Posted 4 years ago
Another view. https://theconversation.com/a-high-price-for-policy-failure-the-ten-year-story-of-spiralling-electricity-bills-89450Beat me to it Allan, I was about to post a link to that story from the ABC website.
RTT, people aren't idiots for disagreeing with your stance. Don, people can have a contrary opinion, perhaps try and leave emotion out of it.But no, some idiots think they known better and sending aluminum production to China and India to make it from coal there is supposed to be better.This is the part that I find truly perplexing - as if burning it in other countries doesn't count somehow. Doesn't count because they're already polluted?
I swore I wouldn't come back to this thread because it just gets up my goat!
Happy New Year anyways -
There’s a real eagerness from Australians to make money by generating, storing and trading electricity. What is needed are smart regulations that would unleash huge benefits to the stability, efficiency of the grid, and lower prices to boot.
From The Australia Institute admittedly, but (http://www.tai.org.au/content/australians-prefer-demand-response-over-new-power-stations-poll)Very interesting post - thank-you.
There’s a real eagerness from Australians to make money by generating, storing and trading electricity. What is needed are smart regulations that would unleash huge benefits to the stability, efficiency of the grid, and lower prices to boot.
Also, Energy Networks final_report_april_2017.pdf
This is what the grid operators are hoping for as a best case.
But as things stand, IMHO we're likely to see more rooftop PV (with regulatory restrictions attempting to slow this down, but more likely just to kick more urban users off the grid), more solar farms - because it's currently the cheapest form of new generation but also because it complements rather than undercuts the existing coal fleet.
There was an interesting article in The Financial Review about the extreme cost an inefficiency of the proposed pumped storage hydro in the Snowy Mountains. Basically the extreme expense of actually building the thing is a massive problem. Malcolm has given a very conservative estimate of $4 billion but apparently the real figure once land acquisition and supporting infrastructure is taken into account is around $8-12 billion. And we already have pumped hydro storage in this country but it isn't used because its too expensive:
Pumped hydro is an inefficient storage technology. Australia already has significant pumped hydro capacity – 900 megawatts (MW) at Tumut 3 in Snowy and 500 MW at Wivenhoe in Queensland. Both are rarely used because they are inefficient...
Not only that but it will be extremely energy intensive and they will have to put approximately double the amount of energy into running it as they'll get back:
From The Australia Institute admittedly, but (http://www.tai.org.au/content/australians-prefer-demand-response-over-new-power-stations-poll)So by 2050, there will no continuous generation supply apart from "some" biomass, as hydro and assumed pump back hydro won't be expanded much beyond today, then two choices. No lights or large scale battery.
There’s a real eagerness from Australians to make money by generating, storing and trading electricity. What is needed are smart regulations that would unleash huge benefits to the stability, efficiency of the grid, and lower prices to boot.
Also, Energy Networks final_report_april_2017.pdf
This is what the grid operators are hoping for as a best case.
But as things stand, IMHO we're likely to see more rooftop PV (with regulatory restrictions attempting to slow this down, but more likely just to kick more urban users off the grid), more solar farms - because it's currently the cheapest form of new generation but also because it complements rather than undercuts the existing coal fleet.
That's something that I hadn't though of before. Very interesting. Is there no longer a 5kW limit for domestic installations like there was about 5 years ago? is it open slather now?The restrictions for PV solar is the feed in capability of the local grid. Some customers are already finding that the local poles and wires provider is limiting choice of feed in size due to large amounts of feed in power already available. Anything more than I think 5kW can cause problems if the whole street is doing it.
Meanwhile, Unit 1 at Loy Yang tripped out yet again on Wednesday (up and running hard now), and Unit 1 at Yallourn bit the dust last night and is still down. Liddell finally has a third unit up but is still only a shadow of its former self, with design output rates impossible to achieve.Loy Yang A just had a major maintenance interval on some/all of its units, teething problems have been suspected.
Also no one has mention geothermalNobody's mentioned fusion, Tesla's cosmic energy, Ley lines, fairy dust, unicorns and Unobtainium either...
That's something that I hadn't though of before. Very interesting. Is there no longer a 5kW limit for domestic installations like there was about 5 years ago? is it open slather now?The restrictions for PV solar is the feed in capability of the local grid. Some customers are already finding that the local poles and wires provider is limiting choice of feed in size due to large amounts of feed in power already available. Anything more than I think 5kW can cause problems if the whole street is doing it.
... battery storage!
Also no one has mention geothermalNobody's mentioned fusion, Tesla's cosmic energy, Ley lines, fairy dust, unicorns and Unobtainium either...
A friend invested all his hard-earned in a geothermal startup. Last time I saw him he was extremely pissed off that he had lost the lot. Another great idea on paper that collided with reality and came off second best.
I read that NZ invested huge amounts of money in geothermal under Robert Muldoon in the seventies and early eighties but longer term the utility was marginal - aside from the fact that it's an ostensibly 'green' source. One of the biggest draw-backs is that you need to keep moving the pipes tapping the area of hot geothermal activity because the hot areas cool-off after they're tapped.Also no one has mention geothermalNobody's mentioned fusion, Tesla's cosmic energy, Ley lines, fairy dust, unicorns and Unobtainium either...
A friend invested all his hard-earned in a geothermal startup. Last time I saw him he was extremely pissed off that he had lost the lot. Another great idea on paper that collided with reality and came off second best.
Coal ( and gas and nuclear) turbines have been tripping for generations. The bufree was always a spinning reserve. Like any piece of industrial equipment things go wrong.and honestly big bloody deal. smeg happens. This is just a media beat up so don't fall for it.If the media factually reports that a unit has tripped out 5 times recently, whether it is unusual or not, how is that a beat up? There was no inference made about the bigger picture that we are discussing in this thread at all.
Solar and wind are not excempt although their smaller unit size reduces the impact.
Weather prediction is I suspect less reliable than a coal fired turbine and to date and back OT what is there when there is no wind or sun? Currently it's called a black out.
It's interesting to note the difference between the two stations.Meanwhile, Unit 1 at Loy Yang tripped out yet again on Wednesday (up and running hard now), and Unit 1 at Yallourn bit the dust last night and is still down. Liddell finally has a third unit up but is still only a shadow of its former self, with design output rates impossible to achieve.Loy Yang A just had a major maintenance interval on some/all of its units, teething problems have been suspected.
Meanwhile, Loy Yang B - the slightly younger power station next door, with a different owner - has been going just fine and is slated for a turbine upgrade in 2019 + 2020.
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