Don't think I've ever heard/seen the word schema before, so I had to look it up,...... nice one

Because its above your pay grade!

How bloody elitist.

If you haven't worked it out yet, both coal and gas turbines suffer from physics, yes I know the RE idealists don't understand the word physics having studied Art at school, but physics defines what can and cannot happen. And the biggest issue with both these is that the turn down efficiency is really really really poor. I'll give you an example. At work we had a gas turbine running at 50% output, efficiency = 18% that along with a steam turbine running at reduced efficiency to match demand, which basically meant that at full load it was burning almost the same about of CO2. Remember RE is all about reducing CO2.

Sorry RTT, but making imputations about the intelligence and/or education of people who disagree with you is evidence of an emotional attachment to a position. I didn't use the word "agenda", which would connote a lack of disclosure; I said "hobby horse", by which I meant an irrational obsession with criticising RE.

So lets go with the brainless RE at all cost ideology that is currently been pushed. Currently there is about 4GW of wind in Australia, easily a 4GW or more proposed, planning or in some sort of development. Lets say it was 10GW all up. So when the wind is blowing and the load is 25GW with 4-5GW of solar during the day, you have 60% of the grid on wind./solar. What is coal supposed to do? Do this enough and eventually it will close. Meanwhile when the wind doesn't blow, then what? You think having 15GW of stand-by Open cycle gas is going to be feasible. What will be the price to have that level of infrastructure sitting there waiting, plus the gas supply, who will pay for the large gas mains?

This is a good article from the lefty-warmist-greenie-Marxist ABC about the myth of "base load" as a justification for ongoing coal plant operation. The essence of it is that the need for "base load" is a symptom of a grid designed around constant generation, rather than the other way around.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336

The following people are quoted:

Anthony Vassallo: PhD Chemistry
Glenn Platt: CSIRO Energy Research Director
Andrew Blakers: I'll let his engineering research speak for itself
Mark Diesendorf: Honours in Physics and PhD Applied Maths

Dr Diesendorf also has a more in-depth explanation of his feasibility modelling:

http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210

Our latest peer-reviewed paper, currently in press in Energy Policy journal, compares the economics of two new alternative hypothetical generation systems for 2030: 100% renewable electricity versus an “efficient” fossil-fuelled system. Both systems have commercially available technologies and both satisfy the NEM reliability criterion. However, the renewable energy system has zero greenhouse gas emissions while the efficient fossil scenario has high emissions and water use and so would be unacceptable in environmental terms.

I will happily send the paper in question as a PDF to you or anyone else if you do not have a library susbscription to access it. PM me.

For what it's worth, my personal view is that 100% RE/gas is not an ideal solution, simply because of the difficulty of making a stable transition. It was a physicist who convinced me that fission thermal generation offers an acceptable compromise between emissions reduction and grid design, but I am also pragmatic enough to realise that it's not a political reality in Australia in the near further. (There's also the silent issue of industrial heat - 45% of global energy use, all of it fossil-powered, and no RE alternative, but modular nuclear may be a sustainable solution.)

A follow up article regarding yesterday's load shedding quoted AEMO as saying that distributors chose areas where demand was highest. This should send a message to us all that if you want to be a pig with your consumption, you can expect to miss out in extreme circumstances.

I'd love it if grid management developed to a point where household consumption could be remotely controlled. Very unlikely due to cost of course, but I'd be more than happy to sign up to a register declaring myself prepared to be load shed under a predefined set of circumstances, given that I'm not elderly, infirm, or otherwise particularly in need of airconditioning or refrigeration.

I'm sure there are plenty like me; I think most rational people grasp that planning a system of any sort that can cope with peak demand maybe twice year is very difficult.

Don't think I've ever heard/seen the word schema before, so I had to look it up,...... nice one

Because its above your pay grade!

How bloody elitist.

So after a series of posts that are all 100% personal attack and never OT, what else do you propose?

Sorry RTT, but making imputations about the intelligence and/or education of people who disagree with you is evidence of an emotional attachment to a position. I didn't use the word "agenda", which would connote a lack of disclosure; I said "hobby horse", by which I meant an irrational obsession with criticising RE.



