Edited 27 Feb 2018 09:39, last year, edited by djf01

• NEM  National Electricity Market
• LCOB  Levelised cost of balancing
• LCOE  Levelised cost of electricity
• PV   Photo Voltaic
• PHES   Phumped Hydro Energy Storage
• HVDC  High Voltage Direct Current (transmission)
• AEMO  Australian Energy Market Operator
• SFA    which is what this post means to me  WTF?

It's pointless giving a translation of abbreviations in a subsequent post - the quotation still remains senseless, because it is still full of jargon. If the quotation cannot be upgraded to plain English, don't post it: if it can be upgraded to plain English, upgrade it before you post it.

No-one gains kudos by posting material that is beyond the comprehension of the rest of us. You may as well post it in Chinese! Show us how well you undestand this material by making it readable, if necessary by attaching a translation after the quotation.

I'm still not sure if this is a call to dumb it down, or smarten it up.  I'll give the dumbed down version.

Levelised Cost of Electricity - in this context: generation - is a standarised measure of the cost of generating power that is sold into the grid.  Levelised means the cost of fuel, rent, admin, capital, maintenance, spillage/wastage, capacity factors, weather variance, time cost of money, warm up and warm down costs, trips - everything - is taken into account.

Levelised Cost of Balancing - something Blaker's basically made up for his report - is the *extra* cost required to meet the 99.998% availability across the entire SE Australia grid - *if* the grid were powered with 100% renewable energy generation.  This includes the cost of excess power generated but not sent out, transmission infrastructure to achieve geographic diversity, grid scale storage (ie pumped hydro, which is currently the cheapest option) - everything - *all* the costs needed to achieve 99.998% reliability from 100% renewable energy generation.

The Blakers study worked out how much RE generation and support infrastructure was required based on the historical weather and electricity consumption data.  From this, he came up with whole of system production costs of:

$75/MWh in the mid 2020s - being $50/Mwh (anticipated) generation from RE and $25/Mwh "balancing".
$93/MWh using 2016 pricing - being $75/Mwh $65/Mwh generation from RE and $28/Mwh "balancing".

"This can be compared with the current wholesale market price in Australia of about $60/MWh.
Another comparator is that the estimated LCOE from a new supercritical black coal power station in
Australia is $80/MWh"

I urge anyone with any serious interest in this topic to find and read at least some of these reports.  If you really don't have the Internet nous to find them, PM me your eMail address and I'll mail you the PDFs (they aren't that big).

It's a lie, it's a con.

That's precisely how I feel about the New Ltd opinion piece you posted a link to.

@don_dunstan, I have a very different view of the future - and an appropriate future - for the Aussie energy sector ... but ... I tend to agree with this assessment.  Our "investment" in RE to date has been very poorly targeted and largely ineffective.  It's been little more than a gesture, and perhaps an empty one at that.

The fact is we now have a cartel operating most of Australia's energy sector, and we now enjoy the highest retail prices in the world.  As far as I'm concerned, "the big lie and big con" is that this is all the result of green ideology, when obviously it's not.  (A good lie always has an element of truth to it).  

IMHO the stuffups in our renewable energy efforts are being used as a fig leaf for profiteering all across the energy sector, and also to ward off much needed reforms to address this.

Edited 26 Feb 2018 23:26, last year, edited by djf01

• NEM  National Electricity Market
• LCOB  Levelised cost of balancing
• LCOE  Levelised cost of electricity
• PV   Photo Voltaic
• PHES   Phumped Hydro Energy Storage
• HVDC  High Voltage Direct Current (transmission)
• AEMO  Australian Energy Market Operator
• SFA    which is what this post means to me  WTF?

It's pointless giving a translation of abbreviations in a subsequent post - the quotation still remains senseless, because it is still full of jargon. If the quotation cannot be upgraded to plain English, don't post it: if it can be upgraded to plain English, upgrade it before you post it.

No-one gains kudos by posting material that is beyond the comprehension of the rest of us. You may as well post it in Chinese! Show us how well you undestand this material by making it readable, if necessary by attaching a translation after the quotation.

I'm still not sure if this is a call to dumb it down, or smarten it up.  I'll give the dumbed down version.

