SA power - a plan at last

[Shiraz]

Finally, after decades of wishful thinking, a government has produced a logical plan for power security and a low emission future in SA, based on a mixture of gas and renewables along with battery storage, plus a state owned generator to keep the bas#$@ds honest(er).

Seems that there was no point in waiting for the feds to act - they still seem to think that the failed national energy market will spookily sort it all out and that coal is the new clean energy source.

The situation is a bit crazy - the rules of the market apparently do not allow batteries to compete (a lot of changes will be needed there). The other crazy is that, with Australia soon to be the world's largest exporter of LNG, AGL is talking seriously of setting up a processing plant to import LNG into SEAus - possibly from Asia and at possibly more than double?? the price that we get when we sell the stuff into Asia. Where were our governments when the gas companies contracted to sell all the cheap LNG to other countries, leaving nothing for us...the market is a good mechanism in fixed environments, but it does not take the place of strategic planning.

[LaughingBeagles]

Actually, in WA we (the former Lib Gov) negotiated a great deal in relation to LNG, but the company pulled the pin at the last minute. You can't force someone to purchase your product (unless you're a power generator monopoly... oh wait...).

Anyway, despite SA Labor botching this for some years now, I am envious of the clear skies those whole of state power outages would have created! :eyepop:

[Shiraz]

Since we were running on wind power, our statewide power outage made no difference at all to the atmosphere, apart from the hot air that immediately poured from every hidden agenda :lol:

It was just as cloudy as usual only moreso - we had the extreme winds that brought down the power lines, heavy rain and completely overcast conditions.

[LaughingBeagles]

Dang!!

[Atmos]

Victoria is watching SA and in doing so decided to close down our coal power plant that provides for 25% of our power... Plus there is nothing to replace it. A few months ago I changed my ideas of buying a house to building; going off-grid entirely.
Don't really want to be connected to a grid that is going to on one hand make me pay more for power because it has lost 25% of its base load and on the other force me to go into a brown out on a 40ºC day.

[csb]

This does seem promising!

May also be history repeating.

News story on ABC website about Thomas Playford (former Premier SA). Back then the electricity was supplied by private companies who were chasing big profits and the system was not well coordinated. So after Playford became Premier, he came up with the ETSA Act and brought the whole SA electricity production, distribution & billing into state ownership - ETSA.

Now that is strong and community oriented leadership!

[Shiraz]

do you know why they are closing the plant Colin? It seems like it will open a huge hole in power availability if there is nothing to replace it. From the SA perspective the same company (ENGIN from France) also owns the underutilised Pelican Point gas generator in this state - maybe they see best profits from getting that back in full production to make up any shortfall on the grid? But who knows - nobody seems to be planning anything at all with customers in mind and there is certainly no long term national strategy - just a collection of companies with varying interest in Australia, all jostling to get the best buck they can today, regardless of service provision.



interesting comparson:thumbsup:

[glend]

I watched the SA news conference yesterday and can't understand how spending all that money is not going to raise energy prices in SA. If people living there are prepared to pay (forever), for it then fine. It does seem like a knee jerk political reaction to shore up support, rather than an element of a national energy infrastructure initiative. Of course, there is no leadership at all on a national energy policy so it is hardly surprising that SA would try to go it alone.

[Atmos]

One word... "Green"

It is a dirty filthy EVIL brown coal power plant. It is the scum of all human filth in respects to power generation and must be shut down!!!
Of course it's being shut down on idealology but there isn't any real plans. The plant is going to be turned into a green reserve, the excavation area is going to be turned into a lake and populated by fish for the locals to go fishing in. At least the hundreds of locals will have something to do to pass the time while looking for work :P

Victoria is currently building some wind farms (seen how reliable they are) but they may or may not be in operation before the plant shuts down next March. I personally believe that the plant should be shut down in time, maybe a decade or so after we've got the infrastructure to replace it in place.

