesses to reconsider Ontario.” And he said it was a way to reduce the price of gasoline, although he did not explain how specifically…
The Conservatives refer to cap-and-trade as a tax although it is not a tax. It’s a market trading system for carbon emissions under which the previous government raised $3 billion in revenues for emission-reducing initiatives such as home retrofits and electric vehicle subsidies, as well as support for clean technology initiatives…
Fedeli dismissed the criticism and warnings from the opposition parties that the new government’s plans would wind up costing the province more money.
“There’s not a single item that you touch in a day that didn’t have its price increased because of the cap and trade tax,” Fedeli asserted. “By eliminating it, not only is that burden removed from families but it’s a clear signal sent to the business community that a Doug Ford Ontario is open for business.”…
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/06/29/news/fedeli-says-quitting-carbon-market-shows-ontario-open-business
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30 Jun: ThisIsMoneyUK: INVESTMENT EXTRA: Think coal is dead? It could be about to soar
By Lucy White For The Daily Mail
Analysts at investment bank Jefferies released a note to investors this month saying that ‘rumours of coal’s death are premature’.
It has raised its target price of seaborne thermal coal, burned for steam to generate electricity, as opposed to coking coal, which is used to create steel and iron, from £68 to £80 per ton for the remainder of 2018. It also lifted its long-term estimate from £49 to £63 per ton.
Christopher LaFemina, an equity analyst at the bank, said the predictions ‘may still be too low’, though they were well above other analysts’ predictions…
Though it may have become a dirty word in the UK, with the government putting all its energy into funding renewables, coal is still a vital commodity in developing countries where it fuels the economy.
Jason Hollands, managing director at investment manager Tilney, said: ‘In the near-term, the realities of increased demand against the backdrop of the continued global economic expansion are evident, with strong demand from India and South East Asia.
‘India in particular is struggling with supplies, which are essential for both its electricity network and steel production, and Australia looks set to be a key beneficiary of this.’…
Australia was the second-largest exporter of thermal coal last year, sending 206m tons, according to Jefferies. Indonesia was the largest, exporting 387m tons.
Ironically, lobbying by anti-fossil fuel activists to prevent new mines being built may have inadvertently helped to support coal prices, Hollands said…
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-5901973/INVESTMENT-EXTRA-Think-coal-dead-soar.html
TEN protesters, “but there are quite a few locals here.”, says one:
30 Jun: DailyMercury Mackay: Anti-coal protesters gather in Mackay
by Madura Mccormack
A TOTAL of 10 anti-coal protesters have gathered outside Member for Dawson George Christensen’s office on Saturday morning, calling for the government and the mining industry not to extract any new coal.
The protesters chanted slogans to the beat of a single drum while dressed in hazmat suits and holding signs that read “no new coal” and “stop Adani”, in reference to the Indian mining company planning to open a mine in the Galilee Basin…
Protester Joshua Grant, a born and bred local, said he has been involved in the movement for seven years.
“Australia needs to transition, move away from coal, and we need to embrace renewables,” he said…
“It’s easy for the government to say nah, they’re all southerners, but there are quite a few locals here.”…
Nearly 1 in every 4 people employed in the greater Mackay-Whitsunday-Isaac region works in the mining industry according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
A report released at the end of 2017 signalled a resurgence in the nation’s resource sector — particularly in the Bowen Basin.
https://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/anti-coal-protesters-gather-in-mackay/3455704/
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meanwhile, CAGW zealots reach a new low:
27 Jun: Relief Web: More parents trade girls for cows as war and climate change hit east Africa
Report from Thomson Reuters Foundation
Parents can now receive up to 300 cows in bride price, up from about 30 cows during peacetime
By Beh Lih Yi
Child marriage is increasing in parts of war-torn South Sudan and drought-hit Kenya as parents swap their daughters for cows and goats to survive, campaigners said on Wednesday.
Africa accounts for nine out of the 10 countries with the highest rates of underage unions globally, advocacy group Girls Not Brides said, with girls marrying due to tradition, family ties, the stigma of pregnancy out of wedlock and poverty.
But long-running wars and climate change are now leading factors too, activists said, highlighting a rise in marriage among girls under the age of 18 in South Sudan to 52 percent from 40 percent in 2010, according to United Nations data…
https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/more-parents-trade-girls-cows-war-and-climate-change-hit-east-africa
10
Just sighted a letter from Minister Josh Frydenberg to a constituent on electricity prices.
Existing government policies support around $280 of savings per year for households in the 2020-30 period. Modelling of the NEG shows it could reduce household bills by around an additional $120 per year over the 2020-2030 period compared to bills in 2017. The Guarantee is predicted to reduce wholesale electricity prices by an average of 23 per cent between 2020 and 2030. So Josh has had some modelling done, but that must be secret work by the ESB.
