The future of energy generation and storage

[qldfrog]

The problem here isn't just about solar panels per se. It's more that we shouldn't have the problem in the first place.

Because decent solar panels will last several decades and that being so, solar simply hasn't been common for long enough that we ought to have a waste disposal issue. Mainstream use really only got underway in 2009 after all, it's relatively recent, so apart from the odd random panel damaged by accident, there just shouldn't be that much waste and certainly not 4 million of them a year or 16,000 each and every working day (Monday to Friday).

Arguments for solar versus other sources of electricity aside, it's folly to not at least be doing any of them as well as possible. I see that as symptomatic of broader problems in the economy, it's another example of waste, both physical and economic, that need not occur.

Solar panels:
Just looking at what i experience here:
In sunny coast qld.
We have frequent storms and hail.
As a result of a hail storm last year, in our local area centered around Mapleton, i would guess 1/3 of the metal roofs have been replaced since, With storm chasers companies 4 or 5 in my area, doing drop mail,actual door to door visits and processing insurance claims.
It is sickening to see so much "good roofing" (for the farmer in me) going to waste as well as money often wasted which will hit me back with insurance premiums, and claims of climate changes....
well all solar panels are just dumped.
Most installers also refuse to take responsibility for existing installation so all upgrade on roof,capacity, battery, etc are brand news.
I expect the battery scheme launched by ALP to produce another big dump of functioning recent panels.
Wait for that one
I own a few old panels in my shed myself from my neighbours, gave some to a diy friend ..in case we can use them for cattle energizer or pump or gate or shading roof for cattle yard,:
one old one is used, covered with Hessian to reduce its output in a neighbouring farm to power the electric farm gate..they are everywhere already
When i visited the metal recycler who purchases copper ,steel , aluminium in nearby Kunda Park roughly a year ago, he told they did not accept panels anymore as no-one can extract even the aluminium frame properly and they are toxic.
I drove past the horrendous solar farms, still expending, behind Gympie last week covering acres after acres of the best high rainfall cultivation land, in one of the high storm affected area of the state and these panels will not last for decades, that is a given.
If anyone BTW has any solution for panel hail protection (net), please contact me.so far, i use luck and specs.
None of the hail protection net i looked at were a reasonable option ($, shading)..i rely on these panels

 

[Smurf1976]

Most installers also refuse to take responsibility for existing installation so all upgrade on roof,capacity, battery, etc are brand news.
I expect the battery scheme launched by ALP to produce another big dump of functioning recent panels.

One of the consequences of society's loss of technical skills and the dominance of "legal" thinking.

The idea of fault finding and repair, or even just basic maintenance, has disappeared in favour of throwing it away and starting from scratch. That removes the need for technical skill and covers your *** legally since you didn't do any real technical work, you just sold the customer a new one so any problem's the manufacturer's responsibility.

That goes for pretty much everything these days. You're an eccentric oldie if you even think of repairing something, doubly so if you know how to do it.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Mike Cannon-Brooks gets control of SunCable, a project to export solar power to Singapore.

Twiggy Forrest was interested but withdrew over "creative differences".

Billionaire's $30 billion renewables project announces plan for cable plant

SunCable wants to build what it calls the world's largest renewable energy project and has identified Bell Bay in northern Tasmania as the potential site for its advanced cable manufacturing facility.

www.abc.net.au

Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $40bn SunCable development has failed to secure funding to date in its maiden $US100m ($154m) capital raising as doubts grow that the billionaire is capable of delivering one of the world’s largest renewable energy projects.

 

[SirRumpole]

Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $40bn SunCable development has failed to secure funding to date in its maiden $US100m ($154m) capital raising as doubts grow that the billionaire is capable of delivering one of the world’s largest renewable energy projects.

There goes another one.

 

[qldfrog]

The sucker game:

You buy the asset, you pay for installation, and maintenance, costs and become a free provider.
Feeling warm inside, but with frozen feet in winter
Rinse and repeat with batteries

 

[sptrawler]

Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $40bn SunCable development has failed to secure funding to date in its maiden $US100m ($154m) capital raising as doubts grow that the billionaire is capable of delivering one of the world’s largest renewable energy projects.

That was predictable, Singapore and Indonesia are organising a renewables supply cable, how supplying electrical energy from Australia and compete with Indonesia is crazy talk IMO.
Twiggy saw the writing on the wall.

 

[Sean K]

The transition is happening too quickly without a buffer or overlap of reliable energy. Most sane people have been saying this for years.

There's going to be reckoning when the lights go out in Victoria because we have no power but have one of the largest untapped gas fields sitting under our feet.

The transmission giant delivering the roll-out of renewables infrastructure has advocated for authorities to accelerate the development of gas plants and retain a buffer of coal after warning the power grid has been “stripped thin” of supply.