[pgc hunter]

We can thank our scumbag labor/green far-left socialist ******* premiers and their relentless green religion for this farce. It's stripping away our quality of life bit by bit yet but they keep peddling their destructive socialist green policies. What's even more screwed up is that they are up in arms about unemployment, but these rotting creatures are creating unemployment and upheaval for families by closing these plants down in the name of their leftist green religion. It makes me sick. Meanwhile, the biggest concern for Daniel Andrews is replacing the little green men on traffic lights because some bloody feminist group kicked up a stink that it was sexist. Goddamnit :mad2: Every time I see that braindead cretin's deformed face bumbling its way through news interviews I can literally feel my IQ slipping away. :mad2:

I just ordered a 45kg gas bottle - price has gone up $20 since I last ordered 3 months ago. :mad2:

[jenchris]

We should all be going off grid.
Trouble is, at the moment (those with solar cells), when you get a power out, the solar systems have nothing to parallel to and go off as well in many cases.
Get the batteries and work out your usage rates.
Councils need to turn off street lights and larger companies their security lighting needs to go to infra red so you catch the felons in the dark.
No one seems to realise that if a felon wants to work in the dark he needs a light and if he wants to hide he needs a shadow to hide in - without lighting, there's no way hey can perpetrate their crimes.
No one wanders about in the dark anyway these days unless they are up to no good.

[Shiraz]

I think that it closes in 2 weeks Colin - the company cites (as reasons) it's plan to focus on low carbon technology and (presumably) because they could not make enough bucks out of it with the current excess generation capability in Victoria.. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the Government, but who knows. Interesting snippet on reading is that the cost just to decommission and tidy up Hazelwood will be about 2x as much as the planned SA upgrade - nothing comes cheap in the power world.

from the Engie website:
" ENGIE in Australia announces it will close Hazelwood coal power generation station and the adjoining mine, in the State of Victoria, Australia. The closure will be effective at the end of March 2017.

The closure of Hazelwood is in line with ENGIE’s strategy to gradually end its coal activities. This is laid out in the Group’s transformation plan that aims at concentrating solely on low-carbon projects for power generation, renewable energy and natural gas. In 2016, ENGIE has already sold or closed coal assets which represent more than 5 GW of capacity.

Besides, Hazelwood power station has been operating in difficult market conditions, with lower electricity prices and a surplus of electricity supply in Victoria State.

.....

ENGIE also announces today that it is studying the possible sale of two of its power production assets in Australia: Loy Yang B coal power station and Kwinana gas power station.

ENGIE has a strong presence in the energy industry in Australia through its gas and wind-generating assets in South Australia, with a total of 2 GW of capacities. It is also developing or contracting wind and solar power generation across Australia. Simply Energy, its energy retailer, is approaching 600,000 electricity and gas accounts following organic growth of 75% during the last four years and is continuing to expand into the photovoltaic and battery storage market, while ENGIE Services develops cost-saving smart energy services and facilities management.

[Shiraz]

prices will have to go up in the short term, but if we can get energy security and low carbon pollution into the future, maybe that will be a good outcome - could even result in significant new investment in the state and maybe some saleable IP, so it is not all bad news, even in the short term.

The alternative to more government inaction is to wait for the private companies that now own the system to do something - they have clearly indicated that they are more interested in making money than in providing a reliable service. For example, my understanding is that in the last SA brownout, the need for extra capacity was identified and the Pelican Point system was instructed to ramp up unused capacity. They refused because they did not have enough gas available at contracted rates and the market rules allowed them to refuse on that basis. So some of our electricity supplies came from the exorbitant spot market and load shedding was necessary. Presumably the supply companies did very nicely, but no-one else did. If a power system allows brownouts and unused capacity to co-exist, it needs to be changed.

[Shiraz]

Latest development, seems like the SA plans stirred the pot. All of a sudden, clean coal is forgotten in Canberra and everything is now gas - gas -gas. The PM has agreement from the gas producers to allocate more to the local market "as soon as possible". That will bring down gas and electricity prices - and gas company profits - so don't hold your breath.

[casstony]

The coalition would be very vulnerable at the next election if they allow our local gas to be sold overseas without reserving enough for domestic consumption. The incumbent politicians care about business but they care more about themselves, so I would expect a positive outcome for Australian consumers.

[Exfso]

Problem with gas, apart from the obvious:P is that apparently Moomba that collects the natural gas from the Cooper and Eramunga basins is running out, I have heard that about 4 years time its reserves will nearly be depleted, so they will need to find gas elsewhere. I will stand to be corrected on this, but if it is the case, we are in deep poo. They did a good job selling most of it overseas and bugger the locals.
Yep and I would bet my left testicle that the poor public will be the ones to cop the cost. SA is broke so they cannot afford any expenditure of this magnitude. The mind boggles:shrug:

[The_bluester]

Someone forgot to tell whoever it was on ABC radio this afternoon (Alan Tudge I think) "Clean coal this, clean coal that, clean coal the other" and "We must be agnostic about the source of secure cheap power. Gas, clean coal, clean coal, gas, coal, oh renewables will have a role to play"

I am exaggerating somewhat of course but clean coal got a mention in pretty much every sentence as did gas where about the only mention of renewables was when paired with words like Idealogical, unreliable, intermittant, unstable, blackout.

