Never get between a Premier and a bucket of money- Paul Keating
Separate ownership, government, private or a mix, can work provided that there's someone in overall control of the whole show.We will never go back but it just seems to me that having State governments owning
It is but on the other hand, 7 out of the past 7 days in SA there has been curtailment of solar farm output.Renewables hit 50% of generation demand, for the first time, that is a big achievement.
Morrison does backflip on SA battery.
So not such a backflip...never trust their ABC, or Murdoch, of the Washington Post..Pravda is gone...Morrison does backflip on SA battery.
Just shows how cynical politicians are.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/sa-big-battery-set-to-get-even-bigger/11716784
The battery I've got at home will run the inverter at constant full output for 1.75 hours.What is the real financial advantage past smoothing the peak, of investing in a backup systems which needs a more powerful backup in place
Where the issue arises is that there's a portion of the population, and I'm referring to the general public here not anyone on this thread, which does seem to think that if we just put up some solar panels, wind farms and batteries then that's it, all our energy problems are fixed forever.
Have a look at the Facebook page of any of the major energy companies. They're full of comments from people to that effect - why on earth are you guys stuffing about with gas or hydro when we can just use solar and batteries?
In reality batteries with present and near term foreseeable technology have an application for peak capacity, frequency control and as short term backup at the fringes of the network but that's about it.
Looking at wind and solar data the reality is both good and bad.
The good bit is there's plenty of it and it works.
The bad bit is the poor seasonal alignment with overall energy consumption and in particular heating loads. At the same time as total energy (not just electricity but all forms) consumption peaks in the southern parts of the country, solar is at its seasonal minimum and wind is subject to all too frequent "droughts" which see low output in all states for a week or more.
Therein arises the requirement that we have something which isn't wind, solar or batteries which is capable of carrying serious load for a week or more constantly.
Hydro is one option and the obvious one if the aim is to use renewable energy. Failing that, large scale hydrogen production and storage could work but does involve a lot of losses - it could well be part of the solution though.
Beyond that though, well pragmatic reality is that there are 5 LNG import proposals and numerous gas-fired power generation proposals across NSW, Vic and SA with the Barker Inlet power station (gas) opened in SA today (more info about that in the AGL thread).
That's the divide basically. Private enterprise favours wind, solar and gas with a few batteries here and there. Under that model gas provides around half the total supply.
On the other side, the two big hydro operators propose themselves building big pumped hydro schemes, others building more wind and solar and smaller hydro and battery systems, and in due course minimal use of gas.
Something needs to be done though. If you went to Yallourn right now you'd find three quarters of the plant's idle and the rest's struggling along. No Sir, it ain't going at all well not in the slightest. Not to worry though - the politicians of all colours will have already rehearsed their speech for when old grandpa tries to run another marathon this summer and keels over in the heat. "Not our fault" they'll scream whilst throwing a few stones at the other side of politics.
Hey Mate,
What are your thoughts on "Sun Cable", eg the company planning to build solar panel farm in NT and export to Singapore.
Is this Viable from an engineering standpoint? do you think this sort of project can deliver a return on capital to make it worthwhile for investors.
I mean if we can deliver solar power via a cable to Singapore, It means we could deliver it anywhere inside Australia, I mean we could have Solar panels in WA (at 3pm local time) delivering power into the east coast 6pm peak period, and maybe Auckland and Perth could absorb excess East coast Australian Solar during midday Sydney time, and Sydney could use off peak Kiwi hydro during the night.
Is this sort of thing possible???
Not to pre-empt Smurf's expert knowledge on this, but what would worry me about such large scale solar projects is how do you compete long term when the cost to produce solar power is falling year by year at a fairly significant rate. IMO you would need a positive return on the total project within a 5 to 7 year time frame, otherwise competing projects will be coming on line with a cost structure that is perhaps half of what this project cost.
I think the most of the value would be in the cables moving the energy around, I mean even if in 7 years there is some super efficient solar cell available, some one wanting to built a solar farm would still have to build their own cables to transport the power to its destination or beg for space on the existing cables.
my main question though is how likely is it that long distance cables become a viable thing.
As I said, being able to transport excess midday east coast solar over to Auckland and Perth would be convenient, and transporting off peak newzealand hydro and excess Perth solar back to the east coast would be good to.
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