This is a good article from the lefty-warmist-greenie-Marxist ABC about the myth of "base load" as a justification for ongoing coal plant operation. The essence of it is that the need for "base load" is a symptom of a grid designed around constant generation, rather than the other way around.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336

The following people are quoted:

Anthony Vassallo: PhD Chemistry
Glenn Platt: CSIRO Energy Research Director
Andrew Blakers: I'll let his engineering research speak for itself
Mark Diesendorf: Honours in Physics and PhD Applied Maths

Dr Diesendorf also has a more in-depth explanation of his feasibility modelling:

http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210

Our latest peer-reviewed paper, currently in press in Energy Policy journal, compares the economics of two new alternative hypothetical generation systems for 2030: 100% renewable electricity versus an “efficient” fossil-fuelled system. Both systems have commercially available technologies and both satisfy the NEM reliability criterion. However, the renewable energy system has zero greenhouse gas emissions while the efficient fossil scenario has high emissions and water use and so would be unacceptable in environmental terms.

I will happily send the paper in question as a PDF to you or anyone else if you do not have a library susbscription to access it. PM me.

For what it's worth, my personal view is that 100% RE/gas is not an ideal solution, simply because of the difficulty of making a stable transition. It was a physicist who convinced me that fission thermal generation offers an acceptable compromise between emissions reduction and grid design, but I am also pragmatic enough to realise that it's not a political reality in Australia in the near further. (There's also the silent issue of industrial heat - 45% of global energy use, all of it fossil-powered, and no RE alternative, but modular nuclear may be a sustainable solution.)

PIMM,
I'm not making assumptions about peoples intelligence, what I've been trying to say on this post and previous is lets talk facts, yet all I get from too many is motherhood statements about why RE is gods greatest gift and similar. Show me the facts, thats all I ask and when I do that, oh I have agenda or riding a horse or what ever crap.

You want to talk RE, lets talk RE and leave the BS and personal attacks out of it. I've said that many times now, but know, more comments about hobby horses.

Regarding that link to the ABC
I totally agree, there are other ways. Have I ever said there isn't? However what I have said is what is the cost and in some cases ignore the cost what about practicality of such a solution?

"No single one does all the job... You probably need a mix of hydro, which may include off-river pumped hydro, and possibly open-cycle-gas turbines," he says.

"For those of us who work in the field, this is very straightforward now. But the barriers aren't primarily technological."

Professor Blakers agrees. He says that Australia's energy future lies in solar and wind, with pumped hydro as a balancing source.

"Pumped hydro is 100-year-old technology, completely off the shelf, and importantly you can get these pumped-hydro sites built before 2022," he says.


Lets look at the national resource options in the SE corner.
- Wind, mostly in the SW Vic and SA, intermittent, predictable but not when you need it
- Solar, available during the day, mostly alines with peak, but not for the rest of the 15-18h.
- So to make a reliable grid you need large scale battery (hydro or chemical) AND Open Cycle Gas which has a lower efficency than black coal and nearly double the price.

Chemical Battery, I think most people agree chemical battery technology is a decade or more away from being taken seriously for large scale grid supply.

Pumped Hydro, if its so practical and feasible in the SE corner, why is it still pending?

The economics for Snowy 2.0 rely coal power stations being closed and limited similar competition to ensure a large differential price between pumping and generation and even then over 50 years it fails to pay for itself. Don't take my word for it, read the reports!

Basically to achieve much of what was said in the ABC article the following need to be "gifted" to the NEM
- SNOWY 2.0
- 2nd Bass Link
- Upgrading of some of Tassie hydro systems to pump back
- HV link connecting SA and NSW
- and a number of other pumped hydro projects
- Large scale Open Cycle power station roll out.

and even then, you still need 50% of the coal power stations or similar.

Snowy 2.0 is 2000MW, the SE corner needs 7-8 of them to replace the coal fired power stations.

Basically we continue to need Bass Load generation (doesn't equal coal, but is the cheapest and most practical for Australia) for decades to come because the alternative technology simply does not exist!