What I have found interesting this evening regards the gas "Crisis" meeting is that all we see is bursts to the effect of "They have committed to playing nice rather than banking the big fat profits that are available elsewhere". No mention of what this sop to us poor schmucks who's soverign resource is being plundered for profit is going to cost us or what potential stick was waved around to secure it.

I find it hard to believe that part of an industry (Mining) which was prepared to spend millions on a campaign to help to unseat a government which had the temerity to implement a new tax on them taking and selling a public resource for private profit (Even if they did manage to ensure it was engineered to cost them virtually nothing anyway) will be providing gas for sale for domestic consumption that they can make more profit on elsewhere without a carrot or a stick.

[Wavytone]

Speaking having been left out by stupid pollies eager to please exporters at any cost, read this:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-the-big-three-robbed-us-of-our-own-gas-20170315-guydtp.html

And guess which party did it.

[Shiraz]

Conventional Moomba gas is winding down, but my understanding is that there are huge reserves of unconventional gas (CSG etc) in the Moomba region and elsewhere in SA. That issue is possibly addressed in the SA plan by giving financial incentives to landowners who allow gas extraction on their land

good link Wavy - at last we are discussing the real issue, artificial gas shortages, not red herrings like the unreliability of renewables or the cleanliness of supercritical coal.

expect a huge outcry opposing the SA plan. It shows a way to a low carbon future and it looks like it actually might be workable and at 1/4 the cost and 1/4 the emissions of a new supercritical coal generator - it must come as the worst possible horror to the coal lobby and their media outlets. They also have a huge problem with so many industry groups coming out and stating directly that there will be no private finance for new coal fired power plants. I just wonder if they have enough influence in Canberra to get the feds to invest some public money in one. It is hugely disappointing to think that Australia will not be able to cash in on all of the huge coal reserves that we have - but pretending otherwise is not helping anyone.

[The_bluester]

Which I have to say proves little apart from that both sides are equally able to cock things up.

The current question is, what have the coalition done about it since coming to power in 2013? IMO a government can only legitimately point the finger at the one preceding it, which in this case is the Abbott/Turnbull led coalition. Unti they realised there was a proper crisis on hand about all they did was guffaw about and blame the government before the government before and pass around lumps of coal in Canberra.

[Greenswale]

Ummmm, don't forget that both the SA and Vic governments have banned searching for gas deposits on land. So SA will import and Vic probably will too, because to find and set up infrastructure will take time.

On the SA battery, the Grattan Institute determined that the proposed battery has the capacity to run the state for just 4 minutes.

[lazjen]

Why has the battery system got to run the whole state? Surely if everything else is gone there's something seriously wrong?

And to me, I think a battery system needs to be 2 fold: these farm(s), plus individual units at homes/businesses, etc. Start somewhere and expand.

[Shiraz]

agree, a battery adds the "synchronous" bit to wind and solar generators - it doesn't take the place of other generation and the Grattan Institute has mislead if they are implying that such a small capacity is useless.

If SA had a battery in place during the statewide blackout, it would have helped stabilise the majority of the grid through the few minutes of severe instability when the towers were being blown down, the wind generators would not have sensed a grid condition that forced them to disconnect and there would have been no blackout at all. Battery storage acts like a shock absorber and changes the game entirely when wind generators are used.

[JA]

Very well said !

Best
JA

[The_bluester]

I agree Ray. Implying that a battery system is useless as it could only "Run the state" for a short period would be very misleading. Solar with battery storage may be a long term plan for individual households but it would never be the intent at a grid level.

Battery storage provides an instant buffer to allow the spin up of still relatively quick reacting alternatives, like pumped hydro, which can not be switched on instantly but can certainly be spun up in a matter of minutes. Otherwise as you said. It provides a buffer to allow for planned reactions to extraordinary events like the towers blowing over, in that situation, load shedding is still the most likely outcome but at least battery storage would allow time to do it instead of the whole system collapsing over a matter of seconds.

[Greenswale]

I considered the 4 minutes a positive.

I'm out of here.

[Shiraz]

the messages coming out of Canberra are somewhat varied. over the past fortnight the message has been

clean coal is the answer
gas security is the answer
pumped hydro is the answer

Pumped hydro is a great idea, since it is a technology that is an excellent complement to renewables - so does this latest announcement really indicate an acceptance of a renewable future and does the preceding announcement indicate that renewables will be paired with new gas capability? (which sort of sounds like the SA plan)

It would be nice to have a clear National strategy like the SA government put out - then there would be something concrete and self consistent to discuss and argue about.

