another big battery for SA power

[Visionary (David)]

Originally Posted by Shiraz

Nobody is arguing that power is expensive in SA, but how on earth will a private company investing in new generation capacity increase the bills? Investment in low cost power sources is what we need and that is what this delivers.

We have a social obligation to supply power to all members of our community, be they rich or poor. The rich can afford a swath of alternate power, the disadvantaged within our community can't. Electrical power shouldn't be just for the wealthy, the poor also need access.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I would also argue that we have a social obligation to ensure that we continue to have a planet that is comfortable to live on and unpolluted.

Coal fired power is only cheap and affordable if you assume that the sky is an unlimited resource into which we can pour for free the waste products generating that cheap power. It ain't free, every creature on the planet will eventually pay for it.

No matter which way you dice it up, we have released to the atmosphere over a bare couple of hundred years compounds which took natural processes millennia to capture and store. To hold that there is no price to be paid for that is head in the sand thinking at the very best.

[Visionary (David)]

So it's OK to have a stratified society, one side with plentiful power, the other unable to afford power?

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by Visionary

So it's OK to have a stratified society, one side with plentiful power, the other unable to afford power?

You talk as if there is some intrinsic quality wrt) renewable energy that stratifies society and that the fossil fuel industry does the opposite and naturally leads to some capitalist consumer shopping mall utopia equally accessible and desired by all...

[Visionary (David)]

Electricity is a consumable, its difficult to hide the cost of alternative energy production. My Parents in Law cannot afford their current power bill. This winter past, my Mother in Law developed chilblains from keeping the heater too close to her feet.
Anything that drives their bill up will result in even more appliances being switched off. Why is it OK for the poor to have to be switching off their limited appliances, whilst the privileged switch on ever more devices?
In all likelihood, if the current trend in power bills continues we will have to subsidize or completely pay for my Parents in Law electricity bill. This is not the Australia that was promised, an equitable country.

[clive milne]

Renewables drive energy prices down...

If you are going to go on about equality... ask yourself why this country spends 8 billion a year subsidising fossil fuels?

Now that's what I call a welfare state.
Welfare for the rich multinational corporations that is.

[Visionary (David)]

[QUOTE=clive milne;1342879]Renewables drive energy prices down...

If you are going to go on about equality... ask yourself why this country spends 8 billion a year subsidizing fossil fuels?

Now that's what I call a welfare state.
Welfare for the rich multinational corporations that is.[/QUOTE

Place your rainbow glasses to one side.... the Fossil Fuels, of their various kinds, represent one of the greatest inflows of revenue to both State and Federal Gov. The last time you filled your cars tank..... about half the bowser price is State and Federal Taxes

2017 ABS stats are as follows

The estimated number of motor vehicles registered in Australia was 18.2 million.
These vehicles travelled an estimated total of 249,512 million kilometres in Australia, with an average 13,716 kilometres per vehicle.
Total fuel consumption by all road registered vehicles was 32,732 megalitres.
Freight vehicles in Australia travelled an estimated 204,575 million tonne kilometres.

Total fuel consumption = 32,732 mega a litres x50% Fuel @ $1.00 per litres = Tax rev pa: $16,361,500,000 These are ABS figures (not the $1 per litre, that's mine to make the maths easy) there are a few more zeros in tax receipts from fossil fuels than you have indicated.

It would take a lot of windmills to generate $16,361,500,000 in tax revues. They may be able to suck up quite a few $ in subsidies but $16,361,500,000 in revenue would definitely be beyond the reach of even the biggest windmill.

[gary]

Nobody enjoys the burden of an unexpected financial outlay.

Ever been to the car mechanic and been told your trusty old
vehicle with several hundred thousand kilometres on the clock
is going to need something like a new head-gasket?

You might figure the repair is worth more than the market value
of the car.

And you might be faced with a dilemma. The car is getting old.
What happens if you should outlay all that money for the repair
only to have something else fail a short time later?

Is it time to replace the car?

But to be realistic, it wasn't totally unexpected. The day you bought the
car new you appreciated that one day it would need to go on the scrap
heap and you would need another.

Machines wear out.

And that is the reality of much of the older coal power generation in
Australia and other parts of the world.

Last month, the University of New South Wales School of Electrical
Engineering and Telecommunications held their annual Alumni
Connect Night.

The guest speakers were Dr Alex Wonhas (Managing Director -Energy,
Resources and Manufacturing at Aureco), Dr Timothy Nelson (Chief
Economist at AGL Energy Ltd) and Prof Joe Dong (Professor in Energy
Systems, EE&T UNSW).

As Dr. Wonhas points out in last month's edition of "Energy Source
& Distribution" magazine :-

Originally Posted by Energy Source & Distribution, Dr. Wonhas

The future of the energy system really comes down to costs and what we, as consumers, are prepared to pay for a stable and reliable energy system.

