The future of energy generation and storage

sptrawler said:

@rederob I think we have covered the issue well, so we just have to agree to disagree on the value of bulk storage, which is a moot point, because we have no influence on the decision anyway.
But it has been an interesting chat.

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We will need storage, but we disagree on how it is achieved.
This thread is about the future not the past.
Energy is transitioning along the lines of computing. If you need more data storage you tap into the cloud and save yourself a hell of a lot of money. When you think about the energy problem rationally it makes no sense to spend billions on deep storage that never needs to be called on when all you have to do is be able to tap into storage that other people pay for, viz. EVs and home batteries.

The issue of us not being decision makers is only true to the extent we cannot influence decision making. In part that's what elections are for. The other part is actually understanding the problem needing to be solved and how it can be properly resourced to do what has to be done so that it becomes our future, rather than a bandage that weeps.

People probably said similar things when Snowy 1 was built. Its expensive, it is dearer than putting in more coal fired stations, it just doesnt make sense.
Like I said we have done it to death, we are becoming monotonous.

sptrawler said:

People probably said similar things when Snowy 1 was built. Its expensive, it is dearer than putting in more coal fired stations, it just doesnt make sense.
Like I said we have done it to death, we are becoming monotonous.

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Sometimes you just have to let someone have the last word.
Mick

rederob said:

When you think about the energy problem rationally it makes no sense to spend billions on deep storage that never needs to be called on when all you have to do is be able to tap into storage that other people pay for, viz. EVs and home batteries.

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As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.

SirRumpole said:

people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.

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A bit like politicians really.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

A bit like politicians really.
Mick

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Sure, but politicians are paid to act in our interests. They should do that or quit their jobs.

SirRumpole said:

As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.

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That's the beauty of a grid that accommodates DER.
EV's are inevitable and home battery uptake is statistically going through the roof as it gets cheaper.
Being able to redistribute your stored energy and being paid for it seems like a good idea - a bit like FIT. However, the need to redistribute stored energy by operator intervention would only occur when electricity prices are high, so all redistributed energy could be paid a premium, which becomes a win-win.

SirRumpole said:

As @Smurf1976 pointed out, consumers are fickle and can't necessarily be relied on to do the right thing, unless you engineer systems that can't be interfered with, people will generally act in their own interests rather than the communities interest.

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The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.

Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. ?

Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader.
Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.

sptrawler said:

The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.

Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. ?

Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader.
Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.

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And just wait for the screams when BEV users get charged 'road use ' tax to replace fuel excise.

SirRumpole said:

And just wait for the screams when BEV users get charged 'road use ' tax to replace fuel excise.

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Not only that but if they are using the onboard GPS and datalogger, to charge the road use tax, they can just as easily check the historical speed data and issue fines, just the same as using someone's data on their gopro camera, the new World is coming.

sptrawler said:

The really funny part is arguing for BEV's over hydro is a laugh, BEV's are cleaner than ICE cars, but non the less they are a finite resource and require replacement, whereas hydro can last for hundreds of years supplying the equivalent "clean" storage as 2,000 relatively dirty batteries.

Not only that, but the pumped hydro will be ready by a few years time, imagine sitting around waiting for the vehicle registrations information, before you can allow a solar farm to be built, "hang about we only need another 10,000 Tesla's sold and you can commission your solar farm". What a hoot, welcome to Wally World. ?

Go figure the reasoning, I certainly can't. I guess there is a "dirty" side to even the "greenest" crusader.
Or maybe someone is just hoping for a subsidy, before they buy a Tesla.

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@sptrawler: you really should know better!
First, all BEV materials are potentially recyclable.
Second FCEVs will use limitless fuel and are equally as capable as BEVs to prop up the grid via V2G.
Third, your "storage" idea has no supporting business case. SH2 was an investment decision based on no other policy supporting transition.
Fourth, FCEV don't use dirty batteries to store energy.
Fifth, SH2 wont be making any meaningful contributions to the grid for another 5 years, not the "few" you claim.
Sixth, grid supported DER can be scaled to many times greater output than SH2.
Seventh, the scalable nature of DER is more than capable of satisfying days of minimum VRE output.
Eighth, EVs are being sold from $10k upwards today, just not yet in Australia, so using Tesla to support your ideas is very weak. Next year, if BYD and some other Chinese manufacturers enter the Australian market, BEVs will be price comparable with ICE vehicles of similar size, but technologically superior.

Planning for the future is about envisioning what the future is likely to look like. Small scale pumped hydro that can be cheapy accommodated, such as that planned for Walpole make sense. And maybe gravity batteries in the future too, depending on circumstances.
As I read it SH2 is the clayton's response to our energy future.

That is a funny word to use in your first sentence, potentially recyclable. They will be, but there will always be some waste residue and you still have to dig up and process the 2,000 batteries worth, whereas once the gydro is built it is clean energy for generations.
Of course it has a business case, it is being built, just in case you hadnt noticed, get a grip.
Im on the phone, so ill keep it short, just taken some friends to gnomesville amd the Wellington dam murals, well worth the visit, if you are in the area.

sptrawler said:

gnomesville

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Well I missed that one whilst in the area 4 years ago....