Australia’s largest electricity transmission company, Transgrid, pointed to volatile conditions in Victoria in the last week where a cold winter snap and energy shortages spanning fossil fuels through to renewables led to massive price spikes and security unease.

Transgrid chief executive Brett Redman, a former boss of AGL Energy, said it was time to prioritise putting “more buffer” back into the system.

“We’ve really stripped the system very, very thin. And so the events a couple of years ago where we nearly saw widespread outages and even what’s happening in Victoria in the last couple of weeks, we are in this world now where you cannot predict exactly when it will happen.

“But the probability of more and more say failures of units and coal fired generators or unforeseen weather events - you name it - it’s going to happen,” Mr Redman said on Wednesday.

 

[Smurf1976]

Meanwhile in WA:



Don't be deceived by the nice looking beach. On the only occasion I've been there, the gods decided to make it thunder. Suffice to say it's a surprisingly long drive back to the Perth CBD when you're soaking wet.....

 

[Smurf1976]

The transition is happening too quickly without a buffer or overlap of reliable energy. Most sane people have been saying this for years.

The basic problem, which I've personally been on about since the very beginning of the competitive market, is it does not incentivise technically efficient or robust outcomes.

That isn't about wind, coal, solar, gas, hydro, diesel or nuclear power. It's just that business in general is somewhat infamous for "just in time" inventory approaches, and that's what Redman is lamenting.

The entire system has been stripped out but that isn't simply about the means of generation. It's just what happens in a situation where multiple players are all competing for business but none are obligated to maintain supply. They'll do things as cheaply as they can, that's the nature of it.

On the issue of price, the US situation sums it up in a way that's decidedly inconvenient for anyone in Australia looking for an answer based in ideology. Because it does indeed show that ideology is a problem, just not in the way either side would like.

Excluding Alaska and Hawaii for obvious reasons of being an unfair comparison, the most expensive 5 US states and the average price in those states per kWh (averaged across all customer types), as of March 2025, were as follows.

All prices are USD cents per kWh. All data sourced from Table 5.6.A, Electric Power Monthly, Energy Information Administration (US government) statistics for March 2025.

Rhode Island = 28.19
Connecticut = 28.12
California = 25.85
Massachusetts = 25.46
Maine = 23.82

And the cheapest 5 states:

Wyoming = 9.41
Nebraska = 9.32
Iowa = 8.66
Oklahoma = 8.37
North Dakota = 7.96

Now looking at generation by source for those states (note this data is not for the same period but won't have greatly changed):

Average of the 5 most expensive states:

Nuclear = 9.48%
Coal = 0.26%
Natural Gas = 59.42%
Oil = 0.22%
Hydro = 7.42%
Geothermal = 1.16%
Solar = 6.62%
Wind = 6.9%
Biomass and other = 8.46%

Average of the 5 cheapest states:

Nuclear = 3.56%
Coal = 45.42%
Natural Gas = 12.16%
Oil = 0.08%
Hydro = 3.1%
Geothermal = zero
Solar = 0.18%
Wind = 35.08%
Biomass and other = 0.42%

Now looking at price in the state with the highest use of each resource:

Natural Gas: Rhode Island (90.9% of generation). 28.19c/kWh

Solar PV: California (17.4% of generation, excludes other solar technologies). 25.85c/kWh

Nuclear: New Hampshire (56.5% of generation). 20.64c/kWh

Biomass and other: District of Columbia (25.5% of generation), 19.77c / kWh. Also Vermont (25.2% of generation), 19.37c/kWh

Coal: West Virginia (90.8% of generation). 11.44c/kWh

Hydro: Washington (64.6% of generation). 10.96c/kWh

Geothermal: Nevada (9.4% of generation). 9.96c/kWh

Wind: Iowa (55.3% of generation). 8.66c/kWh

I've included a second one for biomass and other just in case anyone wants to argue about DC not being a state and not being comparable due to physical size etc.

Oil: None of the lower 48 states use it for more than 4% of generation, indeed only two use it for more than 1% of generation, so it's somewhat meaningless in comparison but I can assure you it's an expensive means of generation. The highest reliance being Hawaii at 65.4% of generation with an average price of 35.93c/kWh (most expensive anywhere in the US) - that high reliance on oil is a big part of why electricity's so expensive in Hawaii, although remoteness obviously is also a factor.

There is of course another factor in all this.

The 5 cheapest states are all subject to regulation with 27 states in total being regulated. Price in the regulated states ranges from 7.96 to 19.37 cents /kWh with an average of 10.968c / kWh. 25 of those states are priced below the US average, one is equal to the average and one is more expensive than the average.

5 other states, including one of the most expensive (California), are partially deregulated. Price in these states ranges from 10.9 to 25.85 cents/kWh with an average of 14.904c/kWh. Three are below the US average, two are above the US average price.

17 other states (including DC as a state in this context) are deregulated with 4 of the 5 most expensive states in this category. Price ranges from 9.96 to 28.19c with an average of 17.532c/kWh. Five states are priced below the US average, twelve are priced above it.

