The future of energy generation and storage

While the CCP builds 100 coal fire power stations this year, Albo told us we haven't built a power plant in 20 years.

Hopefully, Dan and Bob can negotiate a vassal state treaty to provide for Australia's energy and economic future. Victoria is leading the way.

Airship wind turbine set for testing in China.

At last common sense prevails.

sptrawler said:

At last common sense prevails.

Australia's largest gas project given final approval to operate until 2070

Australia's biggest gas project, Woodside's North West Shelf, has received final approval to extend operations through until 2070.

www.abc.net.au

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Good news for Aboriginal rock art, but did I see any mention of reservation for local industry/households mentioned?

It's unfortunate that many with a long exposure to the energy industry still see fossil fuels as a solution to our energy needs.
The writing has been on the wall for many years, and is prominent in this graphic:



What the graphic does not expose is pricing, and this has led to greater capacity distinctions than shown above. Fossil fuel generation, hydro and nuclear have all become more expensive to generate on a per watt basis while wind and solar in particular have declined massively in price.

The other big change is in battery storage costs, which will see investment in batteries in 2026 exceed all other generation investment apart from wind/solar. Snowy 2.0 is destined to be a white elephant.

rederob said:

It's unfortunate that many with a long exposure to the energy industry still see fossil fuels as a solution to our energy needs.

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A lot comes down to data and practical reality.

From Australian Government statistics for 2023-24:

Total final energy consumption = 4035 PJ
Oil = 2356 PJ (58.4%)
Electricity = 869 PJ (21.5%)
Gas = 538 PJ (13.3%)
Coal = 92 PJ (2.3%)
Other renewables (eg crop wastes, wood, solar heat, landfill gas, etc) = 180 PJ (4.5%)

For reasons I'm unaware of, coke is missing from the data in practice. That would presumably relate to confidentiality given there's only a very small number of users of any significance, mostly NSW and SA with some in Tas.

Note that for statistical purposes oil includes LPG, that being an internationally accepted convention to do so.

That's on a final consumption basis and avoids double counting. Eg the gas figure means gas used directly as gas, it does not include gas used to generate electricity, same with the rest. In simple terms it's energy "as used" by consumers - eg your kettle uses electricity, how that electricity is generated is a separate question.

Now breaking that down further. All figures are in PJ:

Agriculture = 110.9
Oil = 101
Electricity = 8
Gas = 2

Mining = 525.8
Oil = 313
Electricity = 139
Gas = 65.7
Coal + other renewables = 8.1 (separate data not available)

Manufacturing = 749.3
Gas = 274.5
Electricity = 191.1
Other renewables = 103.2
Oil = 96.9
Coal = 83.6 (excludes coke)

Water and Waste = 17.6
Electricity = 13.5
Oil = 1.7
Gas = 1.5
Other renewables = 0.9

Construction = 39.1
Oil = 27.4
Electricity = 9.2
Gas = 2.4

Transport = 1759.2
Oil = 1726.3
Electricity = 25.7
Gas = 2.2

Commercial and Services = 314.2
Electricity = 230.5
Gas = 50.1
Oil = 32.7

Residential = 447.8
Electricity = 252.5
Gas = 139.6
Other renewables = 70.4
Oil = 15.3

Lubricants, bitumen, solvents = 41.6
Oil = 41.6

By state / territory. Rounded to nearest 0.1% except those below 1% rounded to nearest 0.01%. Excludes coke.

NSW / ACT = 1044.6 PJ
Oil = 63.3%
Electricity = 24.2%
Gas = 8.2%
Coal = 0.65%
Other renewables = 3.7%

Victoria = 837.6 PJ
Oil = 56.4%
Gas = 21.6%
Electricity = 18.6%
Other renewables = 3.3%
Coal = 0.05%

Queensland = 1004.1 PJ
Oil = 56.9%
Electricity = 21.9%
Other renewables = 8.2%
Gas = 8.2%
Coal = 4.8%

WA = 765.4 PJ
Oil = 57.4%
Gas = 19.6%
Electricity = 17.8%
Coal = 3.3%
Other renewables = 1.8%

SA = 235.5 PJ
Oil = 57.3%
Electricity = 22.4%
Gas = 13.7%
Other renewables = 4.8%
Coal = 1.8%

Tasmania = 99.7 PJ
Electricity = 40.8%
Oil = 40.7%
Coal = 7.2%
Other renewables = 5.8%
Gas = 5.3%

NT = 48.7%
Oil = 72.7%
Electricity = 22.0%
Gas = 4.3%
Other renewables = 1.0%

Now the practical impact of all that is simply this.

Most energy is, at the point of use, not in the form of electricity but rather is in the form of oil or gas.

Wind, solar, hydro etc all generate electricity and electricity alone. They cannot supply oil or gas.