Never heard of it until now.

rederob said:

SH2 wont be making any meaningful contributions to the grid for another 5 years

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AEMO data current as of October 2021 shows two generating units in Snowy 2.0 operating for the 2025-26 summer season, 4 operating for the 2026 winter season and 6 operating for the 2026-27 summer. There are 6 generating units being installed in the power station in total.

Others:

Victorian Big Battery for summer 2021-22 (300 MW / 450 MWh)

Wallgrove Grid Battery for summer 2021-22 (50 MW / 75 MWh, NSW)

Wandoan South (battery) for summer 2021-22 (100 MW / 150 MWh, Qld)

Kurri Kurri gas turbines summer 2023-24 (gas / diesel fired open cycle gas turbines, 750 MW, NSW).

Kidston pumped hydro in service for summer 2024-25 (250 MW / 2000 MWh, Qld)

That's it for things which are new and not yet in operation (or have only just commenced), are sufficiently committed projects for AEMO to have put firm dates on when they'll operate and which are storage, fossil fuel or conventional hydro facilities (so everything that isn't wind or solar farms without storage).

That's not to say nothing else will go ahead but they're not firm enough to see AEMO putting specific dates on available capacity as yet. As a general comment, one that applies to all technologies, there have been so many "publicly announced" proposals now to build some sort of power station, battery, wind farm etc that never amounted to anything that nobody in the industry pays any real attention to such things now.

Instead what's looked for is hard evidence that it's actually happening - workers on site with substantial $ actually being spent. Not just a fence and a site office but real, serious work being done and equipment turning up. That makes it a goer albeit with an uncertain completion time. Hence some of the more credible companies now tend to put photos of activity underway on their websites and so on - it's proof that they really are building it or are at least doing the core samples or whatever else they claim to be doing.

Then wait for AEMO to be confident enough to put a specific timeframe on it, which they're hesitant to do these days until it's very certain. At that point it's taken as a given that it really is happening.

I've left Snapper Point Power Station in SA off the list intentionally given that whilst it's new as such, it isn't new generating capacity given that it involves the relocation and conversion to dual fuel (gas / diesel) of open cycle gas turbines presently installed and operating at a different location on diesel only. So a new location and changing to dual fuel but no increase in available supply.

What no projected BEV storage capacity factored in?

I think it's irrelevant to argue for this or that, the more options we have available the less reliant we are on one.

There are places for basically every type of storage that I can see, horses for courses in different areas.

SirRumpole said:

There are places for basically every type of storage

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From a technical perspective what matters is the capabilities of the overall fleet and how it's actually managed and operated in practice.

Whether the best way to get those capabilities is hydro, large batteries, small batteries, cars, compressed air or whatever is about economics and politics mostly, so long as the capability actually is delivered.

In my personal situation well it's just after midnight and my battery is sitting on 44% charged and running the house just fine, having been at 100% at 17:45. Ultimately though, if tomorrow were heavily overcast well then that's it, it has storage sufficient to shift generation from daytime to evening but it won't ride through days of no sun.

It's much the same with a lot of the large scale battery projects. They'll charge at ~midday and discharge at ~7pm just fine but ultimately they do need to charge each day in order to do that, they're no help at coping with an extended period of calm, cloudy weather.

Smurf1976 said:

From a technical perspective what matters is the capabilities of the overall fleet and how it's actually managed and operated in practice.

Whether the best way to get those capabilities is hydro, large batteries, small batteries, cars, compressed air or whatever is about economics and politics mostly, so long as the capability actually is delivered.

In my personal situation well it's just after midnight and my battery is sitting on 44% charged and running the house just fine, having been at 100% at 17:45. Ultimately though, if tomorrow were heavily overcast well then that's it, it has storage sufficient to shift generation from daytime to evening but it won't ride through days of no sun.

It's much the same with a lot of the large scale battery projects. They'll charge at ~midday and discharge at ~7pm just fine but ultimately they do need to charge each day in order to do that, they're no help at coping with an extended period of calm, cloudy weather.

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That goes for whether the solar/wind is charging your house battery, the car battery or the grid battery, if it is bad weather none of them get charged..
That is what some can't get their head around IMO.
As Rumpy says, the more diverse the storage, the better the system is served.

sptrawler said:

That goes for whether the solar/wind is charging your house battery, the car battery or the grid battery, if it is bad weather none of them get charged..

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It's already the case for example that, broadly speaking, high winds in SA + Victoria result in energy transfer SA > Victoria > both Tasmania and NSW.

Low winds in SA and Victoria tend to result in energy transfer Tasmania > Victoria > SA with a varying (both directions throughout the day) flow NSW - Vic.

That's a generic situation. Obviously depends on plant outages, system load etc.

So there's already a partial linkage there, it's already the case that SA's wind and solar energy production is partly being balanced by varying generation, especially hydro, interstate in addition to local gas-fired generation and batteries.

SA Power Networks (SAPN) distribution network load:



Below zero yes so we've now had several occurrences, dates as above, where load on the distribution network in SA drops below zero. That is, customers connected to the distribution network are generating more than they're using at that time.

Note for those not aware, the distribution network is what supplies electricity to homes, shops, offices and so on and does not include anything connected directly to the transmission network (eg mining and heavy industry).

This is thought to be a world first for a large scale power system, the only precedents being small islands and things like that.

Press release is here: https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/311762/press-release-sa-network-sets-new-mark-for-solar/