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The future of energy generation and storage

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Smurf1976 said:
There's 3500MW of wind generation running in Victoria right now
Click to expand...
And now there isn't.

Wind and solar output, past 24 hours in Victoria:



And there's the problem.

At 10:30pm last night wind was supplying 65.3% of Victoria's electricity.

At 6pm tonight the supply mix was:

Coal = 65.8%
Snowy Hydro* = 15.6%
Gas = 6.0%
From Tasmania = 5.4%
AGL Victorian hydro stations = 3.9%
Wind = 3.1%
Battery = 0.7%

Export from Victoria to SA = 0.5% of Victorian total supply

*Includes 0.2% from Snowy Hydro facilities in NSW.

So in short yes wind and solar work but we're absolutely reliant on fossil fuels and hydro to maintain reliable supply. If we don't want fossils then we'd better learn to like hydro.
 
Smurf1976 said:
Snowy Hydro* = 15.6%
Click to expand...
I should clarify that was referring to hydro generation, the actual Snowy scheme as most Australians know it, that is the hydro scheme only, and does not include gas generation owned by Snowy which is included separately in the "Gas" figure.
 
heres a result that i would not have expected.
ABC viewers approve of Nuclear power?
Mind you, its only a small sample (6.7 k voters), and the participants are self selecting, but it is still surpring nonetheless.
Mick
 
mullokintyre said:
heres a result that i would not have expected.
ABC viewers approve of Nuclear power?
Mind you, its only a small sample (6.7 k voters), and the participants are self selecting, but it is still surpring nonetheless.
Mick
View attachment 157851
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That's interesting when you consider a Q&A poll would be heavily biased left, as only the left leaning would entertain even a cursory glance at Q & A, let alone actually go as far as participate in a poll for them.
This is a lot of the problem, career politicians think things are the same as when they themselves were normal people and most of the public were ill informed and relied on the media.
Todays general public is much better informed and the issues are debated through their social media, also they don't trust the mainstream media, so the ones who are now out of touch are actually the politicians IMO.
Well that's what I'm picking up from my kids and their friends and they represent the whole spectrum of society, from the street to top end of town and most levels in between.
 
I feel that in the next decade, electricity will be like Telstra and home phones and batteries with more capacity and becoming cheaper.

Remember the stupid "line rental" fee you had to pay just to have a landline?
Then mobile phones came along and l don't know anyone who has a land line in their house anymore. The whole market changed.



This is my solar generation for May 2023 - and l still had to pay around $50 for the month to AGL.




.​
 
You can always go off the grid.
You are paying to keep the service as a contingency, so you have to contribute to network costs.
 
This energy project in Denmark is cool.
They are using a giant heat pump extracting heat from seawater using a CO2 based refrigerant to heat 25,000 homes.
On top of that the heat pump draws it's electrical energy from local wind turbines and also acts to balance the energy grid.

Very elegant, synergistic solutions to multiple issues.

These two giant heat pumps will warm 25,000 households​


Michelle Lewis | Jun 6 2023 - 3:43 pm PT




German engine maker MAN Energy Solutions‘ industrial-sized heat pumps will produce 350,000 MWh of heat per year and warm 25,000 Danish households using offshore wind power and seawater.

Industrial-sized heat pumps​

The seaport town of Esbjerg, Denmark, has a target of net zero by 2030, and Kenneth Jørgensen, project director at Danish utility DIN Forsyning, said:
We’re phasing out coal-fired heat and replacing it with carbon-neutral district heating produced from wind and seawater.
Click to expand...
DIN Forsyning will be using two of MAN Energy’s electro-thermal energy storage heat pumps. They’re the first of their kind to provide zero-emission thermal energy on an industrial scale, and they’re powered by clean electricity created by local wind turbines. They’re expected to come online this fall.