Now I'll be the first to argue for increased electrification, I've pushed that one literally my entire adult life indeed it goes back to high school. Electricity is the future and always has been.

It's a practical reality however that Tasmania isn't as electrified as it could be and the other states are a very long way behind Tasmania. That's not going to change in a hurry, it's something that'll take an extended period, decades, to achieve in practice.

The best time to commence was a long time ago but the second best time is right now, but in practice even that isn't happening indeed current legislation actively presents a barrier in some instances

It's a reality that in practice every working weekday more residential gas connections are installed and once done they're going to be there for an extended period. In SA the latest data (2022) is about 87% of new homes use gas, much the same as NSW, and for WA it's even higher. Even in Tas the move is toward gas not away from it albeit at a much lower level.

It's no secret I really don't agree with that continued installation of gas even slightly, but it is what it is, I'm not the decision maker who can put a stop to it. Free market ideology has won the battle unfortunately - and the market likes gas.

The other intertwined problem is the generation cost data you've posted, whilst of itself within the bounds of plausibility (it'll depend on specific sites etc but I doubt you'd disagree on that point) has a major caveat - it's based on full utilisation. That is, it's based on the idea that if the sun shines on the panels then they generate electricity which is put to use.

The significance of that point is simply that cost is fixed, it costs the same to build and maintain the facility whether used or not, such that any failure to fully utilise it directly raises cost per unit of actual production.

That's akin to saying it costs $500 to hire the bus and you've got 50 people and the bus is full. OK so far.

What doesn't work is to let the accountants to say that's $10 per person. From their perspective it might be but that's not a true representation of the real financial structure. In truth it doesn't cost $10 per person, rather it costs $500 regardless of how many people are on the bus.

That point becomes important if there's anything less than full utilisation. If only 25 seats are occupied then it still costs $500. If only 5 seats are occupied then it's still $500. The lower the utilisation, the higher the cost per person actually traveling.

Same with wind and solar. Anything less than full utilisation and the cost per unit of actual output goes up.

Now looking at the 12 months to 15 September 2025, here are the actual utilisation rates for large scale (not rooftop) solar and wind:

Solar:
Qld = 85.8%
NSW = 86.6%
Vic = 84.1%
Tas = N/A
SA = 67.7%

Wind:
Qld = 96.8%
NSW = 97.7%
Vic = 90.2%
Tas = 99.5%
SA = 87.7%

So we're not at the point with some of this where installing more capacity is relatively ineffective at displacing fossil fuels, all it does is displace the output from existing wind or solar.

That's particularly so for solar in SA - building more capacity is, at this point, not overly effective or economic. Because if we consider the marginal curtailment rate on new capacity additions then it's going to be substantially higher than the existing already rather high average curtailment rate.

Now if solar costs AUD 50 / MWh fully used, we're already over $70 just with that average curtailment rate. Build any more solar in SA and that figure goes up rapidly from here. Then there are the costs for firming to add on top.

Data from the 12th and 14th of September 2025 shows it clearly, this is for SA specifically:

Friday 12th Sept:

Total consumption in SA = 40 GWh
Rooftop solar = 8.4 GWh
Large solar = 4.3 GWh generated / 0.009 GWh curtailed
Wind = 5.5 GWh generated / 0.03 GWh curtailed
Fossil + import = 22.1 GWh

Sunday 14th:

Total consumption = 37 GWh
Rooftop solar = 12.4 GWh
Large solar = 0.4 GWh generated / 4.1 GWh curtailed
Wind = 32 GWh generated / 17.1 GWh curtailed
Fossil = 2.1 GWh
Export = 9.2 GWh

So there's the problem. Scaling up VRE to fill the gap on just a moderately below average yield day runs straight into the problem of major curtailment on a better yield day. It's even worse if we compare to an actually bad day, for example:

Thursday 26 June 2025:
Total consumption = 44 GWh
Rooftop solar = 3.6 GWh
Large solar 1.6 GWh generated / no curtailment
Wind = 2.2 GWh generated / no curtailment
Batteries (net) = 0.1 GWh
Gas = 34 GWh
Diesel = 0.2 GWh
From Victoria (net) = 2.3 GWh

Noting the next few days were only modestly better, it was 6 days straight of relatively poor yields.

Plus the same happened in Victoria at the same time, so no offset there.

Actual solutions:

Scaling up wind and solar is physically possible but runs into the problem of major curtailment and economics. Economically it's a problem.

Partial scale up of wind and solar and storage of the surplus electricity during the high yield periods, then discharge during the lower yield periods. With conventional technology this means large scale pumped hydro.

Provide an external source of energy to fill the gaps on poor yield days. Technically straightforward options are gas, diesel or hydro. More problematic but not impossible is coal or biomass.

Or a combination of those approaches. Eg some scaling up of wind and solar, some pumped hydro, some conventional hydro, gas and diesel.

