News & Discussion: Electricity Infrastructure

[rhino]

Goodsy you beat me to it!

[PeFe]

We do not have the storage technology for anywhere near enough, nor is it currently possible to store enough power to make up for these night time " outages" by renewables. Coal may be gone, I agree.. but soon the renewables will also price gas out if only required intermittently.

They are not night time "outages", they are night time "unavailability", there is a difference.....a broken car is different from a car that "is not there"

And storeage is buildable ....of course it is possible to store enough power for night time, typical night time generation use in SA is around 1100-1200 mw Well just keep on building...we have already started.

Current SA storeage capacity 130 mw (Tesla big battery and Yorke peninsula battery)
Future storeage project projects :
1) Big battery at Port Augusta 120mw? to be built by Sanjeev Gupta due 2020?
2) 10mw battery at Lincoln Gap Wind Farm due early 2019
3) 25 mw battery Lake Bonney Wind Farm due 2020?
4) Baroota pumped hydro (40 kms fnorth east of Port Pirie) 220 mw for 6 hours, approved by government, due 2021?
5) Highbury pumped hydro, disused quarry in the Adelaide Hills, 230 mw for 5-6 hours due 2020?
6) Goat Hill (Port Augusta) pumped hydro, 200 mw?, project status unknown
7) Cultana (Whyalla) pumped hydro, 200 mw, detailed studies undertaken, no decision to proceed yet
8)Aurora Solar Thermal , 150mw for 8 hours, molten salt storage, due 2021

[claybro]

They are not night time "outages", they are night time "unavailability", there is a difference.....a broken car is different from a car that "is not there"

But a broken car is of no more use to a driver, than a car that does not exist. Furthermore, if you are guaranteed that your car will be "broken" for say 5% of the year, do you buy another car to be on standby just so you have an emergency backup? -No, you would probably borrow or lease a car. Now here is where it gets interesting, because there are no cars available for lease because at some point all the rental companies could not afford the finance to keep cars for people to lease a handful of days per year. No point borrowing from your neighbour because he also has to use his car at the same time.

And storeage is buildable ....of course it is possible to store enough power for night time, typical night time generation use in SA is around 1100-1200 mw Well just keep on building...we have already started.

Current SA storeage capacity 130 mw (Tesla big battery and Yorke peninsula battery)
Future storeage project projects :
1) Big battery at Port Augusta 120mw? to be built by Sanjeev Gupta due 2020?
2) 10mw battery at Lincoln Gap Wind Farm due early 2019
3) 25 mw battery Lake Bonney Wind Farm due 2020?
4) Baroota pumped hydro (40 kms fnorth east of Port Pirie) 220 mw for 6 hours, approved by government, due 2021?
5) Highbury pumped hydro, disused quarry in the Adelaide Hills, 230 mw for 5-6 hours due 2020?
6) Goat Hill (Port Augusta) pumped hydro, 200 mw?, project status unknown
7) Cultana (Whyalla) pumped hydro, 200 mw, detailed studies undertaken, no decision to proceed yet
8)Aurora Solar Thermal , 150mw for 8 hours, molten salt storage, due 2021

How long is that stored power available for though? 10 minutes? 1 hour? You could build 1000mw, but if it only lasts 1 hour, what then?-What kicks in at that point? -Gas? But the renewable companies refuse to build gas turbines because they are not subsidised. How much storage has to be built to last a whole night? Or 3 cloudy windless days over SE Australia?

[claybro]

Isn't that the gap where Pumped Hydro comes in? I know there are no pumped hydro plants up and running yet, but reading the info on the Baroota Plant posted earlier this week, that was the impression I got.

Pumped hydro relies on solar to run the pumps...for hours at a time. This whole discussion relates to what happens when the entire south East of the country is under cloudy still conditions for those handful of days it happens.

[Goodsy]

Isn't that the gap where Pumped Hydro comes in? I know there are no pumped hydro plants up and running yet, but reading the info on the Baroota Plant posted earlier this week, that was the impression I got.

Pumped hydro relies on solar to run the pumps...for hours at a time. This whole discussion relates to what happens when the entire south East of the country is under cloudy still conditions for those handful of days it happens.

Pumped hydro can rely on anything to run the pumps. The Bath County Pumped Hydro uses excess energy generated from nuclear and coal so they don't have to ramp down during low demand

[PeFe]

How long is that stored power available for though? 10 minutes? 1 hour? You could build 1000mw, but if it only lasts 1 hour, what then?

I have already quoted the hours for the larger hydro projects...reread my post, as for the batteries probaly around 70-80 minutes at full capacity, obviously twice as long at 50% capacity

How much storage has to be built to last a whole night?