[AussieTrooper]

Optimistic Ben says that the government has seen a problem and is acting on it.
Cynical Ben says that the government is using this issue to force through the coal seam gas plants that their party donors want to build.

I'd like to see the full details on what is proposed for the snowy scheme though.

[AndrewJ]

True, but one listener who obviously knew the full process and had thought it through indicated that it does provide an insurance backup, but is very inefficient.
When pushed about it, he mentioned a lot of the "spare/off peak" electricity used to pump the water back up the hill would actually be coming from coal, not renewables, ( as the pumps will be near the snowy system ) and there arent many nearby renewables.
When you factor in all of the transmission/mechanical losses, the carbon footprint per KWhr for the final product goes through the roof.
Be interesting to see what those numbers really are, and if they could affect our emissions targets.

Andrew

[Shiraz]

I don't know Andrew, but everything I read suggests that round trip efficiency is maybe as high as an excellent 80% http://energystorage.org/energy-storage/technologies/pumped-hydroelectric-storage. The other side of the efficiency equation may possibly be that thermal plants do not have to be operating with excess capacity in place (just in case), if there is pumped hydro to smooth out the load - pumped hydro may thus make operation of even coal powered generators more efficient - but that is just conjecture. must see if there is any info on the effect of pumped hydro on Queensland power generation.

power it from renewables and the carbon footprint is surely going to be small. If you cannot get any renewable energy from the grid, then you are right - it does not make so much sense. I guess that it should only be considered for a future high-renewables grid - maybe that is what the Government is anticipating.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Ray
I suspect 80% is way too high if the electricity supply is not local.
Be interesting to see what the real losses are.

What they need to do is cut down all the forests in the high country around the lakes and replace it with wind turbines and solar panels that are only tasked with pumping water????
Lots of wind/sun up there, and no transmission losses.

Andrew

[Shiraz]

yeah that'l work :lol:

[Shiraz]

curiouser and curiouser. Just read that we very nearly had another Statewide blackout a fortnight ago. Seems a transformer blew up and 610MW of gas thermal power suddenly tripped off line.

The wind farms and the Heywood connector to Victoria just managed to make up the shortfall. Didn't hear much about that episode from the "renewables are the problem" brigade in the Federal Govt!

The planned fast reaction gas generator and a battery would have been useful - can't come soon enough. Apart from correcting major losses in generation, one analysis suggests that the planned gas generator will pay for itself even if it is never switched on - it will no longer be open slather on price spikes and the state could possibly even save the cost of the plant over a year if the threat of it being run up stops the most outrageous price gouging (which may be as much as $400m a year)

[AndrewJ]

Gday Ray
That made the nightly news here, so no idea why you lot missed it.
It was reported as "a fire" in the Torrens island station that tripped out several units. This then knocked out Pelican point.

Andrew

[el_draco]

You can summarise that as:

We don't have the faintest idea what to do,
We don't the vision to do whats required and
We want to continue building our portfolios which are all heavily invested in fossil fuels.

Thats ok, the public will making the decision for them.

[AussieTrooper]

Pumped Hydro doesn't need to be efficient to work. The market price during the day is generally at least 10 times what it is at night, so you only need a 10% system efficiency to make it viable.
The listener was correct though. At night, hydro and gas generally shut down. So you are left with (at a guess) 90%+ coal driving the pumps.
What is does do is allow the hydro systems to run for longer during the day, without the need to build new dams.

[AussieTrooper]

The losses between the average generator and consumer is around 6-10% That doesn't account for losses during generation itself.
I would be extremely surprised if pumped hydro got even remotely close to 80% efficiency.

[Shiraz]

thanks Andrew. it was reported here as "fires" at Torrens Island from memory, but nothing I saw mentioned that a transformer exploded, explained how much capacity went down and that it very nearly blacked out the state, or indicated that wind power kept everything going (presumably).

I guess that it didn't suit any agendas to draw attention to the event - the State govt didn't want to acknowledge just how fragile our system is and the Feds didn't want to acknowledge that wind turbines can provide "base load" power.

The big worry is that energy security is going to become a National problem in the near future and there doesn't appear to be anyone doing any National planning to deal with it - hopefully I am wrong and the Minister is on top of it, but all I see at present is a lot of pre-emptive blame shifting and good impressions of startled rabbits running hither and thither in the headlights.