Put that all together and what do we have? What results in cheap electricity?

Generation based on coal, wind, hydro and where it's available geothermal.

Regulated utilities not competitive markets.

Suffice to say you'd be hard pressed to find even one engineer surprised by that outcome. Use low cost generation, run the industry efficiently, and you get a low price. Use high cost generation and stuff the industry full of administrative bloat and price goes through the roof.

The one additional piece of information on all that is to say it's not impossible to do solar cheaply up to a point, it's just that society seems hell bent on not doing so. Hence why the mining companies are keen on solar - they've generally already got some low value land near the mine not otherwise doing anything, and they'll obviously build a facility with trackers and optimally size it. Within those confines it can and will save them money - needless to say they won't be keen to push it any further than that. Where we're going wrong with it as a society is not with the basic idea that sunlight can produce electricity, it's with choosing to do it in an unnecessarily expensive manner combined with ideology pushing it beyond its economic limits.

 

[Smurf1976]

Further to the above is cause and effect, or the chicken and the egg scenario, on the consumer side.

If electricity price is high then that discourages major industry from establishing or remaining in that location and it discourages consumers using electricity especially for water heating. It also encourages consumers to generate their own (rooftop solar).

Now a lack of major industrial and off-peak water heating load is a sure fire way to increase the price of electricity. Consumers generating some of their own, thus leaving fixed costs to be spread over a smaller remaining volume of consumption, has that effect too.

So there's a "spiral" problem there. Higher electricity prices encourage consumers to do things that, whilst they're rational from the individual consumer perspective, result in another round of price increases.

Same in the opposite direction. Low price encourages electrification by consumers, especially water heating, and it encourages industry to locate there.

 

[qldfrog]

Further to the above is cause and effect, or the chicken and the egg scenario, on the consumer side.

If electricity price is high then that discourages major industry from establishing or remaining in that location and it discourages consumers using electricity especially for water heating. It also encourages consumers to generate their own (rooftop solar).

Now a lack of major industrial and off-peak water heating load is a sure fire way to increase the price of electricity. Consumers generating some of their own, thus leaving fixed costs to be spread over a smaller remaining volume of consumption, has that effect too.

So there's a "spiral" problem there. Higher electricity prices encourage consumers to do things that, whilst they're rational from the individual consumer perspective, result in another round of price increases.

Same in the opposite direction. Low price encourages electrification by consumers, especially water heating, and it encourages industry to locate there.

I will add one point:
Regulation is potentially a good thing at a state level for a utility but you will agree that saying " we mandate x% green energy which for Australia mostly solar and wind is asking for trouble ..why?
Because before deciding to go solar, it has to make sense..ask for the cost of solar energy in Scotland, or try hydro in South Australia.
But of course,even before going into details and wo actual data, it does seem solar is the obvious best way to power Alice Springs, and the King islands down south will probably do better on a wind farm than on solar or hydro
So deregulation in Australia is a convenient way for governments to wipe their way off the problem yet do grand statements and rulings to mandate their wet dreams AND SOLUTIONS and wash their hands of the consequences.
Let's not blind ourselves either: California above might be deregulated in term of utility providers but noone in his right mind would open or keep opened a coal powered power plant there due to the high Renew lobby...
So deregulated providers aka competition on a regulated provision solution does not work
Solution must be technical: what does work, what are the various cost including base and peak power.
Shake the model and here is your answer.
Which will defer from location and location
But not "Net Zero by( pull a number from the hat )and throw subsidies to retail then blame AGL or Origin for the high costs
We are on the ASX forum, as shareholders, Origin and AGL are not exactly making a killing on selling this expensive electricity since that green energy push.

 

[SirRumpole]

So we should replace our old coal stations with new ones?

I wouldn't object to that if it keeps prices low, but coal will run out eventually.

What's the long term plan?

 

[qldfrog]

So we should replace our old coal stations with new ones?

I wouldn't object to that if it keeps prices low, but coal will run out eventually.

What's the long term plan?

A new coal station would need coal for an extra 50y, from memory, we have around 400y of supplies here in Australia and that was for export in the 2000s...
Caring only about Australia
Plenty of coal and time to act wisely
Of course, like gas, if we export all coal and do not keep some for is, we are screwed...
As discussed just above, coal is a/the obvious solution for Qld NSW, not sure south or western Australia, or Victoria either..use what us best based on real world
Wa and Victoria could be better off with gas..if they are allowed to look for it and extract it
World move, the co2 climate change scam will self collapse, let's sort current problems with current solutions otherwise we would still have horse feeding oat fields around major cities due to forward thinkers... in the 1800s

 

[Smurf1976]

Regulation is potentially a good thing at a state level for a utility but you will agree that saying " we mandate x% green energy which for Australia mostly solar and wind is asking for trouble ..why?
Because before deciding to go solar, it has to make sense..ask for the cost of solar energy in Scotland, or try hydro in South Australia.