With an additional point that increasing load specifically at times of the day when VRE yield peaks, but not increasing it at other times, also cuts curtailment and improves the economics of building more VRE. In practice that means electric storage water heating although anything else that has the same effect (eg EV charging during daytime) also works.

Now if you ask an engineer they'll usually start with hydro as the preferred solution simply because it works, it's robust, it's effectively permanent and it doesn't come with ongoing costs for fuel and the risk that entails. If it's a pumped or hybrid (pumped on river) scheme with adequate storage then it works at both ends of the issue, it provides a sink load for otherwise curtailed VRE, as well as providing a direct means of firming thus making it particularly attractive.

Hence the rather long list of proposed projects. AEMO currently has 55 projects listed that are based on either hydro or some form of fuel combustion (mostly fossil in practice). Companies involved include:

ACEN Renewables
AGL
Alinta
Altura Group
APA
ATCO Australia
BE Power
Blue Hydro
CSE
Energy Australia
Genex Power
Hydro Tasmania
Leigh Creek Energy
Lochard Energy
Lockyer Energy Management
MSF Sugar
Origin Energy
Pacific Hydro
Queensland Hydro
Shine Energy
Snowy Hydro
Squadron Energy
Water NSW
Yancoal
Zen Energy

Plus others.

So a mix of shareholder owned, privately owned and government owned companies are all looking at projects involving hydro or some form of fuel combustion. In practice many, probably most, of those specific projects won't go beyond the investigative stage but point is they're looking at it, they realise the need exists to provide deep firming by some means.

Batteries?

For short duration storage absolutely and there's a long list of projects under construction or at the planning stages. All good there.

For deep storage though the practical reality is batteries aren't an economic option under present circumstances. At some future time perhaps, but we live in the present and can only build what's available at present. Batteries aren't an option for deep storage today.

All data quoted is either from Australian Government statistics, AEMO directly, or is AEMO data accessed and processed via third party software. All I've done is add it up, change it to % and so on.

Smurf1976 said:

So we're not at the point with some of this where installing more capacity is relatively ineffective at displacing fossil fuels, all it does is displace the output from existing wind or solar.

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Typo - that should have been “we’re NOW at the point…..”.

Adding to the previous, here's a chart of wind and solar curtailment in SA over the past week.

This shows output that was available but not actually generated. In other words it's the lost or wasted output of existing wind and solar.



So that is peaking at just over 2GW going to waste.

Now another way of looking at that is to put actual output versus potential output on the same chart.

Solid green shows actually generated energy from wind, shaded green (lighter colour) shows output that was available but not used:



Same for solar. Solid yellow shows actual output, shaded lighter yellow shows curtailment. Note over the past 3 days the vast majority was curtailed:



Hence the problem that scaling it up to provide adequate supply on the low yield days then results in huge curtailment on better yield days. Technically not a problem, solar and wind can be simply turned off, but a very real problem financially and also in practice likely to run into environmental objections to install that many wind or solar farms.

And yes the industry does discuss this at real in person conferences and the like. From the Queensland Clean Energy Summit:




Photos aren't mine, I'll credit them to Paul McArdle.

The headings tell the story well enough if you can't read the rest.

LDES = Long Duration Energy Storage. In practice hydro but theoretically includes any other tech that can do the same thing.

Gas also includes diesel.

Now I'm aware there are differences of opinion when it comes to renewables versus fossils on account of economics, environment and other matters but from a strictly rational perspective I'll make the following comment:

Whatever the cost of raw wind or solar per MWh, that is only true if it's fully utilised. As soon as it's anything less than 100% utilised the cost of actual production goes up, since a fixed total cost is now spread over fewer units of output.

Ignoring questions of what ought be built, to the extent we do have wind, solar or hydro then it makes sense to use that in preference to using fossil fuel plant. That's true whether you consider CO2, financial cost, or both. That being so, off-peak controlled loads are a very rational way to provide hot water, to heat swimming pools and any other intermittent use. Someone doing that in SA would've achieved 100% renewable energy input to their water heating over the past 4 days for example.

100% renewable is only on the table if substantial long duration storage is built to enable the use of that instead of gas or diesel. With present technology that means large scale hydro.

Given society's general lack of enthusiasm for hydro, in practice gas or diesel it is.

Smurf1976 said:

Adding to the previous, here's a chart of wind and solar curtailment in SA over the past week.

This shows output that was available but not actually generated. In other words it's the lost or wasted output of existing wind and solar.

View attachment 208657

So that is peaking at just over 2GW going to waste.

Now another way of looking at that is to put actual output versus potential output on the same chart.