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Wait until he releases the savings for 2050 and beyond.
sarcasm
30
Sounds like another climate scientists commission job
20
Tell him hes dreamin !
Better still ….how about we get “sportsbet” involved…???
10
Very sorry, but this whole business makes me want to vomit!
A glorified extension lead to offload someone else’s intermittent, unreliable and very expensive electricity. Who is running this country anyway?
Fools, governed by more fools I say. Or is it simply criminal overcharging.
There should be laws in place to protect us from this kind of bullsh*t.
Yours truly and pissed off . . .
GeoffW
90
Like minded people GeoffW are a growing army of voters.
80
So, build new wind plants, and
blow upclose old coal fired power plants. It stands to reason that wind power is replacing coal fired power. It (supposedly) has been for the last ten years, so it sort of stands to reason that if there is more wind power in place currently, then there should be less coal fired power, or so we are being told, anyway.Hmm! Really!
Look at this for the power figures from the last two days.
I’m seeing something I didn’t think I would, and it’s only come to my notice in the last eight weeks I have been doing the daily power generation figures, with daily comments. I actually thought it was an anomaly, or just something short term, but it seems that wind power has no effect at all on what coal fired power is generating.
The only effect is with natural gas fired power and hydro power. if wind power is up, then those other two are down, mainly natural gas fired power, and vice versa, with wind low, then the other two are high.
Coal fired power just delivers what it always does deliver.
The case in point which confirms it and gives me reason to be brave enough to come out and say it is actually what happened yesterday, as seen in those figures above.
For the last 11 days, wind power has been very (very) low, averaging only 850MW per hour, every hour for those eleven days.
Yesterday, wind power spiked and to a really high total of an average of 2450MW per hour, pretty much stable across the day, a rise of 1740MW per hour. (at a Capacity factor close to 50% for the day)
And for coal fired power, there was only a 100MW fall, less than half of one percent change, and it’s been around that same figure of 18500MW for the last week or more.
T the same time, natural gas fired power was down heaps, and so was hydro power.
More wind equals less coal fired power?????
Well, no, it doesn’t.
It’s not isolated either as it has been happening for the last eight weeks. Every time wind is high, the others are low, and vice versa, and coal just hums along without even blinking.
It’s something I was not expecting to see, so that’s why it was such a surprise.
For the full data and text of comments, here’s the link.
Australian Daily Electrical Power Generation Data – Friday 29th June 2018
Tony.
170
I keep an eye on mem-watch and it is obvious that if the wind stirs and SA gets a reasonable return from wind, as they did y’day, they cut back on gas but still import. SA jealously guards any defence contracts, it’s “jobs, jobs, jobs” and all that but deliberately chose to export mining and power station jobs to the eastern states. Only politicians could think that makes sense.
Meanwhile Pluckachook in Qld is killing her golden goose by approving a long list of unreliables. We will have closures of thermal power stations soon.
80
On this basis they need to build & provide Gas Fired Power Stations and/or hydro, in parallel with, and to match all future wind turbine output (and at 3x nameplate).
How far can they go with such a system of duplication? The Gas plants would have to be on standby for most of the time in order to ‘prop up’ the windmills. Clearly inefficient and costly duplication. And also do we, at this time have the gas in Australia to fire more HRSG’s?
Get rid of the windmills. Wind energy makes no sense.
It’s not free and is only a costly & intermittent source of supply.
GeoffW
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Exactly Tony, see my comment at #11 above. To cost wind power you have to pair it with a reliable source so that you have 24/7 dispatchable power. As you have shown, wind is being paired with gas and in some cases hydro. Therefore wind only adds to the investment in electricity generators, it doesn’t displace anything as those reliable backups must continue to be available, and consequently overall costs must increase. And it can only get worse as more intermittent generators come onstream.
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Robber:
And the reported restriction of 400 kg CO2 per MWh means that even CCGTs will struggle to meet the target. Any disruption by wind forces them into lower effiiency mode, which means higher emissions, higher costs (and more maintenance because of thermal cycling stress).
HELE is right out at 700. OCGTs (the beloved Rapid Response Gas of uninformed Greens) are as bad as HELE for emissions and even more expensive that wind or solar PV.
It looks like we will have to use horses going round in circles driving a turnstyle which would avoid emissions (of CO2).
60
There would still be CO2 breathed out one end by the equines and then the unmentionable gas from the opposite end! I mean, really, would we avoid emissions there?! Riding a trotting horse is an amusing pastime. 😉
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Annie As in
“What is tHe difference between a battle horse and a cart horse?