How they work​

Seawater is drawn from the harbor, and thermal energy is extracted before the water is pumped back into the sea. Carbon dioxide, the refrigerant, is warmed up by the seawater and vaporized, then it’s compressed, and it heads to a heat exchanger, where it reaches a maximum temperature of 150 C (302 F). It will deliver water to the city’s district heating network at 90 C (194 F).
Karl Böhle, MAN’s senior project manager, said:
Being able to store heat means that, unlike an electrical grid that has to be balanced, the heat pump’s production does not have to match its consumption. Excess electricity can be sold back to the grid, which means the giant heat pumps provide cleaner and cheaper heat and electricity.
Check out the video below to learn more about this trailblazing project:

Read more: World’s most powerful wind turbine’s blades arrive for installation
Photos: Sebastian Vollmert

These two giant heat pumps will warm 25,000 households

A German engine maker's industrial heat pumps will produce 350,000 MWh of heat per year with offshore wind and seawater.
electrek.co
 
Very clever engineering solution.
In Europe, so many houses are high density apartment type blocks, so heating many at once is a definite easier option compared to places like OZ and most of the USA where we have the fetish for detached housing on the quarter acre block.
But in apartment buildings, office towers, maybe even factories, they would be almost mandatory, especially in a good sunny climate like we have.

Mick
 
Smurf1976 said:
A big socialised industry funded by taxation with no chance of making a profit so perhaps not hugely surprising.

Referring to nuclear power that is. It is and always has been a socialist thing not a capitalist one.
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When it comes to a choice between nuclear or the unwashed masses sitting in the dark and the pollies being voted out, profit and cost doesn't come into it, that goes for both sides of politics. ?
 
DB008 said:
Remember the stupid "line rental" fee you had to pay just to have a landline?
Then mobile phones came along and l don't know anyone who has a land line in their house anymore. The whole market changed.
Click to expand...
How many do you know who aren’t paying a fixed daily or monthly fee right now?

There’d be very few who don’t have either NBN or a mobile service and many have both.
 
One of the big issues of adding solar and EV capacities to a house is the possible need to upgrade the switchboard to cope with the next technology. So wouldn't it be cool to have a simple plug and play unit that enabled a householder to use these capacities without an expensive upgrade ? This looks like a promising solution.

This plug-and-play meter collar makes electrical panel upgrades for EVs and solar unnecessary​


Michelle Lewis May 23 2023 - 4:02 pm PT

69 Comments




Philadelphia-based ConnectDER, which sells plug-and-play meter collar adapters for EV chargers, solar, and battery storage, just closed a $27 million Series C funding round.


ConnectDER makes meter collars (pictured above) that are installed between the home’s meter and the meter socket to create a single access point for distributed energy resources (DER) installation.

Expensive electrical panel upgrades are frequently needed in homes in order to support the additional energy demand of DER products like EV charging, solar panels, heat pumps, and other smart appliances. ConnectDER’s meter adapter platform helps bridge that gap, especially for underserved populations that more frequently live in older, underpowered homes.

The collar allows users to use existing capacity to the fullest, thus making an electrical panel upgrade unnecessary. ConnectDER says it only takes an hour to install the meter collar, and the age of your house and your home’s amperage limits are irrelevant.

This plug-and-play meter collar makes electrical panel upgrades for EVs and solar unnecessary

ConnectDER, which sells plug-and-play meter collar adapters for EV chargers, solar, and storage, just closed a $27 million funding round.
electrek.co
 
This housing development in Vermont in the US pulls together all the threads of clean energy independence and the Biden government Green New Deal project. The financial savings figures seems excellent .

Check out the ultimate all-electric, solar powered, storm-resilient neighborhood​


Michelle Lewis May 23 2023 - 11:27 am PT

7 Comments




Vermont’s first all-electric, solar-powered, storm resilient neighborhood of 155 homes with microgrid backup power has broken ground.


All-electric neighborhood in Vermont​

The development is called Hillside East, and it’s in South Burlington, Vermont. The neighborhood and its homes are designed with climate and storm resiliency in mind, and the homes won’t use any fossil fuels. The all-electric neighborhood will includes 155 single family and multi-family homes. The homes start at market rate in South Burlington, which is $500,000. The neighborhood is going to be used as a model of resiliency against climate change in Vermont.