[AussieTrooper]

Wind turbines cannot reliably provide base load. Being lucky and having them generating at the right time is one thing, but to call it base load is pushing it too far.
Watching the Fed energy minister and the SA premier face off yesterday seemed to show that there is no real plan to fix this. The snowy plan can actually help SA, but only if the Vic-SA interconnector capacity is increased by about 30%. This is not a part of any plan I have heard.

[sn1987a]

The energy market is an Enron style racket. Actually the whole economy is based on racketeering, scams and swindles. Especially banks, insurance, education, food, 457s, telecommunications - everything! :mad2:.

[clive milne]

Yep... rotten to the core, and I would add big pharma', the military, NGO's, religious institutions, media and the 'truther' industrial complex to the list as well.

I wonder if Orwell realised that Animal farm would be used as an instruction manual?

[AussieTrooper]

Nineteen Eighty Four just keeps adding one accurate prediction after another to the list.
The foresight of someone that long ago predicting the omnipresent CCTV and political correctness of today is just staggering.

[clive milne]

Ben, you might enjoy the works of the SF writer, Fred Bester.

Another author with astounding prescience.

[Shiraz]

the SA govt is not hanging around. Battery EOI invited by end of March and to be operational by next summer. http://www.premier.sa.gov.au/index.php/jay-weatherill-news-releases/7206-state-government-invites-expressions-of-interest-to-build-australia-s-largest-battery

apparently we have enough of a budget surplus and allocated funds to pay for the new plan - that surprised me. http://servicesa.cdn.on.net/mybr201617/pdfs/media-releases/mybr_delivers_larger_surplus_while_ investing_in_new_measures.pdf

[clive milne]

:eyepop:

You guys have a budget surplus?

I think it says something for the pack of crooks and cretins who have been governing WA. Arguably the most resource rich state, in the most resource rich country in the world... during an unprecedented resource sector boom, and we are collectively driven to sell the silverware and dismantle the social infrastructure of the state, to pay the interest on the debt accumulated over the last decade...

I'm curious... (forgive me the rhetorical question)
But, you know the cash that was borrowed in our name? ... or more accurately, the financial institutions that lent it to us?
How did they create that wealth in the first place?... what tangible thing did they actually ever bring in to this world other than debt?

[AndrewJ]

The promise of "future" profits/benefits, just like the housing boom.
( I think of it as similar to long / short selling on the stock market )
Those in the know up front make a quick profit whilst the pollies are too busy congratulating themselves
and the rest ( ie us ) cop it in the neck later ( Think East West contract in Melb ) )

Andrew

[Shiraz]

a final word perhaps http://reneweconomy.com.au/clarke-and-dawe-absolutely-nail-the-australian-energy-debate-28852/

[sn1987a]

Scams, scams, scams, scams, scams, scams, scams, egg and scams!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/casual-workers-life-insurance-claims/8361198


:mad2:

[AndrewJ]

Dont worry, the abcc will sort it all out

Andrew

[JA]

Thank you for sharing that Barry.

It is utterly and thoroughly disgusting that a corporation/s could take advantage of people like that and/or that the employer could be so stupid or ignorant as to not recognize the changed insurance implications of an employee going from permanent to casual. Someone, be it the insurer or employer, SHOULD BE MADE to support the injured person, according to the reasonable expectations they would have had of the insurance policy that they had been paying for.

Sorry
JA

[Shiraz]

According to a couple of sites, this could possibly be the type of gas generator being considered for SA. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161004006177/en/GE-Unveils-World%E2%80%99s-Battery-Storage-Gas-Turbine

Key features are an integrated battery that will provide instantaneous power and also keep the turbine spinning without using any fuel, so that it can be on line almost instantaneously. The turbines can run on a variety of fuels, so presumably an onsite backup reserve of LPG could be available in case somebody decides to play silly buggers with mains gas availability - or if mains gas is not available at a chosen site (if this class of system is used, there would need to be ~5 of them placed across the state).

If they can't get something in place quickly, apparently the plan is to bring in temporary generators (possibly even diesel, as in Tasmania) to help get through until next summer, until some new gas capability comes on line - seems that everything is on the table now that the decision has been taken to reduce reliance on the national market players.
EDIT: pity extra generators are not around already - AEMO is forecasting that power prices will spike to $14,000/Mwh tomorrow afternoon (Sunday) - PV will be doing well, but wind is in the doldrums and it will be a hot day. https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard

[clive milne]

"Humor! Ark Ark!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_C8S4Bz91M

[The_bluester]

Now is this an indictment of the privatised generators or what?

