The future of energy generation and storage

Ex gold mine could be turned into 20,000 MWh hydro scheme.

IFocus said:

A pro renewables piece

Forget nuclear, Australia is on fast lane to 100pc renewables​

by Andrew Blakers | Apr 11, 2025 | Energy & Environment, Latest Posts
View attachment 197336
Artwork by Michael Joiner, 360info



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Listen to this story
7 min


Gas is the talk of the town, while nuclear is not, but a massive increase in solar power generation capacity has already put Australia on the fast track to a 100% renewable energy future. Solar cell engineer Andrew Blakers explains.


An academic living in cold Canberra retired his gas heaters a few years ago and installed electric heat pumps for space and water heating. His gas bill went to zero. He also bought an electric vehicle, so his petrol bill went to zero.
He then installed rooftop solar panels that export enough solar electricity to the grid to pay for electricity imports at night, so his electricity bill also went to zero. That Canberra academic will get his money back from these energy investments in about eight years.
I am that academic.

Forget nuclear, Australia is on fast lane to 100pc renewables - Michael West

A massive increase in solar power generation capacity is already putting Australia on the fast track to a 100% renewable energy future.

michaelwest.com.au

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That is an excellent, very detailed real life project.

Andrew Blackers also shoots down the various "problem issues" thrown up regarding renewable energy.

I think this is a very promising development in fast tracking the transition to renewable energy. I highlighted the key part of Drew Baglino's new company.

Tesla’s long-time top engineer launches new energy startup: Heron Power​

Fred Lambert Apr 7 2025 - 12:31 pm PT

14 Comments



Drew Baglino, a long-time top executive at Tesla who exited last year, has launched a new energy startup: Heron Power.

Baglino was one of Tesla’s first employees. He worked closely with Tesla co-founder and long-time CTO JB Straubel before he left the executive team in 2019.

At that time, he became the defacto most senior engineering leader at the company and put in charge of batteries, motors, drive units, power electronics and our energy products – arguably the heart of Tesla’s business.

He worked 18 years at Tesla and was involved in many critical engineering projects at the company.

......According to a new report from Axios, the former Tesla engineering executive is behind the new startup developing solid-state transformers for the electric grid. The company is trying to raise between $30 million and $50 million for a Series A led by Capricorn Investment Group.

Transformers have seen little change over the last 100 years, and solid-state transformers, if they can be produced at a reasonable cost, have the potential of accelerating the grid’s transition to renewable energy.

Solid-state transformers offer more advanced capabilities than traditional transformers. They can regulate voltage fluctuations caused by solar panels and wind turbines, switch rapidly between different power sources, and are much more compact. Additionally, they can be actively controlled, which helps improve grid stability.

I always find "Just have a Think" a great source of quality insight into whatever topic Dave Borlace chooses to examine.

This one is particularly interesting. Dave explores a very detailed analysis which indicates that Roof Top solar across the world would offer the biggest single impact on reducing carbon emissions as well as saving people huge chunks off their energy costs. And of course it would be the biggest movement in energy generation and storage.

New Report - Rooftop Solar PV is THE biggest climate mitigation technology!​

​

Apr 14, 2025​

Rooftop solar PV is THE best way to reduce your household energy bills (alongside good insulation of course!). But the technology is woefully underutilised on a global basis, especially in regions that have the best sunshine, like Africa. Now a new report has crunched some numbers and calculated the climate mitigation potential of all those unused roofs around the world. And it's quite the impact!

basilio said:

Andrew Blackers also shoots down the various "problem issues" thrown up regarding renewable energy.

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Agreed with his broad points but:

Getting to mostly renewable electricity is pretty straightforward, no argument there it's doable yes.

Getting to mostly renewable energy requires mass electrification and, key point, that needs to be underway well before we have mostly renewable electricity. Because the load profile created by that electrification its itself a key to the economics of building renewable energy. That isn't a "chicken or the egg" situation, it's a clear cut one that electrification needs to get underway, you don't wait to first build the renewables but rather you do both at once. Unfortunately we've been going in the wrong direction on that one in recent times due to politics prioritising "optics" over engineering.