The kind of regulation I'm a supporter of is the kind we had historically in Australia and it took three basic forms.

One was simply that utilities, whether government (local or state mostly, the feds only ever had a limited role) owned or privately (shareholder or otherwise) owned, were seen as quasi-governmental entities with an obligation to serve society. That didn't preclude private enterprise making a profit, but it was capped in practice to a level in line with other businesses, they weren't allowed to exploit their monopoly position.

Second was an obligation to make supply available to consumers. For electricity that generally meant anyone within the deemed service area. For gas the obligation to supply was generally limited to industrial users, the gas companies were obliged to support the operation of industry, but could of course also choose to make supply available to anyone else where it was economic to do so.

Third was oversight of major investment, which in practice meant investment in new supply sources (eg power stations). In the case of government-owned entities the basic approach was the utilities were formally obliged to undertake a high level analysis of all options, then undertake a detailed technical and economic analysis of the more favourable options and finally produce a recommendation which generally meant the cheapest one that met the technical requirements. Parliament then had the role of asking hard questions, verifying that all options had indeed been properly considered, and giving final approval.

In the case of privately owned entities, which was always the case with gas in some states, it was more a case of a firm understanding that if the companies invested in uneconomic supply options, they wouldn't be allowed to pass that cost onto consumers. So get it right or shareholders will cop the loss. Needless to say they got it right.

As part of that was an understanding the companies were free to spend money on investigation of what might be built in the future, indeed they were expected to plan well ahead. Hence every state did look seriously at nuclear at some point, likewise all possible hydro sites were investigated, and also there was planning on land use to reserve sites for power stations, routes for transmission lines, etc. Spending money now on planning for the future was seen as an investment, and it didn't cost all that much anyway.

Overall that process gave us imperfect but good reliability, it gave us the third cheapest electricity in the OECD and a good enough price for gas, and it facilitated a great deal of industrial development on that basis. It could arguably have been refined and improved but my point is it worked far better than what we have at present.

Key point is none of that was ideological beyond the core principles of serving society and facilitating the development of industry. Beyond that, what was done physically was based on thorough investigation and number crunching.

Sometimes "obvious" things don't actually work out. Eg there's a technically viable hydro scheme 40km from the Hobart CBD with existing roads running right to the site but it's never been developed for a simple reason - the economics didn't stack up, there were better options albeit less obvious. Plenty more like that. Eg the mining companies in the Pilbara not unreasonably had the idea that shipping coal into Port Hedland and using that to generate electricity to be transmitted to the mines seemed like a reasonable concept - it was properly looked at but turned out it didn't stack up. Same in the NT - they looked very hard at coal and hydro, thinking one would likely be the answer, but in the case of supplying Darwin it turned out that gas was cheaper, with the twist that the best place to put the gas-fired power station turned out to be the exact site they'd first looked at in the context of nuclear.

And so on. Point being the way to get the best outcomes is a methodical, scientific approach. Look at all the options, get the data and crunch the numbers.

Even if society does apply an ideological filter, even if we do decide that we want to minimise CO2 emissions or we want to avoid anything imported from particular countries, that's still a valid process. It's still valid to look at all the options and highlight the cheapest one that doesn't involve the thing society doesn't want to use. That also puts a precise figure on what the cost of foregoing whatever is to be avoided is, it puts a hard $ figure on what it's costing to not do x and as a result having to do y instead. Society via the political process then at least has the basis for making an informed decision on whether avoiding doing x is important enough to warrant whatever it's going to cost.

 

[qldfrog]

The kind of regulation I'm a supporter of is the kind we had historically in Australia and it took three basic forms.

One was simply that utilities, whether government (local or state mostly, the feds only ever had a limited role) owned or privately (shareholder or otherwise) owned, were seen as quasi-governmental entities with an obligation to serve society. That didn't preclude private enterprise making a profit, but it was capped in practice to a level in line with other businesses, they weren't allowed to exploit their monopoly position.

Second was an obligation to make supply available to consumers. For electricity that generally meant anyone within the deemed service area. For gas the obligation to supply was generally limited to industrial users, the gas companies were obliged to support the operation of industry, but could of course also choose to make supply available to anyone else where it was economic to do so.

Third was oversight of major investment, which in practice meant investment in new supply sources (eg power stations). In the case of government-owned entities the basic approach was the utilities were formally obliged to undertake a high level analysis of all options, then undertake a detailed technical and economic analysis of the more favourable options and finally produce a recommendation which generally meant the cheapest one that met the technical requirements. Parliament then had the role of asking hard questions, verifying that all options had indeed been properly considered, and giving final approval.

In the case of privately owned entities, which was always the case with gas in some states, it was more a case of a firm understanding that if the companies invested in uneconomic supply options, they wouldn't be allowed to pass that cost onto consumers. So get it right or shareholders will cop the loss. Needless to say they got it right.