Is it possible to have affordable electricity while achieving a renewable energy target? Dr Wonhas says the answer could be ‘absolutely’ or ‘no way’.

“It really depends on what you mean by ‘affordable’. If we think affordable means that we have to have wholesale prices of $50 per MWh or consumer prices of just over 10c per kWh, as was the case just maybe a few decades ago, then I think the answer is certainly ‘no’ because a lot of the assets in our system are now aged.

“We hear a lot about our coal plants retiring. We have to replace them with new generation capacity. In order to make these new investment work for investors, we will have to pay a bit more than in the past for energy, regardless of which technology we chose to replace the existing coal generators.

“However if ‘affordable’ means that we are paying as much or even a little bit less than the current volume weighted wholesale prices, then I think we can absolutely maintain a renewable energy target in transition to a low-emission sector because renewables are quite cost-effective on an energy basis nowadays.”

Based on current costs, Dr Wonhas says ‘clean coal’ is a more expensive option on a pure energy basis than renewables.

“What see clean coal, or ultra supercritical coal, sit at around $80/MWh with 700-800kg of CO2 emissions per MWh,” he explains.

“A combined cycle gas turbine might produce power at about $100MWh – obviously its cost depend on the gas price so this is for about $10 per gigajoule, which is where the market is at the moment. Its emissions are around half that of coal, at about 400-500kg of CO2 per MWh.

“Solar has become quite competitive with maybe $75 per MWh, followed by wind with around $60 per MWh. So renewables are lower-cost than some of the conventional generation technologies on an energy only basis.”

Of course when discussing the cost of different technologies, Dr Wonhas says it is important to not leave out storage.

“What we are seeing in the market at the moment is maybe $750 per kWh for a battery system optimised for long-term storage on a full EPC basis, and maybe $1500 per kWh or more for a battery system that is more optimised towards providing short-term outputs and lower storage intervals,” Dr Wonhas explains.

“It’s quite instructive to compare that to pumped hydro, since the Prime Minister’s announcement of Snowy Hydro 2.0 has been a lot in the press. When you take some of the publically available data, and say well, it is $2 billion for 2GW of capacity, then you probably have to add another $2 billion for the necessary transmission system upgrades – that gives you maybe $250 per kWh for an 8 hour storage capacity.

“This is about a third of what you would pay for a battery system today. However the costs of battery systems are continually coming down so it will be interesting to see by how much battery costs will have reduced over the 4 years plus it will take to build Snowy Hydro 2.0.”

Aurecon has been delivering specialist and technical engineering advice for some of the country’s biggest and most exciting storage projects – including the South Australian government’s 100MW lithium-ion battery, and Territory Generation’s 5MW Batttery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Alice Springs.

These game-changing technologies are an important step in ensuring network reliability as Australia transitions to a renewable future.

“When you look at the role batteries can play in the energy market, they are very valuable these days in providing short-term support for the stability of the grid,” he explains.
With ground-breaking advances, energy technology is developing at a rapid pace. Especially with the costs of new technologies declining quickly and exisiting capacity retiring, Dr Wonhas believes the Australian energy market is on the brink of a revolution.

“We have really reached a tipping point,” he says.

“When you look at the cost of new-build power stations, on an energy-only, long-run marginal cost basis, new-build renewables are cheaper than conventional power plants. Now, that doesn’t mean they always produce the power when consumers actually need it, but it is a real seismic shift in the debate.

“Historically, we had a debate about how much subsidy we need to provide to bring those technologies into the market in the first place, I think we now need to shift the debate to how do we integrate the system in a way that allows us all to benefit from the low-cost position of renewables, while maintaining system stability and reliability.

Article here :-
http://en.calameo.com/read/000373495bf3aeb336dc6/12

[Visionary (David)]

There were no subsidies for the first coal-fired power stations, they didn't need it, they were superior technologies, and the builders "made coin". When the Hydro scheme at Niagara was built (Tesla) a fortune was made. When Diesel built the first Diesel, a fortune was made.
As "alternative" energies are being rolled out a fortune is being made, a fortune in Government Subsidy payments.
Why can't we hasten with caution and wait until "alternative" energy production can stand on its own 2 feet? The wait won't be long, batteries (storage) are getting close, but they are still some time off being economically feasible. Wind Power, Ocean Power, all the other more marginal approaches are still a long way off. Pumped Hydro is economic because at it trades off cheap Hydro & Coal & price fast price/demand movements, Pumped Hydro is dependant upon older maligned technologies.
In the meantime... who else but my family will offer my Inlaws the money they will need to pay their next power bill? A bill that's already bloated with "feel good" warm and fuzzies subsidies for the affluent.
I understand the point your making, however, we have blown 50billion on the NBN that does not work. What makes anyone believe a Gov will do any better with Alternate Power? What's alternate power going to cost 500Billion, 750Billion?