I've also always said nothing wrong with wind, but it needs to be paired with hydro or similar, especially as the wind farm generation capacity grows beyond 10-20% of the grid. Look it up, 20-25% is considered max (depending on existing mix) before it starts to add significant cost to grid operation. By forcing the wind farms to align themselves with despatchable power ie hydro and/or open cycle gas, you won't have repeats of last few days as Wind output continues to grow.

You say you support nuclear, so do I. But considering the current focus on wind and solar and the mindset that these will do the job, the country has no chance in hell in allowing any nuclear project to go.

A follow up article regarding yesterday's load shedding quoted AEMO as saying that distributors chose areas where demand was highest. This should send a message to us all that if you want to be a pig with your consumption, you can expect to miss out in extreme circumstances.

I'd love it if grid management developed to a point where household consumption could be remotely controlled. Very unlikely due to cost of course, but I'd be more than happy to sign up to a register declaring myself prepared to be load shed under a predefined set of circumstances, given that I'm not elderly, infirm, or otherwise particularly in need of airconditioning or refrigeration.

I'm sure there are plenty like me; I think most rational people grasp that planning a system of any sort that can cope with peak demand maybe twice year is very difficult.

Its not expensive and mostly exists now. Modern meters should have the smarts already installed to load shed when the supplier sends a signal. Currently its called off-peak, could be expanded to other loads if desired, just needs a minor change in circuit breaker board. However, what do you propose to switch off? AC, maybe fridge, not much else on offer. The problem is going this far just highlites that our grid is 3rd world standard. Better still to expose houses to the cost of actual generation real time, people will make their own decisions.

Ignoring slanging matches and sticking to factuals instead:

(1) Yet another coal fired generator in Victoria (LY2) failed last night and is still offline. That meant that a paltry (not poultry) 2.9GW, or 60% of total capacity, was the best that could be expected and duly delivered from that archaic fuel source until LY3 (the one that went down with the boiler tube leak on Tuesday) came back online this evening. So much for reliable coal fired base load electricity generation.

When you cut the coal output to the point of no redundancy, what else do you expect?

Why don;t you quote the availability of each of the coal turbines. Now do the same for others you support?

Look it up, the Vic coal power stations run at +90% of their rated output for most of the year.

I read an interesting analysis that suggested the incident in VIC yesterday could have been much worse.  During load shedding SA was exporting 600MW to VIC (basically as much as it could).  And a cool change swept through Melbourne that meant the VIC load was up to 1400MW lower than anticipated - or could have been.  

Had it been hot in SA and Vic concurrently (not exactly unheard of), this event could have been very widespread indeed.

But does the SE need 2000MW of baseload?  Absolutely not.

It needs 2000MW of additional peakload.

Ideally this generation would also be:

• sufficiently distributed to not require massive/any upgrades to the transmission and distribution grids just to cope with a few hots days a year.  
• bias toward generating during peak: times of day, seasons, weather (ie hot & sunny).  

• end users were prepared to pay the capital cost upfront themselves rather than "the industry" sticking their hand out to demand more from the taxpayer.

Remind you of anything?

The SE corner, NSW, Vic and SA NEEDS another ~2000-2400MW of baseload, whether it be coal, CCGT, nuclear or even hydro.

The current fleet of coal turbines are running at near constant output with little or no redundancy and should one or worse two trip at time of high demand, Blackout!

Also remember
- Liddel is due to close and if this wasn't the case I would have said 800 -1200 MW would be enough.
- NSW is almost constantly pulling from Qld, sometimes liek now running all the way through to SA, line losses anyone?
- Electric car growth is at the start of a steep curve with more affordable right hand drive models starting to hit the market. Each one of this will draw 2-3 times their owners home each night, so watch the currently nightly dip in base load output evaporate within 5 years, especially if Liddel closes, it will be gone completely.

Peaking power, yes, more of that will be needed for sure, although the ALP Fed's move to roll out batteries will minimise/eliminate the need for this, but at what cost?