As part of that was an understanding the companies were free to spend money on investigation of what might be built in the future, indeed they were expected to plan well ahead. Hence every state did look seriously at nuclear at some point, likewise all possible hydro sites were investigated, and also there was planning on land use to reserve sites for power stations, routes for transmission lines, etc. Spending money now on planning for the future was seen as an investment, and it didn't cost all that much anyway.

Overall that process gave us imperfect but good reliability, it gave us the third cheapest electricity in the OECD and a good enough price for gas, and it facilitated a great deal of industrial development on that basis. It could arguably have been refined and improved but my point is it worked far better than what we have at present.

Key point is none of that was ideological beyond the core principles of serving society and facilitating the development of industry. Beyond that, what was done physically was based on thorough investigation and number crunching.

Sometimes "obvious" things don't actually work out. Eg there's a technically viable hydro scheme 40km from the Hobart CBD with existing roads running right to the site but it's never been developed for a simple reason - the economics didn't stack up, there were better options albeit less obvious. Plenty more like that. Eg the mining companies in the Pilbara not unreasonably had the idea that shipping coal into Port Hedland and using that to generate electricity to be transmitted to the mines seemed like a reasonable concept - it was properly looked at but turned out it didn't stack up. Same in the NT - they looked very hard at coal and hydro, thinking one would likely be the answer, but in the case of supplying Darwin it turned out that gas was cheaper, with the twist that the best place to put the gas-fired power station turned out to be the exact site they'd first looked at in the context of nuclear.

And so on. Point being the way to get the best outcomes is a methodical, scientific approach. Look at all the options, get the data and crunch the numbers.

Even if society does apply an ideological filter, even if we do decide that we want to minimise CO2 emissions or we want to avoid anything imported from particular countries, that's still a valid process. It's still valid to look at all the options and highlight the cheapest one that doesn't involve the thing society doesn't want to use. That also puts a precise figure on what the cost of foregoing whatever is to be avoided is, it puts a hard $ figure on what it's costing to not do x and as a result having to do y instead. Society via the political process then at least has the basis for making an informed decision on whether avoiding doing x is important enough to warrant whatever it's going to cost.

I am afraid some of the regulated monopolistic state entities have also been subject to deterioration
The Unity Water is a good example here in Queensland, used to retire politicians, non efficient and absolutely ripping Queenslander off.
I understand an ideological " public service" preference because it WAS so much better before...but what was might not be there anymore..the rot has advanced, education or absence of, mentality
But yes, it would be nice to say: moving to solar vs going on with gas,/coal/ etc is to cost us xxxx$ per kw, do you agree to pay, this is a one in a 2 decades decision , you can not back either way
Same for NDIS, helping Ukraine/getting subs etc etc
But only Switzerland is a near enough democracy, we are not.

 

[Smurf1976]

So we should replace our old coal stations with new ones?

I wouldn't object to that if it keeps prices low, but coal will run out eventually.

What's the long term plan?

Long rambling post for those who want some background and examples etc.

Expanding on this, what's really needed is a scheme, a plan with a series of actions that collectively work.

At present we have an issue similar to that which exists with the ABC, BBC etc in the context of broadcasting in that, since they're not allowed to take paid advertising, they don't like to be seen to be advertising even if indirectly. Hence they can say "a smartphone like this" but tend to avoid saying "buy an iPhone". Etc

That problem exists with the modelling done by AEMO, CSIRO and others in that it's forcibly generic. They'll evaluate coal, gas or wind in generic terms but not a specific coal, gas or wind project that could be built.

Why that matters is perhaps best explained by some examples. Using Victoria in this case:

For coal the easiest and simplest opportunity would be to build more generating capacity at Loy Yang. At present there's a mine owned by AGL and 6 non-identical but similar generating units in two physical power stations, with 4 units owned by AGL and the other two by Alinta. To clarify, all coal burned by Alinta is mined and supplied by AGL under whatever contract exists between the companies, there's only one mine.

Now that mine has more easily accessible coal within it than the existing power stations will need throughout their working lives and that being so, building more at the same location would almost certainly be considerably cheaper than any other coal option in Victoria. So there's a difference between a specific project, which I'll refer to as Loy Yang C (since the current stations are A and B), versus any other coal project.

Same goes for hydro. There's an opportunity to significantly enhance the existing Kiewa scheme and there are also opportunities to add pumping capability to Dartmouth and Eildon. Those are one-off opportunities however, they're projects that could be built once off at those specific locations, they're not a generic hydro opportunity that applies universally. As with Loy Yang C, those projects have the advantage of existing roads, existing transmission, making additional use of the existing dam and power station, etc and are thus low cost opportunities.