Levelised Cost of Electricity - in this context: generation - is a standarised measure of the cost of generating power that is sold into the grid.  Levelised means the cost of fuel, rent, admin, capital, maintenance, spillage/wastage, capacity factors, weather variance, time cost of money, warm up and warm down costs, trips - everything - is taken into account.

Levelised Cost of Balancing - something Blaker's basically made up for his report - is the *extra* cost required to meet the 99.998% availability across the entire SE Australia grid - *if* the grid were powered with 100% renewable energy generation.  This includes the cost of excess power generated but not sent out, transmission infrastructure to achieve geographic diversity, grid scale storage (ie pumped hydro, which is currently the cheapest option) - everything - *all* the costs needed to achieve 99.998% reliability from 100% renewable energy generation.

The Blakers study worked out how much RE generation and support infrastructure was required based on the historical weather and electricity consumption data.  From this, he came up with whole of system production costs of:

$75/MWh in the mid 2020s - being $50/Mwh (anticipated) generation from RE and $25/Mwh "balancing".
$93/MWh using 2016 pricing - being $75/Mwh generation from RE and $28/Mwh "balancing".

"This can be compared with the current wholesale market price in Australia of about $60/MWh.
Another comparator is that the estimated LCOE from a new supercritical black coal power station in
Australia is $80/MWh"

I urge anyone with any serious interest in this topic to find and read at least some of these reports.  If you really don't have the Internet nous to find them, PM me your eMail address and I'll mail you the PDFs (they aren't that big).

It's a lie, it's a con.

That's precisely how I feel about the New Ltd opinion piece you posted a link to.

@don_dunstan, I have a very different view of the future - and an appropriate future - for the Aussie energy sector ... but ... I tend to agree with this assessment.  Our "investment" in RE to date has been very poorly targeted and largely ineffective.  It's been little more than a gesture, and perhaps an empty one at that.

The fact is we now have a cartel operating most of Australia's energy sector, and we now enjoy the highest retail prices in the world.  As far as I'm concerned, "the big lie and big con" is that this is all the result of green ideology, when obviously it's not.  (A good lie always has an element of truth to it).  

IMHO the stuffups in our renewable energy efforts are being used as a fig leaf for profiteering all across the energy sector, and also to ward off much needed reforms to address this.

Edited 26 Feb 2018 13:39, last year, edited by djf01

• NEM  National Electricity Market
• LCOB  Levelised cost of balancing
• LCOE  Levelised cost of electricity
• PV   Photo Voltaic
• PHES   Phumped Hydro Energy Storage
• HVDC  High Voltage Direct Current (transmission)
• AEMO  Australian Energy Market Operator
• SFA    which is what this post means to me  WTF?

It's pointless giving a translation of abbreviations in a subsequent post - the quotation still remains senseless, because it is still full of jargon. If the quotation cannot be upgraded to plain English, don't post it: if it can be upgraded to plain English, upgrade it before you post it.

No-one gains kudos by posting material that is beyond the comprehension of the rest of us. You may as well post it in Chinese! Show us how well you undestand this material by making it readable, if necessary by attaching a translation after the quotation.

I'm still not sure if this is a call to dumb it down, or smarten it up.  I'll give the dumbed down version.

Levelised Cost of Electricity - in this context: generation - is a standarised measure of the cost of generating power that is sold into the grid.  Levelised means the cost of fuel, rent, admin, capital, maintenance, spillage/wastage, capacity factors, weather variance, time cost of money, warm up and warm down costs, trips - everything - is taken into account.

Levelised Cost of Balancing - something Blaker's basically made up for his report - is the *extra* cost required to meet the 99.998% availability across the entire SE Australia grid - *if* the grid were powered with 100% renewable energy generation.  This includes the cost of excess power generated but not sent out, transmission infrastructure to achieve geographic diversity, grid scale storage (ie pumped hydro, which is currently the cheapest option) - everything - *all* the costs needed to achieve 99.998% reliability from 100% renewable energy generation.

The Blakers study worked out how much RE generation and support infrastructure was required based on the historical weather and electricity consumption data.  From this, he came up with whole of system production costs of:

$75/MWh in the mid 2020s - being $50/Mwh (anticipated) generation from RE and $25/Mwh "balancing".
$93/MWh using 2016 pricing - being $75/Mwh generation from RE and $28/Mwh "balancing".