Quote form our PM, the emphasis is mine'

[Shiraz]

that is scary Paul and is an admission that something is very wrong.

SA has gone the way it has because the national market is now run under similar ethics - power companies have no incentive to either plan for the future (nobody knows what the politics of that might be??) or to ensure that the power is provided when and where it is needed. Instead, they are moving us towards an "Enron" style market, where screwing the customer with dubious strategic outages and plant shutdowns is the way to maximise shareholder value.

The key event in motivating the SA pollies seems to have been a recent refusal by the Pelican Point operators to activate unused capacity in their plant - resulting in brownout conditions in the State. The reason was that they would have had to buy gas on the spot market to do so - ie they would not have made enough money to make it worthwhile. Can't blame them - making money is their sole aim - and that is the crux of the problem from a customer viewpoint.

[Shiraz]

Well the SA gov't sure stirred the pot.

Now the French company Engie has announced that, having closed their Hazelwood coal fired plant in Victoria, they will spend $40m to refurbish a gas powered generator at Pelican Point in SA and bring another 240MW onto the grid.

In addition, Lyon Group has announced that it plans to have a 330MW solar + 440MWh battery system operating at Morgan in the SA Riverland by Christmas - in addition to a previously announced 100MW solar/200MWh battery project at the BHP Olympic Dam mine in SA. The Riverland solar farm is claimed to be the biggest in the world, with 3.4million solar panels and 1.1 million batteries.

finally, stuff is happening. Seems that all it needed was for somebody - anybody - to put forward a coherent plan - any plan - for the future.

[AussieTrooper]

No. It's a business decision that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to slightly extend the lifespan of an end of life generator is not logical.

[The_bluester]

No, if true it was a business decision to underspend on maintenance over the long term to boost profits and then when the plant an equipment gets to the point where the maintenance simply has to be done, shut it down instead having already booked enlarged profits over a period of years by "Deferring" the maintenance.

I.E. the PM accused them of not doing what would have been planned maintenance in order to make bigger profits, then shutting it down when the crunch came maintenance wise.

[The_bluester]

Somewhat ambiguously spoken by the PM (Who would have thunk it, a pollie blaming a company for doing something but doing it in such a way as he can later claim that this was not in fact the case if pressed) this version of the quote is lifted straight from the PM's own page.

https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-03-24/doorstop-minister-education-and-training-senator-hon-simon-birmingham-0

With no one, Engie or otherwise ever likely to give a breakdown, people will have to decide for themselves how to apportion the costs between OH&S requirements (Hardly new or are there new and onerous OH&S rules coming into force in July?) "Making it safe" (Isn't that sailing close to the same thing or was there a risk of the thing exploding and causing damage and injury to members of the public rather than staff?) and "paying for the long-deferred maintenance"

[drylander]

Problem solved here. My house now has a generator installed with the appropriate electrical fittings so I don't care if the power goes out. Don't trust the gov. SA or federal or the big businesses jumping on the bandwagon to get anything right. If they hadn't sold it to private companies we wouldn't be having this problem.

[The_bluester]

Actually I am thinking of getting the same done. Having been without mains for the best part of a week after a bushfire a few years ago it would be very useful to be able to plug in the gen we bought afterwards to power everything (within the limits of the generator of course)

Running things off extension cords from the gen we were lucky not to find our septic system literally dead in the water when mains was restored. Power from the gen via the normal distribution board would have fixed that.

[AussieTrooper]

When you know that the one big item that you rely on is going to fail, why would you spend on full maintenance for the rest of the plant?
Two of the generators were already permanently out of service, as they had deteriorated to the point they cannot be put back into service. There is no ability to repair or maintain boilers that suffer age induced failure.
Spending money on maintaining other components would be a complete waste. They were clearly on a winding down schedule for the past few years, whether they publicly announced it or not.
The fact is that the company made a sensible decision to close, and no amount of spin from a politician is going to change that.

[The_bluester]

Despite some searching I have found nothing referring to failed generators being permanently shut down, when did those shutdowns happen? Unless it was in the recent past, IMO a decision not to replace them would be indicative of the decision to shut it down being taken a long time ago. If the decision to shut it down fully was not made a long time back then costs associated with those two generators would not be included in the safety and "Deferred" maintenance catch up costs that apparently led to the decision to close it down.