The large peak each day is driven mostly by light commercial and residential and more clearly demonstrated in the de-industrialsed state of SA, big industry is paying for itself.

All of which puts you at odds with AEMO, CSIRO, and the owners of the existing coal-fired generators. That is your right. But, you have no right to expect that rational folk should agree with you.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-aemo-study-says-wind-solar-and-storage-clearly-cheaper-than-coal-45724/

https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/Annual-update-finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power

Coal is dead, new coal-fired generators are not economical, and any that may be  built will become very expensive stranded assets. Nuclear, even more so.

I'd love it if grid management developed to a point where household consumption could be remotely controlled.

I can't wait for that either.  I've already pre-filled my kettle licence application forms, so I'll only have to wait a couple of weeks to get permission to boil water for my tea between 8:15 and 8:20 (except on Public Holidays of course).  /s

So after a series of posts that are all 100% personal attack and never OT, what else do you propose?

Kettles and pots spring to mind here.

Sorry RTT, but making imputations about the intelligence and/or education of people who disagree with you is evidence of ...

PIMM,
I'm not making assumptions about peoples intelligence, what I've been trying to say on this post and previous is lets talk facts, yet all I get from too many is motherhood statements about why RE is gods greatest gift and similar. Show me the facts, thats all I ask and when I do that, oh I have agenda or riding a horse or what ever crap.

I think you should *really* find read, and understand the Blaker's report.  It's blindingly obvious you haven't.  

However what I have said is what is the cost and in some cases ignore the cost what about practicality of such a solution?

If you had read and understood, or at least just read, the Blaker's work on this subject you would know the purpose of the research was to answer that exact question.  

And it *did* answer the question.  

That answer (that a purpose re-built all RE grid would provide power cheaper than now, and much cheaper than replacing our ageing fleet of FF generators with modern equivalents) just does not fit with a lot of people's schema.  Not least among the majority of interests in the power industry.  

To bring this back on topic, what happened in Victoria on the 25th has been coming for some time.  I'll make a comment that everyone will agree with, but equally will all interpret differently :

The core problem is ageing generation capacity is not being replaced.  It's the irrationality of the public debate surrounding how this is replaced that is preventing this occurring.

All of which puts you at odds with AEMO, CSIRO, and the owners of the existing coal-fired generators. That is your right. But, you have no right to expect that rational folk should agree with you.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/csiro-aemo-study-says-wind-solar-and-storage-clearly-cheaper-than-coal-45724/

https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/Annual-update-finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power

Coal is dead, new coal-fired generators are not economical, and any that may be  built will become very expensive stranded assets. Nuclear, even more so.

We have been down this path before on the RE page.

1. The storage offered is very limited and wouldn't get you through the night, barely peak.

2. The numbers quoted for black coal are not aligned with current project budgets using Australian black coal.

3. Someone else here disputed the brown coal price as being way inflated and should be cheaper than black coal as brown coal is extracted as basically cost of extraction only.

4. References to Gas depend heavily on what time of gas, I'm talking down the power price for the same gas price. ie Open or Closed cycle

5. Large scale chemical storage is currently simply not practical and if you tried the price would skyrocket. Tesla's own production forecasts have it in 5 years using more Litium than mined last year world wide and thats for mostly cars and some home storage, now you want to dump an entire grid, what about other countries.

Someone else here disputed the brown coal price as being way inflated and should be cheaper than black coal as brown coal is extracted as basically cost of extraction only.

Right, because a pseudonymous web forum user must obviously be using more accurate data than the CSIRO.

Someone else here disputed the brown coal price as being way inflated and should be cheaper than black coal as brown coal is extracted as basically cost of extraction only.

Right, because a pseudonymous web forum user must obviously be using more accurate data than the CSIRO.

Actually, they (name escapes me) reposted the cost data from the reneweconomy.com.au which publishing the operating cost of each form of energy in each state, live!