Getting to 100% however is where most go quiet. Take a look at the detail and most propose some fossil fuels there in practice, that's how they get it to work with relatively little storage. They'll come up with all manner of terms like "synthetic fuel" and so on to hide it, but it's good old fossil oil and gas in practice. Closest it gets to renewable is diverting the limited supplies of biodiesel etc from other uses, then saying hey look it's renewable. Just don't mention that every drop burned in the gas turbines is in practice replaced with fossils in whatever other application it would otherwise have used for.

Hence the technical people will all say much the same. Yep, renewables up to a point is easy, that point would be much greater if we got on with load control and electrification, but if you want 100% well there's that niggly little question of extended periods of low wind and sun as per the charts I've previously posted. Hydro's one workaround for that, the other is gas turbines but those aren't renewable. Well, not unless they're run on hydrogen - not impossible but the economics are proving to be quite a problem at least at present.

That's not to rubbish the overall work or point, just pointing out that deep firming is where it gets hard. That's the bit few seem to want to talk about. Going mostly renewable's a lot easier than going all the way.

Meanwhile up in Queensland, a state where going fully renewable is a lot easier than the others (except Tasmania where it's obviously a lot easier), if anyone needed evidence of people being out of their depth then here it is.

Just explain what it means Sir. Just explain what it means....

Smurf1976 said:

Agreed with his broad points but:

Getting to mostly renewable electricity is pretty straightforward, no argument there it's doable yes.

Getting to mostly renewable energy requires mass electrification and, key point, that needs to be underway well before we have mostly renewable electricity. Because the load profile created by that electrification its itself a key to the economics of building renewable energy. That isn't a "chicken or the egg" situation, it's a clear cut one that electrification needs to get underway, you don't wait to first build the renewables but rather you do both at once. Unfortunately we've been going in the wrong direction on that one in recent times due to politics prioritising "optics" over engineering.

Getting to 100% however is where most go quiet. Take a look at the detail and most propose some fossil fuels there in practice, that's how they get it to work with relatively little storage. They'll come up with all manner of terms like "synthetic fuel" and so on to hide it, but it's good old fossil oil and gas in practice. Closest it gets to renewable is diverting the limited supplies of biodiesel etc from other uses, then saying hey look it's renewable. Just don't mention that every drop burned in the gas turbines is in practice replaced with fossils in whatever other application it would otherwise have used for.

Hence the technical people will all say much the same. Yep, renewables up to a point is easy, that point would be much greater if we got on with load control and electrification, but if you want 100% well there's that niggly little question of extended periods of low wind and sun as per the charts I've previously posted. Hydro's one workaround for that, the other is gas turbines but those aren't renewable.

That's not to rubbish the overall work or point, just pointing out that deep firming is where it gets hard. That's the bit few seem to want to talk about. Going mostly renewable's a lot easier than going all the way.

Meanwhile up in Queensland, a state where going fully renewable is a lot easier than the others (except Tasmania where it's obviously a lot easier), if anyone needed evidence of people being out of their depth then here it is.

Just explain what it means Sir. Just explain what it means....

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For the purposes of this exercise, are we including nuclear as renewable? It lasts a long time, but uranium will eventually run out, then there is thorium which will eventually run out...

SirRumpole said:

For the purposes of this exercise, are we including nuclear as renewable?

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Conventional definition of renewables means things that are replenished by nature on a relatively short time scale.

Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, hydro etc are all renewable.

Biomass gets more complex since on one hand the biomass itself is renewable. Trouble is it really doesn't scale all that well. Best explained with the example that if we took 100% of the world's entire wheat crop and used existing technology to turn that into liquid biofuels, then what we get is equal to 2.7% of the world's present supply of crude oil. Therein lies the problem - no chance there's a surplus of this anytime soon.

For nuclear well it might be reasonably abundant but its not renewable, ultimately it's finite.

As we said early in the thread, the only issue with wind/solar renewables is the low output, this means a huge amount of both have to be deployed which also creates its own problems.

A huge amount of stuff has to be dug up, to make the huge amount of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries to supply the required energy, because they don't produce much energy compared to their footprint.