Not that much...remmeber power usage drops significantly at 6pm (businesses close) then there is another big drop at 10 pm (bedtime for most Aussies) then there is a power surge at midnight (hot water systems charging...all at the same time...even though the cheap overnight rate is available till 6am) You dont need loads and loads of dispatchable power at 3am!!

Or 3 cloudy windless days over SE Australia?

Dont know....just interested in South Australia at the moment and it's energy transition.....I dunno...x4 for Victoria and x5 for New South Wales for whatever South Australia does

But the renewable companies refuse to build gas turbines because they are not subsidised.

And what price is gas???? If gas goes up anymore I would guess it has just got more expensive than storage.....

[claybro]

Isn't that the gap where Pumped Hydro comes in? I know there are no pumped hydro plants up and running yet, but reading the info on the Baroota Plant posted earlier this week, that was the impression I got.

Pumped hydro relies on solar to run the pumps...for hours at a time. This whole discussion relates to what happens when the entire south East of the country is under cloudy still conditions for those handful of days it happens.

Pumped hydro can rely on anything to run the pumps. The Bath County Pumped Hydro uses excess energy generated from nuclear and coal so they don't have to ramp down during low demand

Have you actually been following this discussion? Coal is being phased out, Australia has no nuclear, and none of the renewable companies construct gas standby plants for their own backup. Solar and wind to feed the pumps to run the stored hydro are also not available on some days of the year over large parts of SE Australia. Who is going to pay to construct the backup plants once coal is phased out, and why is this cost not taken into consideration with renewables?

[SBD]

They are not night time "outages", they are night time "unavailability", there is a difference.....a broken car is different from a car that "is not there"

But a broken car is of no more use to a driver, than a car that does not exist. Furthermore, if you are guaranteed that your car will be "broken" for say 5% of the year, do you buy another car to be on standby just so you have an emergency backup? -No, you would probably borrow or lease a car. Now here is where it gets interesting, because there are no cars available for lease because at some point all the rental companies could not afford the finance to keep cars for people to lease a handful of days per year. No point borrowing from your neighbour because he also has to use his car at the same time.

And storeage is buildable ....of course it is possible to store enough power for night time, typical night time generation use in SA is around 1100-1200 mw Well just keep on building...we have already started.

Current SA storeage capacity 130 mw (Tesla big battery and Yorke peninsula battery)
Future storeage project projects :
1) Big battery at Port Augusta 120mw? to be built by Sanjeev Gupta due 2020?
2) 10mw battery at Lincoln Gap Wind Farm due early 2019
3) 25 mw battery Lake Bonney Wind Farm due 2020?
4) Baroota pumped hydro (40 kms fnorth east of Port Pirie) 220 mw for 6 hours, approved by government, due 2021?
5) Highbury pumped hydro, disused quarry in the Adelaide Hills, 230 mw for 5-6 hours due 2020?
6) Goat Hill (Port Augusta) pumped hydro, 200 mw?, project status unknown
7) Cultana (Whyalla) pumped hydro, 200 mw, detailed studies undertaken, no decision to proceed yet
8)Aurora Solar Thermal , 150mw for 8 hours, molten salt storage, due 2021

How long is that stored power available for though? 10 minutes? 1 hour? You could build 1000mw, but if it only lasts 1 hour, what then?-What kicks in at that point? -Gas? But the renewable companies refuse to build gas turbines because they are not subsidised. How much storage has to be built to last a whole night? Or 3 cloudy windless days over SE Australia?

The rental companies will keep as many cars as they can rent out at the price they want to charge on those peak days - Uber already has "demand pricing" I believe. Some people will pay the premium, others will decide to travel the day before or the day after, or stay home. At the moment, our electricity market does not operate quite the same way - I do not have the fidelity to choose to turn off my television, air conditioner or washing machine because the price is too high right now. I pay a flat rate to a retailer who sets a flat rate price that (it intends) cover the cost to them of the electricity it onsells, as well as a modest profit. That model has led to most of the retailers building/leasing/contracting their own generation capacity, but then turning it off when the market price is lower than their own generation costs, and selling their excess when their generation capacity exceeds their customer demand and the market price is high enough. Part of the "big battery" operates much the same way, and I expect it is that model that is attracting pumped hydro storage into the market at the moment.

I wonder what would happen to the average household power bill if we received variable pricing at 5 minute intervals. What would happen to the state's load profile if everyone decided to put off doing the washing for a day if the price was too high or did the week's menu with the high-electricity meals planned for the expected lower-cost days.