EDIT

This is the RETAIL prices for power generated from gas mostly closed cycle gas turbine purchased off the international market

Residential/Commercial Consumption (kWh)/ month

Slab tariff (AUD /kWh)
   G    0-2000        $0.08
   Y    2001-4000   $0.11
   O   4001-6000   $0.12
   R   6001 & Above $0.14

Industrial Consumption (kWh)/ month
Slab tariff (fils/kWh)
   G    0-10000            $0.11    
   Y     10001 & Above  $0.14


There is no off-peak rates here. Remember this is retail, not wholesale prices.

Now how does this compare with the CSIRO data or indeed you own power bill?

RE is not dispatchable (well, not wind and solar anyway) and forcing the market to treat it as such would be idiotic to put it bluntly. Do you want more expensive electricity? That's how you get more expensive electricity. Similarly, "base load" power is a fiction invented to justify the continued existence of non-dispatchable power supplies in an era that has the technology to move past them.

The Australian Energy Market Operator classes wind and solar farm output as 'semi-dispatchable'. Their output is not totally random - it can be predicted well enough on an hourly to daily time scale that a 'firm' (highly probable) bid can be placed into the market. AEMO has its own models for predicting wind and solar farm outputs to assist their management of the grid as well.

This all works because the National Electricity Market is run on a 5-minute interval dispatch (i.e megawatt-sized blocks of energy are 'ordered' from generators on this time scale). Electricity demand varies constantly - on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis in fact - but this 5 minute interval is a large enough time scale for a megawatt to be relevant. There is also a separate market called FCAS (Frequency Control Ancillary Services) that manages grid frequency on a second-by-second basis. This theoretically creates an incentive for more expensive but highly flexible generators to be built (like gas turbines and grid-scale batteries) in addition to bog standard power stations.
The electricity prices that generators receive in return are settled on a 30 minute interval that averages the 5-minute interval to smooth out peaks and troughs enough to be usable for the financial market to function. It is worth reiterating that the electricity market is highly artificial and in no way resembles anything like a 'free market' (in so far as a free market is possible and in fact functional in human society, but I digress).

The problem with renewable energy is that wind and solar output is relatively unpredictable on a weekly/monthly/yearly time scale - which are the time scales that matter when planning electricity grid upgrades and for market participants to plan power station construction. The lack of 'baseload' (pardon the pun) policy on renewable energy incentives (carbon tax, Renewable Energy Target etc) has created a situation where private companies are unwilling to build basically anything - neither fossil fuel nor renewable energy plants. Victoria's creation of a state-based RET and South Australia's direct intervention into the market are the only bright spots in the dismal landscape of energy policy.

Neill's point was that a central authority of some description that can say at any time of day or night "fire up the Bobsville gas plant, we're heading into a four hour peak load" or "get the Smithtown battery ready to go, everyone's about to put the kettle on for half time at the grand final" or "geez it's blowing a gale in Fredburg, ask NSW if they need any help and if not we can power down the Woop-Woop coal plant for the night" can also PLAN a system that will actually bloody work, tell everyone in advance what the price of power will be to cover the costs of building the generation capacity, work towards cleaner power without blowing up the economy, AND build a distribution network that can actually cope.

As noted in posts above, AEMO literally has all of these powers that you wish it had. And it used them on Thursday and Friday. But an AEMO dispatcher can't fix a bunch of blown boiler water tubes at a coal plant over the phone and them yelling at clouds (from a blacked-out control room in the middle of [REDACTED] doesn't make the wind blow faster on a 46°C day.

And to think there's a cleared open space for the second part of Loy Yang B ready for building????. Didn't happen of course, cos Kennett flogged off the SEC first before it could be finished, and the last 2 planned 530MW generators didn't happen.
In light of recent events, perhaps the owners of Loy Yang B should be asked to build such?

The owners of Loy Yang B (at the time) built a gas turbine power station on the site where Loy Yang B units 3 & 4 would've been built. No-one is going to build a new coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley when there's a feasible risk of the investors getting guillotined for crimes against humanity within a 30 year window.

Don't want baseload, pls supply name and address to the authorities who decide who to load shed. You should be first. I'm all for views, political or otherwise, but those views should come with an agreement to be a victim of any consequences of them. That's only fair.