The battle horse darts into the fray – – “
40
… which is why I turned down an offer to learn how to drive a hitched team way back in my youth. Have you ever heard a horse? When one lets go, the other members of the team have to join in. It’s … ummm … somewhat short of musical. 🙂
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Annie:
Personally I think the SA Government are flogging a dead horse, or at least one about to expire.
40
It’s rotting too.
11
Annie:
How did you get a red thumb and I miss out?
Truly the ways of the troll are beyond the understanding of men.
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Hi Jo
Well I hate to say it but it seems to me that governments are right not to be pushing for more base load power generation be it coal, gas or nuclear. The state of the power grid at the moment makes it pointless to put more generation into the system. All across Australia grid managers are fighting a daily battle to stabilise the system due to the now you see it now you don’t nature of renewable energy.
Why have governments over the years allowed the unregulated expansion of unstable power generation? Global warming? Stupidity? Again I hate to say it but it is way past time for serious regulation of all electricity generation in this nation.
Start by forcing the 20% of homes with pv on their rooftops to install batteries to store their excess generation and then cut them completely off the grid. No more feedback tariffs etc. Is that the sound of solar panels being sledgehammered off roofs that I hear?
Like wise all these wind farms and large scale solar thermal generators need to be forced to store the power they produce before it can be allowed onto the grid in a controlled way. The days of dumping electricity onto the grid whenever you feel like it have to end. Once the system is stabilised we can then do a proper assessment of energy requirements and build the most cost effective power stations (coal?) as needed.
No political party will go near this of cause so power prices will have to continue to skyrocket as regulators will be in an never ending race to keep upgrading grid infrastructure to stop the whole joke blowing up in our collective faces.
90
There are currently 22 large commercial scale solar plants in Australia with a total Nameplate of 966MW.
On a daily basis over the last eight weeks, they reach a peak between 300 and 400MW. (on a good day) That peak can be as long as for two hours or so around Midday.
The insolation rate determines the total power generation, and it is (basically) half a sine wave for the shape of the Load Curve for power generation, and the average of a (half) sine wave is peak X 0.637.
So, the average power for an average day is around 200MW.
That is for the 10 hours of operation, from Sunup to Sundown, currently from around 7.30AM til 5.30PM.
So, for the full 24 hours, that average then becomes 200 X 10 and divided by 24, so around 80MW average per hour.
For the generated power in GWH, that is 80 X 24 and divided by 1000. (MWH to GWH)
That comes in at 1.92GWH.
So, over the last eight weeks, all those 22 commercial solar plants have delivered ….. 0.4% of the actual power that Australia has consumed.
Makes you wish there were so many more of them, eh!
Absolutely pitiful is the best way you can describe it.
Tony.
170
DonS:
There is NO such thing as large scale solar thermal generators. The “huge” one
plannedhyped for Pt. Augusta is nominally 130MW capacity, but as Tony has pointed out gets most of its energy during the 5 hours of sunshine when the sun is high in the sky. Running it 24 hours a day would only give about 42MW output (provided the sun shines brightly). Most solar thermal units either shut down in the 3 winter months or burn large amounts of gas. The Aurora project won’t have a gas connection!Put that in context, you could run 5 large dual fuel diesel units (in a bank of 8 for reliability) and get as much power more certainly for one sixth the cost. A Closed Cycle Gas Turbine unit would cost about the same** and output over 12 times as much electricity.
** the claimed cost for the Aurora type is less than half the last one built 2-3 years ago by the same company.
40
The way the RET works, the problem is not having enough certificates for wind or solar, LGCs and STCs. What it means though is that these must be purchased, regardless of price. That is not a market but extortion.
So it raises a question about all the windmills. Take Hepburn wind. We have paid for the windmill with our cash and they own it. We have given roughly as much again as they earned from selling the actual power at record high prices. Now the owners have paid off the windmill ten years early and still receive our cash. For what, no one knows?
Anyway, officially they still make a loss, despite selling the free, renewable wind electricity for $700K every year. You have to wonder what the costs are which total $700,000 for ‘operating’ a windmill? Does anyone know why it should take $12,000 a week to watch a free windmill spin? Is there a manager on $350,000 a year? Is there maintenance on another $350,000 a year?
Plus another $12,000 a week in free cash for simply creating those wind based electrons.
Besides, why are they receiving any cash above and beyond what they are paid for electricity at the world’s highest prices? Don’t these Greenies feel a little guilty at accepting the river of money for doing nothing at all? Or is it symptomatic of the entire Green wind industry, no actual limit on what they can charge for what people are force to buy and then again for the mere fact of generating it.