Every Hillside East home will have Tesla Powerwalls and rooftop solar. The neighborhood will also have a community microgrid with utility-scale batteries for total backup power.

The Powerwalls at each home and the community microgrid will create a virtual power plant that lowers energy costs for all Green Mountain Power (GMP) customers on peak energy days. The homes’ increased electric use will also drive down costs for all GMP customers in the state, demonstrating that an entire electric community delivers grid benefits.

Hillside East’s backup batteries and EV chargers will add about 3 megawatts (MW) to GMP’s growing network of 50 MW of stored energy across Vermont.

Each home will have ducted heat pump systems for heating and cooling, electric appliances, and a Span Drive level 2 EV charger in the garage.

Span Smart Panels will give homeowners control over electric loads to manage energy use and resiliency, and the neighborhood’s power lines will be buried underground for added protection from damaging storms.
Hillside East’s resiliency package of solar + storage will be an estimated $85 per month with no upfront costs – and that costs a lot less than retrofitting a home with equivalent solar panels and batteries.

....

Electrek’s Take​

Regular readers know that I live in Vermont, and I am so excited by this new all-electric neighborhood, because it has everything a homeowner needs to live sustainably, and it’s also got fantastic resilience. If it wasn’t an hour and a half away, I’d be packing up my stuff to move there.

This is an excellent collaboration between Green Mountain Power, O’Brien Brothers, and state and federal government. The Inflation Reduction Act once again acts as a catalyst for action to reduce emissions and help communities become more resilient against climate change.

I know how great this turnkey option is, because I am at the beginning of my journey of refitting the electrics in my home, which is taking a lot of work. (When it’s over, I’ll write about it to make it easier for others who want to do it – I’m taking one for the team.)

Then Sunrun will put solar on my roof, and GMP will put two Tesla Powerwalls in my cellar so that my home has resiliency. I also get to help produce cost savings for all GMP customers by contributing to balancing the grid. I couldn’t have done this without the Inflation Reduction Act.
GMP’s annual energy supply is 100% carbon free and 78% renewable. I know it’s a little weird that I love my utility, but I do, because they’re working hard to decarbonize the state. They gave me a free ChargePoint EV charger, and a great rebate when I bought my EV.

I used to have Duke Energy as my utility in Florida, and they did nothing like this. GMP is a model for other utilities to follow.

Check out the ultimate all-electric, solar powered, storm-resilient neighborhood

Vermont's first all-electric, solar-powered, storm resilient neighborhood of 155 homes with microgrid backup power has broken ground.
electrek.co
 
What a mess. "Please sir, can we have some more"?

Top End electricity supply to continue to rely on emergency gas

Supply issues at an offshore gas field force the government-owned electricity provider to rely on emergency gas deals with LNG exporters to keep generators running.
www.abc.net.au

How much is this costing taxpayers?​

ABC Rural has estimated PWC has been buying top-up gas via its emergency supply agreements with Santos and Inpex regularly since at least the 2020/21 financial year.

Neither PWC, the minister, Inpex, or Santos would reveal how much the emergency gas is costing taxpayers, all citing commercial-in-confidence agreements.
 

PWC in strife again ?

Who would have trhought it !

(Yes I know it's a different PWC).
 
sptrawler said:
What a mess. "Please sir, can we have some more"?
Click to expand...
This also has implications for the other states due to the interconnected nature of the gas system (see map below).

In short, the inability to supply gas to the Mt Isa region in Qld, a significant zone of consumption, from the NT requires that gas for Mt Isa be sourced from the southern side instead (refer map). By doing so that uses up capacity on the South-West Queensland pipeline which connects SW Qld to Moomba (NE SA) which in turn runs through to consumers in SA and NSW.

So in short, lower gas production in the NT has the practical implication of reducing available gas supply to SA and thus NSW as well (and indirectly Vic and Tas).

 
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