My point has not been that no new generators will ever be required. It is that there is no immediate need to be concerned. The gas generators and the wind generators all seem to still have a few decades in them, the solar ones possibly a bit longer (but as it is still fairly new, we can't be certain yet). Solar will almost certainly have "graceful degradation" where it just generates a bit less then last week, as each individual panel to fail only contributed a minute proportion of electricity. Windmills will fail one to three megawatts at a time. That's a lot easier to prepare to replace than a 120MW boiler dying suddenly all at once.

it's interesting looking at https://opennem.org.au/#/regions/sa that SA has a spike at 11:30pm every night. I assume that is stored hot water services on a night tariff prompted by the need to keep the boilers going a few decades ago. Victoria shows a similar spike. If more solar generation becomes routine, these off-peak devices might need to be moved to a new time.

[claybro]

I have already quoted the hours for the larger hydro projects...reread my post, as for the batteries probaly around 70-80 minutes at full capacity, obviously twice as long at 50% capacity

Ok ,so using your own figures, if we reduce consumption by 50% then we have 160 minutes of power in storage? The hydro stored power assumes there has been enough sun and wind during the day to run the pumps, if not-What then?

Not that much...remmeber power usage drops significantly at 6pm (businesses close) then there is another big drop at 10 pm (bedtime for most Aussies) then there is a power surge at midnight (hot water systems charging...all at the same time...even though the cheap overnight rate is available till 6am) You dont need loads and loads of dispatchable power at 3am!!

So are we doing away with 24 hour manufacturing? We are actually planning an economy based on our current miniscule overnight power use into the future?

[SBD]

Pumped hydro relies on solar to run the pumps...for hours at a time. This whole discussion relates to what happens when the entire south East of the country is under cloudy still conditions for those handful of days it happens.

Pumped hydro can rely on anything to run the pumps. The Bath County Pumped Hydro uses excess energy generated from nuclear and coal so they don't have to ramp down during low demand

Have you actually been following this discussion? Coal is being phased out, Australia has no nuclear, and none of the renewable companies construct gas standby plants for their own backup. Solar and wind to feed the pumps to run the stored hydro are also not available on some days of the year over large parts of SE Australia. Who is going to pay to construct the backup plants once coal is phased out, and why is this cost not taken into consideration with renewables?

None of the renewable companies (except Snowy Hydro (T/A Lumo), AGL, SAWater) have built gas backup because at the moment, the market has not needed it. When it does, they will build it or contract with someone else to get it.

[SBD]

I have already quoted the hours for the larger hydro projects...reread my post, as for the batteries probaly around 70-80 minutes at full capacity, obviously twice as long at 50% capacity

Ok ,so using your own figures, if we reduce consumption by 50% then we have 160 minutes of power in storage? The hydro stored power assumes there has been enough sun and wind during the day to run the pumps, if not-What then?

Not that much...remmeber power usage drops significantly at 6pm (businesses close) then there is another big drop at 10 pm (bedtime for most Aussies) then there is a power surge at midnight (hot water systems charging...all at the same time...even though the cheap overnight rate is available till 6am) You dont need loads and loads of dispatchable power at 3am!!

So are we doing away with 24 hour manufacturing? We are actually planning an economy based on our current miniscule overnight power use into the future?

What manufacturer closed an overnight shift because the cost of overnight electricity was too high? Labour is often higher cost at night too, and it wouldn't surprise me if they could actually negotiate cheaper overnight electricity. I have certainly known dairy farmers who knew what time their off-peak tariff clocks cut in and out, to make sure as much as possible of the milking was on the lower rate (difficult when milking is nominally at 12-hour intervals).

[claybro]

Ok, so what I am reading into all of your informative replies, is that you all believe that with current technology it is possible for the entire SE Australian grid to be 100% renewable once enough renewable capacity is in place?

[PeFe]

Why not ask the question whether South Australia can be powered entirely by renewables?...and then you can extrapolate the experience to the southern eastern Australia.

Claybro I am starting to think that you are deliberately trolling........statements like this
"Pumped hydro relies on solar to run the pumps...for hours at a time."

I have never, ever read this statement on the internet, anywhere.....even right wing anti-renewables wouldn't say something as silly this...

[PeFe]

Here is a guide to pumped hydro....for those who can't or don't want to understand...

From Renew Economy

https://reneweconomy.com.au/answers-to- ... age-12323/

[Spurdo]

If only the brits didn’t screw us back in the 60’s/70’s and gave us permission to use their gas-cooled reactor technology, then we could have safe, cleaner and reliable power.