No guilt. They are saving the planet. Allegedly. How that actually works is unknowable, but it sure beats any other business. A money pump, renewable.
60
A big interconnector between NSW and SA? They are talking one way from SA to NSW. What about the other direction which is normal. Until there is more base load generation in NSW
this is a fantasy.
40
” … Through some freak of nature, even though South Australia has the *cheapest* electricity generators known to mankind, it also has the most expensive electricity in the world. … ” – Jo Nova
—-
That’s a keeper.
50
None of this would be happening without the huge distortion of the energy market by government. Then even more complex and deceitful legislation to pretend to fix it. Batteries, diesels, pumping water uphill, more wind, more solar, more laws. $100million fines for big users. All wrapped up in complex and even sinister legislation. Just read the RET act. Deceit wrapped up in convoluted language like the new NEG. Written by anarchists in the deep state in Canberra. The only Energy Guarantee is that things will get much worse.
All for what, the huge disruption and expense only for democratic governments and their people? France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Italy. Here banning even the sale of coal (Victoria), banning even exploration for gas, banning coal mines, banning new dams, banning even picking up forest litter for a fire, taxing even the air we breathe? Gender, class and race in every law. Self hate. This week an orchestrated attack even on democratic cows producing methane from digestion? This is madness, this long march to undermine democratic countries from within.
So how effective has all this been over 30 years in achieving any aims? Measured as ’emissions’ and enforced by laws and voluntary obligations, what is the effect on world CO2, world methane, world temperature? Nothing. Nothing at all. All for nothing.
Never has such rampant nonsense been forced on a democratic population by politicians with no actual measure or concern of the effect on the alleged problem. Say $30Trillion in 30 years to achieve what exactly? Record cold temperatures in NSW (Last week), snow in Cairo (last year), freezing conditions in Bangladesh (six months ago) and no real warming anywhere? The government funded media are an integral part of this world deception.
Even if the CO2 warming argument was true, the seas were rising, nothing has affected the growth of world CO2 even slightly. It’s as if it was all a bad joke. On us. Cui Bono? It’s all about money and power. Using the weather.
Only Donald Trump gives us hope and so he is hated by the media. The rest of the world seems to have descended into a form of herd madness and irrational fear and in the grip of media fake news, fake facts and fake science. Warming? What warming? Where? Where are these people drowning, polar bears vanishing, seas rising?
Meanwhile our prestige universities decry our British origins, our governments, our right to exist. We need to be punished, made to apologise for everything and Turnbull’s only argument is that Shorten would be even worse and punish us more? Could we please have Abbott back? He made sense. There is no man made Global Warming. Climate Change does not exist. Even the CSIRO could not detect it in 3,000 man years of research at our expense.
70
Personally I like the idea of the inter-connecters to SA.
UHVDC (Ultra High Voltage Direct Current) would be very good, perhaps one to Melbourne and one to Sydney Direct.They can transfer electrical power up to 3000 km quite efficiently. Basslink is a HVDC version of this.
You just need to start it at Roxy Downs hooked up to a Nuclear Reactor.
Process the uranium on site and keep it in one place.
Right Idea wrong power source!
80
Yep, right idea, wrong power source: go Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors instead of water cooled pressurised uranium-fuelled breeder reactors. Then you have something which burns the fuel right down to non-radioactive ash. No uranium fuel reprocessing necessary. In fact, LFTR is the answer to all fuel stock-piled for reprocessing. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb0It3Ml4_k
20
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA
10
I don’t get it. SA wants to get as close to 100% renewables as possible yet they want more coal power imported? Hypocrisy is just too mild a word to describe it. People go to prison for playing tricks like that in the real business world.
90
Interconnectors won’t be much use if you don’t have thermal to connect to in the bad times like June 2017 or even as recently as April 2018
These true believers are playing a very bad joke on the majority of uninformed power consumers and it will backfire on every one of us as this State sponsored form of dumping drives thermal generators out of the market. I guess when they reach crisis point it will be time to conjure up expensive diesel generators like we’ve seen in SA and with the Tasmania Basslink/hydro problems. Just add a unicorn big battery or two to divert attention from the obvious I suppose. Seems to have worked so far although the natives are getting restless with the highest power prices in the world as a result.
41
So South Australia has the most expensive electricity in the world. The bunch of ultracrepidarian fustilugs you have running the place must have taken to heart Obama’s statement that his war on fossil fueled electricity generation – “under my plan…. electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.”