For the billionth time, peak loads create load shedding. 'Baseload power' by virtue of it being on virtually all of the time doesn't contribute to fulfilling peak load like a hydroelectric dam, gas turbine power station or grid-scale battery does.

And for what its worth, you can actually get money off your power bill for voluntarily load shedding. Might be something for you to consider in the future - particularly if the local pub has colder AC (and beer) than your place!

Someone else here disputed the brown coal price as being way inflated and should be cheaper than black coal as brown coal is extracted as basically cost of extraction only.

Right, because a pseudonymous web forum user must obviously be using more accurate data than the CSIRO.

Steady on @Potato, you are clearly not sufficiently appreciating the intellectual authority and insight achieved by driving past an unfinished power station  .

Don't think I've ever heard/seen the word schema before, so I had to look it up,...... nice one

Because its above your pay grade!

How bloody elitist.

So after a series of posts that are all 100% personal attack and never OT, what else do you propose?

Run home to mummy you sook

Ignoring slanging matches and sticking to factuals instead:

(1) Yet another coal fired generator in Victoria (LY2) failed last night and is still offline. That meant that a paltry (not poultry) 2.9GW, or 60% of total capacity, was the best that could be expected and duly delivered from that archaic fuel source until LY3 (the one that went down with the boiler tube leak on Tuesday) came back online this evening. So much for reliable coal fired base load electricity generation.

When you cut the coal output to the point of no redundancy, what else do you expect?

Why don;t you quote the availability of each of the coal turbines. Now do the same for others you support?

Look it up, the Vic coal power stations run at +90% of their rated output for most of the year.

Two out of ten units offline is a reasonable redundancy allowance. The fact that three out of ten was unavailable on a freakish day created the tipping point. Once again, it was the unreliability of coal fired electricity generation that caused customers to be blacked out. The aim of the load shedding was to reduce demand by 120 - 150MW, which would have easily been generated on a cooler day with the available units, but de-rating etc.

Coal turbines? I don't expect that the blades would last long, do you? lol

Wrong. Units at Vic coal power stations run at +90% of their rated output for most of the year ONLY WHEN THEY ARE ACTUALLY RUNNING! Which is not guaranteed!

So, let's talk about reliability.

Trains are reliable as long as they are on time or not cancelled. Your postie is reliable except when the mail arrives too late for you. Your weather bureau is reliable until they get the forecast wrong. Your subordinate is reliable until he calls in sick. Your coal fired electricity generator is reliable until it breaks down.

Your renewable energy provider is reliable as long as it has a source of fuel.

Well, there's certainly enough emotive steam in  this tread to start another turbine......
Just  build it!!!

Like I said - you don't want it, then name and address cos you get switched off first! You MUST be switched off first. Why, well believe it then pay for it. We've got smart meters, so put them to good use.

I'm all for solar on my roof, and proverbial middle finger to yothe retailers and wholesalers. Subsidised install or not, I don't care about the cost. That's just my circumstances.
But I also respect the reality that says I need the grid at night when my solar fades out. To believe otherwise is delusional.
A mate of mine said he put 3 phase solar on so he could tell the electricity mobs to get nicked . I said sweet mate, but what happensevery night??
The sound of crickets is what, cos he's still drawing on the grid at night.

Base load provides for everyone, the RE thing is for me, me, me and stuff  everyone else.
Want proof? Look how those with it's energy usage all of a sudden moved their usage from night to day on all the energy guzzlers like clothes driers etc. Why is this?? It's smart usage/tariff rates is why. And who wouldn't?
However, Joe average who can't afford solar continues to get whacked in the balls whilst he as a tax payer also pays for the subsidy his neighbour is getting.
As a bloke who works for a major wholesaler in Melbourne told me - You're paying the subsidy your neighbor gets to install their solar, so you need to get it so the other neighbor can subsidise yours! Why wouldn't you??
His mob is itching to build another Loy Yang B sized station asap.

Personally I'm all for letting electricity fall in a screaming heap  and let the finger pointing begin.

I'm sure many won't want that to happen co it'll expose some uncomfortable truths.