Despite the economic costs in the valley and the potential for energy shortfalls (And I do know some people personally who are likely to be affected business wise by the closure) my own view is that it was a filthy old dinosaur and it's time had come. It is pretty hard to argue against it's status as the least efficient generator in Australia, pollution wise. In state hands I suspect it may have been kept going though.

It is the difference between the profit motive and a public service, a distinction which has been unfortunately lost in the whole NBN debate over the years too.

The profit motive and "Let the market decide" leads to the market deciding on that which is most profitable, which in the case of a five decade old brown coal fired power station (Three decades old at the time it was privatised) would very clearly be minimise maintenance, run it into the ground over a period of a couple of decades and figuratively take it to the wreckers like a worn out old Falcon.

[Shiraz]

the race is on.

Since the SA Govt announced that they would get back into the electricity market, we now have:

- SA Govt plan for 100MW battery + 200MW+ rapid reaction gas
- ENGIE resurrecting 200MW+ of thermal gas capability at Pelican point
- Lyon announcing 330MW solar + battery at Morgan in SA
- Lyon previously announced 100MW solar + battery at Roxy Downs in SA
- Snowy Hydro announce 100MW solar + battery? and diesel at Tailem Bend in SA
- Adani announce 150MW solar plant in Whyalla SA
- Federal Govt commit to funding part of a 100MW solar thermal + salt storage plant at Pt Augusta SA
- Federal Govt study into pumped hydro in the Snowies

As far as I can tell, some of this will be operational by Christmas and the rest within 2 years (apart from Snowy scheme). Looks like private industry is fairly desperate to keep any honest broker influences away from their very nice little closed market - or is that too cynical.

[Exfso]

An interesting article in today's Sunday Mail about our premier. Apparently Alinta offered the SA Govt the opportunity to keep the Port Augusta Power station generating until mid 2018 in return for $25million payment which is 22x cheaper than the recently revealed $550million plan aimed at keeping the lights on. Apparently Mr Weatherill tried to hide this offer by Alinta and in recent weeks has been less than forthright about its existence. Makes one wonder what really is going on.:confused2:

[Shiraz]

But by mid next year, the 22x cheaper plan would have run out of steam and we would have been back to square 1 - and nobody would have been willing to plan any power investment in the meantime.

dunno who was hiding the offer - I read about it months ago. Oh, that's right - it was in another News rag, but the Sunday Mail is not going to let the odd fact stand in the way of a good beatup - maybe they just thought that nobody would remember what was reported in the Australian, on August 25th:

Tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies was sought by one of the country’s largest energy companies to keep South Australia’s only major baseload power station operating, Premier Jay Weatherill says.

Following a report in The Australian that the state’s Labor government had rejected an offer to keep Alinta Energy’s coal-fired Northern Power station in Port Augusta open, Mr Weatherill said the cost to delay its closure could not be justified. He said Alinta had sought “tens of millions” in taxpayer funding, despite its intention to close it.

“The gall of the Liberals is that (after they sold the power plant), they now criticise us for not wanting to rent it back at some extortionary rate,’’ Mr Weatherill.

The rejection of the deal resulted in the plant closing in May, leaving the state reliant on power from Victoria and renewables.....

even though the article is wrong on two counts (SA has other major baseload generators and the closing of the plant was not the result of the rejection of the deal), it is quite clear that there was an offer to try to keep Northern running. Another low point in SA journalism for the Sunday Mail.

[AussieTrooper]

Last year. It wasn't made public.

[AussieTrooper]

There's about the same planned for Vic. I've never seen so many planned wind farms, and (more surprisingly) commercial solar plants. A couple already have the go ahead up near Mildura, with many more on the drawing board.

[The_bluester]

I would say (Based on your second last post) that that was likely to be when Engie decided to pull the plug on it.

My biggest surprise is that there seems to be so much on the go by way of renewables given the federal governments rhetoric against them. In reality they have barely moved on from "Coal is good for humanity" (Particularly listening to the justifications put forward for the Adani mine this morning) and "Disgusting eyesore" references to turbines.

For once IMO we need to be thankful of private enterprise in the power space or the situation would continue to get worse. Coal can not realistically be seen as anything but on the decline and the federal government have spent the last three and a half years making renewables look like a risky investment while actively promoting coal, the only way I could see a new coal fired station being built in Australia would be if a government built it, private enterprise seems pretty apathetic on the idea, with good reason when it is on the nose and only likely to get worse worldwide and they would be doing the sums regard risk and returns on a 50 year asset.