Same exists with wind and solar. There are places where transmission was built to supply load such as major industry, towns or something more specific such as irrigation pumping and where there's low value land and a good wind or solar resource in that vicinity. So that's an opportunity to put wind or solar there without needing to spend anything at all on transmission so long as the output of that new wind or solar is no greater than the local demand at the time + the ability of transmission to take power out of the area back into the rest of the grid (because transmission works in both directions). Go any larger than that though and there's a big cost jump, since now there's a need to spend money on more transmission for the sole purpose of connecting the wind or solar.

Also that works in reverse. If there's a need to upgrade transmission to supply increasing load in an area then assuming that load is variable and isn't continuous, an alternative is to use that as the location for a battery. The battery can charge (from the grid) when load is low and the line has spare capacity, then discharge when load is high to avoid overloading transmission. With the bonus that not only is this battery avoiding the cost of a transmission upgrade, it is of course also storing otherwise surplus off-peak electricity and returning that as peak power for the grid.

Putting gas turbines at that location is another example. If we're going to have gas turbines, well putting it somewhere that avoids what would otherwise be a needed transmission upgrade cuts the overall cost. Run them either because more supply is needed at a state or national level, or run them just do avoid the local supply constraint when it occurs. In the modern era of being able to easily monitor and communicate data, that's easily done.

Same goes for the load side, the most obvious example being water heating. It's 100% proven, fully developed technology to supply 24/7 hot water from a storage tank receiving electricity supply for 6 hours each day. So long as it's adequately sized (the key criteria), it works. Now factor in that we already have data communications pretty much everywhere these days via 4G or fixed internet. Now consider that smart meters have the ability to switch a specified load on and off. Put that all together and there's no reason we can't put electric hot water, with centrally controlled operation of the heating period, in just about every home in the country. Eg today for example supply might be turned on from 10am to 4pm, meaning it has to be back on no later than 10am tomorrow, a maximum off period of 18 hours. But nothing bad happens if supply is on longer hours, indeed it can be on 24 hours per day and nothing bad happens it just means the thermostat turns off, and therein lies the opportunity. So long as the heating period is always rolled forward not backward, maintaining that maximum 18 hours off, then the time can be adjusted on a day to day basis. Eg if the wind's blowing strongly a 2am, well turn it back on then and put that wind to use. Etc. The outcome being a very large portion of the total heating task, and water heating is a major energy use, can be done using otherwise wasted low cost generation.

Now there's just one problem with all this. To an engineer it all sounds fine but government has an outright obsession that any decision must be made by the market and rejects this planned approach completely. Seriously - I'd be shut down within seconds if I proposed any of that to the federal energy minister, who'd very quickly head down the track of "leave it to the market". Back to my ABC and BBC reference - we can talk about ideas but don't advocate specifics - "other products are available".

Where that fails is it makes it nigh on impossible for anyone to put together an overall scheme that works. Because if you're going to build wind in an economically optimal manner, well you need to get the hot water load control sorted out to go with it, and you need to get hydro sorted to work with it as well, and so on. Same goes for all the rest, to come up with an overall scheme, when you're only able to make a decision on one single component of it, really doesn't work in practice. Evidence = look what's happened, you don't need to take my word for it.

So therein lies the problem. There's quite a number of people reasonably well known in the industry for coming up with physical ideas, either conventional or "out of the box" on things that could be done and how they'd fit within an overall system but that's at odds with the approach government demands.

Imagine booking a family holiday where each family member will be making decisions but isn't allowed to communicate with each other. End result is one adult has booked everyone on flights to Sydney, the other adult has booked them all into a hotel room in Adelaide, one of the kids has bought them all tickets to the Gold Coast theme parks, and the other's got tickets to football and a concert in Melbourne.

Being well aware of that risk, the companies are reluctant to do anything all since they've a responsibility to shareholders not to blow their money. Only if something offers a very quick ROI or is underwritten by government are they taking the risk, a situation that biases very strongly toward wind, rooftop solar where others take the risk, batteries and open cycle gas turbines. Because those involve the lowest capital investment and shortest lifecycle to break even. Nobody's keen to build an engineering-heavy hydro project or to go down the track of something like combined cycle internal combustion given the time it takes to break even, even though it might be a better option overall.

So it's fundamentally not a problem of physics or anything related eg engineering, geology, hydrology, meteorology, IT, trades, civil construction, etc. Those on that side are more than capable of coming up with a functional, low cost system that in practice will include a mix of technologies based on the best of what's available in any given location. The problem's on the government, political, legal etc side that doesn't allow such an approach.

Hence the technical people don't take a hard line ideological view on how to generate. They go down the track of saying OK, let's look at all the options, identifying specific projects and evaluating how to combine those to get the best outcome.