As soon as we all get solar, the sooner we can all be selfish. It's not for the feed in tariff, it's so the rest of you can get nicked. Your reliance on the grid is nolonger my problem because I dont.
I've not heard one person who has solar offer their reason for doing so as what's good for the environment. What I have heard, is what they're getting, what they're saving, and the message they're sending. Not once has it been about giving a flying F about the family next door, OR the fact that their tax dollars subsidised their install? Does anyone know why this is so??

That speaks volumes. So, in keeping wirh that, who wouldn't want solar soon??.

Regards

Well, there's certainly enough emotive steam in  this tread to start another turbine......

An Irishman, eh davesvline..............

BigShunter.

There were some places load shed in metro, which weren't even recorded on the outage maps. Where I live was one of them. We got power back in an hour, but others nearby were down for longer.

Kettles and pots spring to mind here.

I don't know this for sure, but I think making physical threats of violence is against Railpage rules, so no, I won't follow up with that.

If you had read and understood, or at least just read, the Blaker's work on this subject you would know the purpose of the research was to answer that exact question.

And it *did* answer the question. That answer (that a purpose re-built all RE grid would provide power cheaper than now, and much cheaper than replacing our ageing fleet of FF generators with modern equivalents) just does not fit with a lot of people's schema. Not least among the majority of interests in the power industry.

To bring this back on topic, what happened in Victoria on the 25th has been coming for some time. I'll make a comment that everyone will agree with, but equally will all interpret differently : The core problem is ageing generation capacity is not being replaced. It's the irrationality of the public debate surrounding how this is replaced that is preventing this occurring.

No I haven't read it, I sent you my email address yesterday.

However
- if it includes large scale construction of Open Cycle Gas Turbines, then you know its all theory and no economics have been done.
- if it includes large scale construction of pumped hydro in places like Vic, SA and NSW, then again no economics and they haven't looked at a map.

Also remember with pumped hydro or battery, you need to build everything almost twice. ie the primary generating capacity which if wind say you need 3 x the install capacity than the megawatts used plus allow for losses in the transmission and pumping. Then the pumped hydro itself must match the potential grid demand. Yes adding solar and Open cycle gas mitigates some, but not all as the night time peak is after dark when the wind has dropped!  

So do I believe this can all be done cheaper than Coal or CCGT using global bench mark prices? Not a #@%^ chance!

I wait eagerly for your email

I'm not against SNOWY 2.0 being built and "gifted" to the NEM so that we resolve the peak issue and make better use of the night when the base load thermals and wind is underused and help manage the loss of Liddel, but its just that, it needs to be "gifted" so as not to impact on power prices.  You also need to gift boosting the grid (not part of the Snowy 2.0 budgetting) and as I mentioned previously you need to "gift" the 2nd bass link and line into SA.

None of this helps Qld.

Also remember today, the only reason you are not sitting in the dark more often is because of the loss of industry reducing the load on the grid by around 1000MW (bass load) since 2010. Basically the bulk of the gains in increasing RE % in Australia is not solely on the back of RE roll out, but also on the back of load reduction through loss of industry AND higher power prices! You can find the yearly electricity production data in Google going backs years!

Yes, I also agree with Dave above, the majority of PV solar has been installed not to save 1t of CO2, but to off-set rising power prices whether it be real or perceived.

Who made a threat of physical violence to you? Report them.

Damn communists, looking to the future:                                                                                       https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/28/what-would-australia-look-like-powered-by-100-renewable-energy

Friday 25th, Victorian energy minister said there would be NO blackouts, shortly after we all know,what occurred.
When quizzed, no blackouts, but a series af rolling brown outs. More weasel words from an ineffective politician, covering their smeg.
Just a few thoughts roof top PV.

Installed mine for financial reasons. High usage items activated between 9 and 3. Most modern appliances have timers for delayed start.
And someone with a greater knowledge than mine(not difficult) may provide a clearer explanation, a system connected to the grid is designed to shut down during an outage, mine is. Only discovered this during an outage. A safety feature so people attempting a repair aren't zapped. IE solar will not povide power during a blackout.