And the arrogance of the words in the same short segment, “…because I’m capping greenhouse gases…” So he’s going to cap greenhouse gases, he’s going to make electricity prices skyrocket, he’s going to make the citizens of his country work longer and harder for their energy needs. His arrogance, his pomposity and smugness is vomit inducing.
50
South Australia could be a good case study to expose the truth of renewables. A study could easily show the true operating cost of each power source, the subsidies that are applied, the hidden capital investments required to keep the “fantasy grid” going, and the resultant costs to consumers. All nicely contained within SA, so close to being a failed state.
20
The Victorian Andrews government should be using their limited state powers to shut down the interconnects to SA. That way, the available supply to Vic consumers increases, and the price for Vic consumers will fall. For SA it would be a disaster with regular blackouts across all supply sectors, but so what? For generators, it would lead to lower profits, as they are restricted from selling into the higher priced SA market. But so what as well?
30
By the way, I am a Victorian.
20
DaveR:
I would never have guessed.
Crow Eater
10
That’s all right, DaveR, some of us won’t hold it against you. 🙂
00
Yes Graeme No3, it would hurt SA badly, but isnt that what SA deserves after allowing the Weatherall soviet regime to damage your generation capacity the way it did?
But I shouldnt shout too loudly, because I also hear that Vic is now reliant on the NSW interconnect and Basslink!
10
If Victoria has a generation shortfall, the impedance of the interconnections will naturally cut the supply to SA since the transmission path from Latrobe Valley necessarily passes across Victoria’s major load points before reaching Heywood and Red Cliffs.
Some flow from the Snowy’s may get through to Red Cliff but the MurrayLink interconnector only has a capacity of 220 MW so I doubt SA can drag down Victoria. Dan Andrews and Lily D’Ambrosio are doing their best to bring Victoria down to the same level of vulnerability, though.
10
And NSW will have huge problems come 2022 when Liddell closes (it’s already well beyond revival according to people I have discussed this with who have also worked there)
10
Hopefully they won’t be able to raise the funding to get their snouts in the trough.
10
observa:
The whole things reeks of subsidy slurping. $100 million from the State government (and obviously looking for more), $110 million from the Federal government, pretty soon you are talking about serious taxpayers money down the drain. If they can’t make money when a third of the cost is free, and they can charge almost double (before subsidy) the going wholesale rate, then the project is swill.
10
“TonyfromOz says on THIRTEEN occasions this month (so far), the ENTIRE 1800+ MW wind turbine capacity in SA failed to generate 50 MW of electricity”
Did Tony also point this out?
00
Did he also correct it, on closer examination, to less than 30MW ?
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/06/old-neglected-wind-turbines-ticking-100-ton-bombs/#comment-2016092
00
From:
Government of South Australia
Hon Dan van Holst
Pellekaan MP
Member for Stuart
To:
Me
Thank you for your email to the Hon Steven Marshall MP, Premier of South Australia regarding the Government of South Australia’s commitment to an interconnector to New South Wales. As the matter relates to my portfolio responsibilities as Minister for Energy and Mining, your email has been forwarded to me for a direct response.
I note your concerns that South Australia will not be in a position to export to New South Wales.
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2017 Electricity Statement of Opportunities provides a projected 10-year outlook to 2026-27 of supply adequacy under several scenarios in the absence of future development.
Their analysis shows that an additional 850 megawatts (MW) is required to minimise the risk of load shedding in New South Wales, if the Liddell Power Station closes. This takes into account that electricity consumption in the National Electricity Market (NEM) is forecast to remain relatively flat over the next 10 years.
South Australia already has over 700 MW of committed energy supply projects including:
• 220 MW of new solar generation (Bungala One and Bungala Two)
• 245 MW of new wind generation consisting of Lincoln Gap Stage 1 (126 MW) and Willogoleche (119 MW)
• the Barker Inlet gas power station (210 MW)
• Dalrymple battery storage project (30 MW).
Recognising that South Australia has and will continue to have an abundance of renewable energy, we plan to support and use it to its greatest potential.
This will be done through better interconnection between South Australia’s renewable energy and other states in the NEM. This will also allow improved access to their baseload generation when needed.
The interconnector and our other energy initiatives will provide a more reliable energy supply for our state. It will also put downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices by reducing the market power of gas fired generators and improve the ability of new retailers to gain access to hedging arrangements, increasing competition in the retail sector.
Thank you again for your email and I trust that the above information is of assistance.
Yours sincerely …
00
Hi and sorry for the dump.
Prior to the SA election the Libs sent out some (policy) advertising and allowed people to respond in short form. I suggested that none of the Lib policies including the NSW interconnector was going to generate reliable dispatchable electricity and the above was the response …
Cheers,
Andy
00