[clive milne]

Should have made this guy PM... he would have fixed everything!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckcH0Wrmy74

[AussieTrooper]

My gut feel is that they have been watching peak demand very closely. In Vic, the departure of the manufacturing industry has lopped 2GW off the top of the demand curve. This is what has allowed Morwell and Hazelwood to close with minimal effect on prices or reliability.
Federal policy from both Labor and Liberal is seeing about 300,000 new electricity consumers in Australia every year.
These will soon pick up the slack, and the lead times for construction of major plants are too long to cater for it.
Solar makes it's money on hot summer days where the residential demand increases by more than the industrial load did. So the peak will be sharper than before. Owning a solar plant becomes fare more profitable under this scenario than it is today.
The only mitigating factor I can see is residential battery storage, which several utilities are already trialling.

[pgc hunter]

It's simple, he's a complete and utter dogmatic prick. And we are paying for it.

[Exfso]

Ray, I see where you are coming from, I was merely bringing up the article in the Sunday Mail. Obviously lots of "creative accounting" going on, but that is always the case with any Govt. The proof will most definitely be in the pudding, I for one don't trust what any politician says, there are always too many hidden agendas for my liking:rolleyes:

[casstony]

Where have you read this Ben? Boilers often have leaks repaired and when the tubing gets too thin resulting in frequent leaks either the superheaters alone can be replaced or the boiler can be completely re-tubed. About the only thing that would put a boiler out of service permanently is fault in the Drum which makes it unsafe.

I think Paul's take is closer to the truth. If maintenance doesn't fit into the monthly or annual budgets set by beancounters the repairs simply won't be done. Over a period of years deterioration builds up to the point that major expenditure is needed. Some years ago I worked at Hazelwood and I have not so fond memories of walking around the boiler in clouds of pulverized coal dust because the leaks on the mills weren't being repaired. We ran hoses on the leaks to suppress the dust. That sort of thing went in cycles; when it got too bad everything would get fixed, followed by another slow deterioration. It all came down to profit.

[AussieTrooper]

Not read, told. From someone who works there.

[casstony]

Could be miscommunication or political/management motivations.
The people actually operating the plant expected it to be maintained until 2025.
There was plenty of deception from company management and state politicians regarding Hazelwood's closure - workers were kept in the dark and told everything was full steam ahead even after it was know the business would close.

[AussieTrooper]

No idea as to why his opinion was different to others, however he proved to be on the money. And I'll leave it at that.

[Shiraz]

agreed. The more I read, the more it looks like a biggish pumped hydro plant could be the real game changer that would make wind and solar into grownup power sources. Maybe the feds are onto something with the Snowy scheme - provided they are fair dinkum.


couldn't agree more Peter. sorry my post was bit aggressive, but I saw red at the cynicism of the Sunday Mail journos - they really are treating us as mugs and they should do better. Making up a conspiracy like that is really bottom of the barrel when there are so many good news stories emerging on the power front.

[The_bluester]

My worry with the snowy scheme stuff was it seemed to be a heavily qualified though bubble.

"We are going to build XXX'

Followed by the announcements that the "Feasibility study" will be completed by whenever it was, and then what? What if the study says that it is marginal or just not feasible?

They have runs on the board when it comes to stuffing up big infrastructure (I firmly believe they will not be remembered fondly in a decade for the MTM version of the NBN)

[Exfso]

No problems Ray. It certainly does not help that SA is broke. :rolleyes:
I believe that most of the problems have been caused by the privatisation and the resultant needs of the power owners to make the almighty dollar. Bugger the battlers as usual they will have to be the bunnies that wear the increased costs and decreased services.
I know it is a fair while ago, but I cannot remember these sorts of issues when the whole shebang was run by ETSA.:confused2:

[The_bluester]

Actually, in the case of Vic I do remember load shedding being a summer norm. Heat, flies and rolling blackouts.

[AndrewJ]

Heard an interesting thought on the radio the other day re this, and the scale of it.
How will it affect the environmental flows into the rivers if such a large amount of water gets recycled vs released.
( ie the new scheme is supposed to increase Snowy capacity by 50%)
My thought is that once running, it is still a closed loop, so water in at the top = water out at the bottom, but it still doesnt sound right???
Andrew

[AussieTrooper]

To some extent, that is true. From about 1990 to 2005, there was hardly any significant investment. This has now changed, but there is quite a backlog of works, and we are not back to where we were in the late 80s. Certain foreign companies took the money and ran, now we are all paying for it.
The funding model of the last ten years or so actually encouraged more investment, so at least the situation was recognised and to some extent rectified.