Eventually the technology will improve, to the point that renewables output is many times greater than it is currently and much less materials, land area, firming is required.

The issue IMO is which of the currently available 'clean' technologies is the most practicle to use, until such times as renewables can do it on its own.

This really isn't about which fossil fueled power is best, it's about getting rid of fossil fuel usage ASAP, to stop global warming.

To do that, IMO whatever can produce the required firming capacity, with the smallest footprint and the minimum amount of mining and ecological destruction makes a lot of sense.

PV output, concentrated solar storage, wind turbines etc are all being improved and as I said I think eventually they will be all that is required.

The real issue is, what is most important, stopping emissions and global warming.
Or not using nuclear energy at all and accepting global warming until renewables improve, because there is a hell of a lot more power required than we are using or putting in at the moment.

As the latest report said, electrical generation is now 40% renewables, but global emissions went up, because demand is going up and we really haven't even started changing transport and industrial fossil fuel usage over to electric power.

That's going to cause a huge amount of extra electrical energy to have to be produced and installed.

It certainly is an interesting subject, it all boils down to what the priority is, the emissions and global warming, or the cost and the waste to get rid of the emissions.

sptrawler said:

and we really haven't even started changing transport and industrial fossil fuel usage over to electric.

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And what about what comes out of the backsides of cows, sheep and other beasts?

Where is the push to go vegetarian and re-afforestation, rather than destroying land for wind and solar farms?

sptrawler said:

Usually the furnace is inspected through viewing windows on a regular basis, when a large build up of clinker occurs, the unit is usually taken off line and high pressure water lances are used to blast the buildup off.

If the build up goes unnoticed and falls off it can fall from a very high height, so can cause damage to the lower water wall tubes or ash hopper depending on the boiler design, so a boiler trip can be from a tube rupture or a furnace pressure swing.
It is strange that fuel kept flowing, a boiler loss of flame, is an instant trip and requires a purge sequence before a fire can be restarted
it will be interesting when the investigation result comes out.
This Callide C, is starting to sound like it is well past its use by date.

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Like I said, it will be interesting, when the investigation results come out.


The operator of the trouble-plagued Callide Power Station has conceded it "understated the gravity" of an explosion at the facility, and that there has not been "adequate reporting of serious issues".

sptrawler said:

Like I said, it will be interesting, when the investigation results come out.

Operator of trouble-plagued power plant 'understated the gravity' of explosion

CS Energy has conceded there has not been adequate reporting of serious issues following an explosion at the facility on April 4.

www.abc.net.au

The operator of the trouble-plagued Callide Power Station has conceded it "understated the gravity" of an explosion at the facility, and that there has not been "adequate reporting of serious issues".

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It is to be hoped that if there is an investigation more than a slap on the wrist is given.

Can super critical CO2 turbines replace steam for energy generation?

Even supporters are not blind but an ALP in need of green washing would do anything to stay in power: that $ 100million road to the beach house will need to be resurfaced with these bloody peons still allowed to drive individual cars...
More seriously, another acceleration into the wall

qldfrog said:

We Can't Let Labor's Battery Cash Cause A Grid Crash

Labor's Cheaper Home Batteries Program could inadvertently encourage suburban survivalists to disconnect from a grid that urgently needs more storage.

www.solarquotes.com.au

Even supporters are not blind but an ALP in need of green washing would do anything to stay in power: that $ 100million road to the beach house will need to be resurfaced with these bloody peons still allowed to drive individual cars...
More seriously, another acceleration into the wall

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That could have been written by Smurf.

SirRumpole said:

That could have been written by Smurf.

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Note the pejorative survivalist use for what is actually just thinking not dumb person using their money for best ROI
But it is a good look at the actual figures and issues

More pressure on the viability of energy intensive processes and legislated targets.

Spain reached 50% renewable recentlyand celebrates with a nation wide blackout extending to part of Portugal and France..
Will probably blame Putin ...