"This can be compared with the current wholesale market price in Australia of about $60/MWh.
Another comparator is that the estimated LCOE from a new supercritical black coal power station in
Australia is $80/MWh"

I urge anyone with any serious interest in this topic to find and read at least some of these reports.  If you really don't have the Internet nous to find them, PM me your eMail address and I'll mail you the PDFs (they aren't that big).

It's a lie, it's a con.

That's precisely how I feel about the New Ltd opinion piece you posted a link to.

@don_dunstan, I have a very different view of the future - and an appropriate future - for the Aussie energy sector ... but ... I tend to with this assessment.  Our "investment" in RE to date has been very poorly targeted and largely ineffective.  It's been little more than a gesture, and perhaps an empty one at that.

The fact is we now have a cartel operating most of Australia's energy sector, and we now enjoy the highest retail prices in the world.  As far as I'm concerned, "the big lie and big con" is that this is all the result of green ideology, when obviously it's not.  (A good lie always has an element of truth to it).  

IMHO the stuffups in our renewable energy efforts are being used as a fig leaf for profiteering all across the energy sector, and also to ward off much needed reforms to address this.

Edited 26 Feb 2018 13:36, last year, edited by djf01

• NEM  National Electricity Market
• LCOB  Levelised cost of balancing
• LCOE  Levelised cost of electricity
• PV   Photo Voltaic
• PHES   Phumped Hydro Energy Storage
• HVDC  High Voltage Direct Current (transmission)
• AEMO  Australian Energy Market Operator
• SFA    which is what this post means to me  WTF?

It's pointless giving a translation of abbreviations in a subsequent post - the quotation still remains senseless, because it is still full of jargon. If the quotation cannot be upgraded to plain English, don't post it: if it can be upgraded to plain English, upgrade it before you post it.

No-one gains kudos by posting material that is beyond the comprehension of the rest of us. You may as well post it in Chinese! Show us how well you undestand this material by making it readable, if necessary by attaching a translation after the quotation.

I'm still not sure if this is a call to dumb it down, or smarten it up.  I'll give the dumbed down version.

Levelised Cost of Electricity - in this context: generation - is a standarised measure of the cost of generating power that is sold into the grid.  Levelised means the cost of fuel, rent, admin, capital, maintenance, spillage/wastage, capacity factors, weather variance, time cost of money, warm up and warm down costs, trips - everything - is taken into account.

Levelised Cost of Balancing - something Blaker's basically made up for his report - is the *extra* cost required to meet the 99.998% availability across the entire SE Australia grid - *if* the grid were powered with 100% renewable energy generation.  This includes the cost of excess power generated but not sent out, transmission infrastructure to achieve geographic diversity, grid scale storage (ie pumped hydro, which is currently the cheapest option) - everything - *all* the costs needed to achieve 99.998% reliability from 100% renewable energy generation.

The Blakers study worked out how much RE generation and support infrastructure was required based on the historical weather and electricity consumption data.  From this, he came up with whole of system production costs of:

$75/MWh in the mid 2020s - being $50/Mwh (anticipated) generation from RE and $25/Mwh "balancing".
$93/MWh using 2016 pricing - being $75/Mwh generation from RE and $28/Mwh "balancing".

"This can be compared with the current wholesale market price in Australia of about $60/MWh.
Another comparator is that the estimated LCOE from a new supercritical black coal power station in
Australia is $80/MWh"

I urge anyone with any serious interest in this topic to find and read at least some of these reports.  If you really don't have the Internet nous to find them, PM me your eMail address and I'll mail you the PDFs (they aren't that big).

It's a lie, it's a con.

That's precisely how I feel about the New Ltd opinion piece you posted a link to.

@don_dunstan, I have a very different view of the future - and an appropriate future - for the Aussie energy sector ... but ... I tend to with this assessment.  Our "investment" in RE to date has been very poorly targeted and largely ineffective.  It's been little more than a gesture, and perhaps an empty one at that.

The fact is we now have a cartel operating most of Australia's energy sector, and we now enjoy the highest retail prices in the world.  As far as I'm concerned, "the big lie and big con" is that this is all the result of green ideology, when obviously it's not.  IMHO the stuffups in our renewable energy are being used as a fig leaf for profiteering all across the energy sector, and also to ward off much needed reforms to address this.