Solid green shows actually generated energy from wind, shaded green (lighter colour) shows output that was available but not used:

View attachment 208658

Same for solar. Solid yellow shows actual output, shaded lighter yellow shows curtailment. Note over the past 3 days the vast majority was curtailed:

View attachment 208659

Hence the problem that scaling it up to provide adequate supply on the low yield days then results in huge curtailment on better yield days. Technically not a problem, solar and wind can be simply turned off, but a very real problem financially and also in practice likely to run into environmental objections to install that many wind or solar farms.

And yes the industry does discuss this at real in person conferences and the like. From the Queensland Clean Energy Summit:

View attachment 208660

View attachment 208661
Photos aren't mine, I'll credit them to Paul McArdle.

The headings tell the story well enough if you can't read the rest.

LDES = Long Duration Energy Storage. In practice hydro but theoretically includes any other tech that can do the same thing.

Gas also includes diesel.

Now I'm aware there are differences of opinion when it comes to renewables versus fossils on account of economics, environment and other matters but from a strictly rational perspective I'll make the following comment:

Whatever the cost of raw wind or solar per MWh, that is only true if it's fully utilised. As soon as it's anything less than 100% utilised the cost of actual production goes up, since a fixed total cost is now spread over fewer units of output.

Ignoring questions of what ought be built, to the extent we do have wind, solar or hydro then it makes sense to use that in preference to using fossil fuel plant. That's true whether you consider CO2, financial cost, or both. That being so, off-peak controlled loads are a very rational way to provide hot water, to heat swimming pools and any other intermittent use. Someone doing that in SA would've achieved 100% renewable energy input to their water heating over the past 4 days for example.

100% renewable is only on the table if substantial long duration storage is built to enable the use of that instead of gas or diesel. With present technology that means large scale hydro.

Given society's general lack of enthusiasm for hydro, in practice gas or diesel it is.

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But gas is just as dirty as coal !!!!! ( Impersonating a Green).

Exactly @Smurf1976 , in this thread for a very long time it has been said, who pays for all the extra capacity that is required to charge the storage, but isn't required all the time.

It will be a huge cost and as you keep saying hydro is the only viable bulk long duration storage.

I keep wondering when someone is going to address the issue, because the time when it will be required is fast approaching. IMO.
Interesting times.

and during this time:

China Needs Fossil Help to Beat Summer Heat. China’s fossil-fuelled power generation soared to its highest monthly level since 1998 last month as lower hydro output prompted companies to maximize coal and natural gas,,,,,,,

sptrawler said:

I keep wondering when someone is going to address the issue, because the time when it will be required is fast approaching. IMO.
Interesting times.

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Albo is scared of the Greens. It's a shame they weren't gotten rid of at the last election. Well two of them were, but the rest hangs on sticking their fingers in the pie.

It will be interesting to see if more coal announcements follow, it certainly is a product that is on the nose.

sptrawler said:

It will be interesting to see if more coal announcements follow, it certainly is a product that is on the nose.

BHP alliance to sack 750 workers blaming Qld mining royalties

One of Queensland's biggest coal miners says it does not want to see jobs lost but blamed "the Queensland government's unsustainable coal royalties and market conditions".

www.abc.net.au

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Good idea for the Qld government. Send all the mines broke then buy them out and keep all the profits.

SirRumpole said:

Good idea for the Qld government. Send all the mines broke then buy them out and keep all the profits.

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It would be nice if that happened, but it is more likely the Chinese will buy it out, than the Government

The Kurri Kurri gas fired power station nears completion, it highlights the stupidity of politicians in trying to determine what is best for energy genration. This article from Evil Murdoch Press , who are seen by many as a rightwing conservative rag, was most scting of the original decision by Angus Taylor and the Morrison Government. Mind you , it is equally critical of the current regime's decision to try to run on Hydrogen.
Mick

The most important thing is that it was designed by bureaucrats and not engineers. This is Australia's current approach to energy security.

Net Zero achieved

mullokintyre said:

The Kurri Kurri gas fired power station nears completion, it highlights the stupidity of politicians in trying to determine what is best for energy genration. This article from Evil Murdoch Press , who are seen by many as a rightwing conservative rag, was most scting of the original decision by Angus Taylor and the Morrison Government. Mind you , it is equally critical of the current regime's decision to try to run on Hydrogen.
Mick
View attachment 208778
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View attachment 208782

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Who does the cost estimates I wonder and why are they all woefully inadequate?

Obviously companies try to sell something cheap to governments, but surely there has to be an independent costing agency for infrastructure projects?

SirRumpole said:

Who does the cost estimates I wonder and why are they all woefully inadequate?

Obviously companies try to sell something cheap to governments, but surely there has to be an independent costing agency for infrastructure projects?

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The article stated that no private company was interested in building a gas fired replacement for Kurri Kurri, which is why the Government decided to do it.
Where they got the cost estimates from is any ones guess.
maybe from a bloke down the pub.
mick