Climate change? Well I'm no climate scientist but common sense does tell me that it'd never be a good idea to burn fossil fuels if some other option stacks up equally or better. That is burning coal is not itself an aim, it's not like a hydro project where the dam might serve some other purpose (irrigation, urban water supply, flood control, etc) and thus be desirable in itself. Or like the La Rance tidal project in France which conveniently serves as a 4 lane road bridge. Coal only makes sense if it stacks up for the electricity alone. That being so, well the rational thing to do is be specific - identify specific projects, put costs on the options, then society can make a choice that's at least based on factual information .

 

[SirRumpole]

Long rambling post for those who want some background and examples etc.

Expanding on this, what's really needed is a scheme, a plan with a series of actions that collectively work.

At present we have an issue similar to that which exists with the ABC, BBC etc in the context of broadcasting in that, since they're not allowed to take paid advertising, they don't like to be seen to be advertising even if indirectly. Hence they can say "a smartphone like this" but tend to avoid saying "buy an iPhone". Etc

That problem exists with the modelling done by AEMO, CSIRO and others in that it's forcibly generic. They'll evaluate coal, gas or wind in generic terms but not a specific coal, gas or wind project that could be built.

Why that matters is perhaps best explained by some examples. Using Victoria in this case:

For coal the easiest and simplest opportunity would be to build more generating capacity at Loy Yang. At present there's a mine owned by AGL and 6 non-identical but similar generating units in two physical power stations, with 4 units owned by AGL and the other two by Alinta. To clarify, all coal burned by Alinta is mined and supplied by AGL under whatever contract exists between the companies, there's only one mine.

Now that mine has more easily accessible coal within it than the existing power stations will need throughout their working lives and that being so, building more at the same location would almost certainly be considerably cheaper than any other coal option in Victoria. So there's a difference between a specific project, which I'll refer to as Loy Yang C (since the current stations are A and B), versus any other coal project.

Same goes for hydro. There's an opportunity to significantly enhance the existing Kiewa scheme and there are also opportunities to add pumping capability to Dartmouth and Eildon. Those are one-off opportunities however, they're projects that could be built once off at those specific locations, they're not a generic hydro opportunity that applies universally. As with Loy Yang C, those projects have the advantage of existing roads, existing transmission, making additional use of the existing dam and power station, etc and are thus low cost opportunities.

Same exists with wind and solar. There are places where transmission was built to supply load such as major industry, towns or something more specific such as irrigation pumping and where there's low value land and a good wind or solar resource in that vicinity. So that's an opportunity to put wind or solar there without needing to spend anything at all on transmission so long as the output of that new wind or solar is no greater than the local demand at the time + the ability of transmission to take power out of the area back into the rest of the grid (because transmission works in both directions). Go any larger than that though and there's a big cost jump, since now there's a need to spend money on more transmission for the sole purpose of connecting the wind or solar.

Also that works in reverse. If there's a need to upgrade transmission to supply increasing load in an area then assuming that load is variable and isn't continuous, an alternative is to use that as the location for a battery. The battery can charge (from the grid) when load is low and the line has spare capacity, then discharge when load is high to avoid overloading transmission. With the bonus that not only is this battery avoiding the cost of a transmission upgrade, it is of course also storing otherwise surplus off-peak electricity and returning that as peak power for the grid.

Putting gas turbines at that location is another example. If we're going to have gas turbines, well putting it somewhere that avoids what would otherwise be a needed transmission upgrade cuts the overall cost. Run them either because more supply is needed at a state or national level, or run them just do avoid the local supply constraint when it occurs. In the modern era of being able to easily monitor and communicate data, that's easily done.

Same goes for the load side, the most obvious example being water heating. It's 100% proven, fully developed technology to supply 24/7 hot water from a storage tank receiving electricity supply for 6 hours each day. So long as it's adequately sized (the key criteria), it works. Now factor in that we already have data communications pretty much everywhere these days via 4G or fixed internet. Now consider that smart meters have the ability to switch a specified load on and off. Put that all together and there's no reason we can't put electric hot water, with centrally controlled operation of the heating period, in just about every home in the country. Eg today for example supply might be turned on from 10am to 4pm, meaning it has to be back on no later than 10am tomorrow, a maximum off period of 18 hours. But nothing bad happens if supply is on longer hours, indeed it can be on 24 hours per day and nothing bad happens it just means the thermostat turns off, and therein lies the opportunity. So long as the heating period is always rolled forward not backward, maintaining that maximum 18 hours off, then the time can be adjusted on a day to day basis. Eg if the wind's blowing strongly a 2am, well turn it back on then and put that wind to use. Etc. The outcome being a very large portion of the total heating task, and water heating is a major energy use, can be done using otherwise wasted low cost generation.

Now there's just one problem with all this. To an engineer it all sounds fine but government has an outright obsession that any decision must be made by the market and rejects this planned approach completely. Seriously - I'd be shut down within seconds if I proposed any of that to the federal energy minister, who'd very quickly head down the track of "leave it to the market". Back to my ABC and BBC reference - we can talk about ideas but don't advocate specifics - "other products are available".