Spain: A beautiful case study and demonstration of what happens when the grid collapses for a whole country..for us, a state
After just a very short event, it takes half a day to restart with all transport locked and incredible cost to the economy..and probably even lost lives.
They stopped blaming hacking, now meteorological phenomenon cause is suggested: not sure if it is solar flare, renewable energy weather issue or something else.
Very confusing and there will be a lot of ass covering happening so take every statement with suspicion.
I am sure this event will be of high interest to mr @Smurf1976
A thought to the affected spaniards

qldfrog said:

Spain reached 50% renewable recentlyand celebrates with a nation wide blackout extending to part of Portugal and France..
Will probably blame Putin ...

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Here is an article on the incident, by your ABC.

Further information on the Spain/Portugal blackouts, this is really interesting, can't wait to see the outcome of the investigation.

Luckily they will have strong interconnectors to Europe, to re establish supply, interesting times a lot of knowledge will be gleaned from this incident IMO
.
The blackout no doubt will cause the EU, to strengthen their grid interconnects and start a holistic approach to the decarbonising which will mean helping each other build on their natural strengths e.g renewables, hydro, nuclear.

This is exactly the situation that I was mentioning where it could prove difficult to black start with a near 100% renewable grid. It also highlights what @Smurf1976 keeps emphasising about system strength and inertia.

This will be a HUGE wake up call to those ranters and chanters and the political clowns that feed them IMO.
Chris will be was punching his undies.


Several countries in Europe have been scrambling to restore electricity after a huge power cut caused blackouts

Spain, Portugal and some of south-west France suffered a massive power cut on Monday, with major cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon among those affected.

What happened?​

Spain’s electric network, said Spain and Portugal were hit by “el cero” – the zero. Its Portuguese counterpart, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), said the outage started at 11:33am Western European summer time.

By mid-afternoon the Spanish operator, which is partly state-owned, said that it had started to recover voltage in the north, south and west of the Iberian peninsula. The recovery process could only be carried out gradually, to avoid overloading parts of the grid as each generator connects.

Spain’s electric network, said Spain and Portugal were hit by “el cero” – the zero. Its Portuguese counterpart, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), said the outage started at 11:33am Western European summer time.

By mid-afternoon the Spanish operator, which is partly state-owned, said that it had started to recover voltage in the north, south and west of the Iberian peninsula. The recovery process could only be carried out gradually, to avoid overloading parts of the grid as each generator connects.
The grid needs constant management to ensure it is not overloaded by too much generation, or left short by too little. Power stations will shut down automatically if the frequency breaks out of normal range. To restart they must then be reconnected to users.

What caused it?​

The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns.
REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
The risks posed to electrical systems by big variations in atmospheric temperatures are well known in the industry, even if it is rare for problems to manifest on this scale.
“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”

Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels thinktank, saidthe system had suffered “cascading disconnections of power plants” – including one in France – when the frequency of the grid dropped below the European standard of 50Hz.

Balancing has been important as long as there has been a grid, but there is more focus on the issue because of the rapid switch to renewables like solar and wind, which are intermittent.

Spinning gas turbines have been the standard technology for managing the frequency for decades, but renewables will need investment in other options such as flywheels or advanced power electronics.

“You cannot ignore it,” Zachmann said. “You need the tools to keep the system running.”
Spain is on its way to being a green energy leader: it has abundant sun and wind. Last year was a record period for renewable power generation, which accounted for 56% of all electricity used. By 2030 that proportion will rise to 81%.

That shift will help Spain end its reliance on energy imports, but it also brings its own challenges. Every national grid in the world will need to spend heavily to upgrade distribution systems to connect scattered renewable generation and ensure it is balanced.

Did international connections cause problems?​

Engelaar said such a widespread failure was “extremely unusual”. However, there have been previous examples. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a huge outage across Italy for about 12 hours. A 2006 German power overload caused outages as far away as Portugal and Morocco.

“Interconnection between countries is vital for sharing clean energy, but it also creates new pathways for failure to spread quickly,” Engelaar said.

However, Bruegel’s Zachmann said that interconnections also help to prevent problems from getting worse. The interconnector with France will make it “much easier to bring the electricity system back”. “Yes, problems spill over but at the same time the larger system acts as a buffer and prevents the crisis escalating,” he said.