Where that fails is it makes it nigh on impossible for anyone to put together an overall scheme that works. Because if you're going to build wind in an economically optimal manner, well you need to get the hot water load control sorted out to go with it, and you need to get hydro sorted to work with it as well, and so on. Same goes for all the rest, to come up with an overall scheme, when you're only able to make a decision on one single component of it, really doesn't work in practice. Evidence = look what's happened, you don't need to take my word for it.

So therein lies the problem. There's quite a number of people reasonably well known in the industry for coming up with physical ideas, either conventional or "out of the box" on things that could be done and how they'd fit within an overall system but that's at odds with the approach government demands.

Imagine booking a family holiday where each family member will be making decisions but isn't allowed to communicate with each other. End result is one adult has booked everyone on flights to Sydney, the other adult has booked them all into a hotel room in Adelaide, one of the kids has bought them all tickets to the Gold Coast theme parks, and the other's got tickets to football and a concert in Melbourne.

Being well aware of that risk, the companies are reluctant to do anything all since they've a responsibility to shareholders not to blow their money. Only if something offers a very quick ROI or is underwritten by government are they taking the risk, a situation that biases very strongly toward wind, rooftop solar where others take the risk, batteries and open cycle gas turbines. Because those involve the lowest capital investment and shortest lifecycle to break even. Nobody's keen to build an engineering-heavy hydro project or to go down the track of something like combined cycle internal combustion given the time it takes to break even, even though it might be a better option overall.

So it's fundamentally not a problem of physics or anything related eg engineering, geology, hydrology, meteorology, IT, trades, civil construction, etc. Those on that side are more than capable of coming up with a functional, low cost system that in practice will include a mix of technologies based on the best of what's available in any given location. The problem's on the government, political, legal etc side that doesn't allow such an approach.

Hence the technical people don't take a hard line ideological view on how to generate. They go down the track of saying OK, let's look at all the options, identifying specific projects and evaluating how to combine those to get the best outcome.

Climate change? Well I'm no climate scientist but common sense does tell me that it'd never be a good idea to burn fossil fuels if some other option stacks up equally or better. That is burning coal is not itself an aim, it's not like a hydro project where the dam might serve some other purpose (irrigation, urban water supply, flood control, etc) and thus be desirable in itself. Or like the La Rance tidal project in France which conveniently serves as a 4 lane road bridge. Coal only makes sense if it stacks up for the electricity alone. That being so, well the rational thing to do is be specific - identify specific projects, put costs on the options, then society can make a choice that's at least based on factual information .

That must be the post of the decade on this topic @Smurf1976 . Thank you for taking the time to write this, it should be taught in schools and politicians should be forced to read and understand the principles involved in it.

Pity you didn't go into politics, we need people like you there.

It underlines what some of us here have been saying for a long time. Electricity along with housing are examples of market failure, the market won't fix either issue, governments need to build more houses and to take over the electricity system with the guidance of experts but the politicians are too arrogant and lazy to realise the system is falling in a heap before their eyes.

 

[qldfrog]

That must be the post of the decade on this topic @Smurf1976 . Thank you for taking the time to write this, it should be taught in schools and politicians should be forced to read and understand the principles involved in it.

Pity you didn't go into politics, we need people like you there.

It underlines what some of us here have been saying for a long time. Electricity along with housing are examples of market failure, the market won't fix either issue, governments need to build more houses and to take over the electricity system with the guidance of experts but the politicians are too arrogant and lazy to realise the system is falling in a heap before their eyes.

Market would work but should not be on instantaneous cheaper kw, but on an all day all year provision at a cheaper cost and reliability rate.
Could be a battle of consortiums, a monopolistic big player aka AGL or a state or federal entity.
And then obviously, noone can invest a billion in a new plant if it is closed in 2 years when you lose a renewal bid.
Decision makers.. aka politicians need knowledge AND smarts...good luck with PR, laws, H&S backgrounds
So easier to switch back to government owned..but..even if government own, will any labour or green government signs on a new coal or gas plant regardless of relevance.
By joining the new cult of climate change or at least considering its voting power, politicians can not get out of the way of generation ( and distribution..up to rooftop and batteries,,)..we are doomed..
It is similar to sorting the abortion issue when in a religious country: Christian or Muslim , medical or ethical considerations are irrelevant.
Until fanaticism is sorted, the issue can not IMHO and as we all know here, the grid affects us all critically as an island nation, a life or death.

 

[qldfrog]

What not to do

Spanish blackout report: Power plants meant to stabilize voltage didn’t

The Iberian blackout was a consequence of grid management, not any power source.

arstechnica.com

 

[SirRumpole]

but..even if government own, will any labour or green government signs on a new coal or gas plant regardless of relevance.

That's the problem, they are ideologically bound to renewables whereas rationalism should indicate we need as many sources of energy as we can reasonably afford.