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by Visionary

There were no subsidies for the first coal-fired power stations, they didn't need it, they were superior technologies, and the builders "made coin". When the Hydro scheme at Niagara was built (Tesla) a fortune was made. When Diesel built the first Diesel, a fortune was made.
As "alternative" energies are being rolled out a fortune is being made, a fortune in Government Subsidy payments.
Why can't we hasten with caution and wait until "alternative" energy production can stand on its own 2 feet? The wait won't be long, batteries are getting close, but they are still some time off being economically feasible. Wind Power, Ocean Power, all the other more marginal approaches are still a long way off. Pumped Hydro is economic because at it trades off cheap Hydro & Coal & price fast price/demand movements, Pumped Hydro is dependant upon older maligned technologies.
In the meantime... who else but my family will offer my Inlaws the money they will need to pay their next power bill? A bill that's already bloated with "feel good" warm and fuzzies subsidies for the affluent.
I understand the point your making, however, we have blown 50billion on the NBN that does not work. What makes anyone believe a Gov will do any better with Alternate Power? What's alternate power going to cost 500Billion, 750Billion?

So let me summarise the red herrings.

in your posts, you have now raised the following:
- health care
- aged care
- poverty
- rising power bills
- motor vehicle tax revenue
- the NBN cost
- feel good warm and fuzzies for the affluent
- the history of coal generators, the Niagara hydro scheme and the Diesel engine
- "batteries .. are still some time off being economically feasible" !!
- "Wind Power, Ocean Power, all the other more marginal approaches are still a long way off."!!!!
- "Pumped Hydro is dependant upon older maligned technologies." !!!!!


The thread is about a commitment (NOW) by a large company to spend their own money (not ours) on a power system based on solar PV (NOW) a large battery (NOW) and pumped hydro to support renewable energy. It could be expected to benefit consumers in South Australia by reducing power prices, since it will reduce our reliance on increasingly costly coal fired power from interstate and expensive local gas and Diesel powered generation.

This seems to be another genuinely positive step forward - a good news story. No amount of obfuscation will alter that.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I think you can regard the fact that In the main, coal fired generation in Australia we're state owned and built with taxpayer funds to say that they were extremely heavily subsidised.

The NBN comparison is meaningless, though perhaps not quite. Given that there is little to no interest in building new coal fired capacity by the companies that largely own the existing ones, who but the government would build them? Or who else would build them without huge subsidies and shifting of risk to the public purse?

Given the above from Gary regards the operating costs of various methods of generating power, what do you suggest as an alternative to building more coal fired power as the existing plants age and shut down? There is no point in railing about energy costs and renewable unless you actually have some idea how to drive down energy prices.

As for pumped hydro being reliant on old and maligned technologies, it is a big, fat, wet battery, the source of the energy it is storing up the hill is not relevant to it, but what it does do is allow for non traditional power sources to be used, overcoming the "intermittency" that the Feds love to tell us over and over again is the "We'l all be Rooned" downfall of any and all renewable sources of energy. Hell, they would even be able to help coal fired stations with their still existent base load issue by "consuming" energy overnight when the generators would really rather not have to test out the PID settings to ramp the boilers down and back up again and then release it over the day when demand starts to outstrip supply. There is probably even money to be made trading energy like that, and unless you suggest re nationalising power or providing subsidies, making it possible to make money is the only way things will happen.

[Visionary (David)]

The only Red Herrings are those you are choosing to find.
You know someone is going to have to pay for the stupidity going on in SA. My guess is... the Vic & NSW power grid, then the Taxpayers of the Commonwealth as we fund a bailout.
It is an affront to the Nation that we are going to be saddled with yet another half-arsed Political thought bubble, that will cost us all serious $$$

[clive milne]

Stupidity is in the eye of the beholder...

[Visionary (David)]

Originally Posted by The_bluester

I think you can regard the fact that In the main, coal fired generation in Australia we're state owned and built with taxpayer funds to say that they were extremely heavily subsidised.

The NBN comparison is meaningless, though perhaps not quite. Given that there is little to no interest in building new coal fired capacity by the companies that largely own the existing ones, who but the government would build them? Or who else would build them without huge subsidies and shifting of risk to the public purse?

Given the above from Gary regards the operating costs of various methods of generating power, what do you suggest as an alternative to building more coal fired power as the existing plants age and shut down? There is no point in railing about energy costs and renewable unless you actually have some idea how to drive down energy prices.

As for pumped hydro being reliant on old and maligned technologies, it is a big, fat, wet battery, the source of the energy it is storing up the hill is not relevant to it, but what it does do is allow for non traditional power sources to be used, overcoming the "intermittency" that the Feds love to tell us over and over again is the "We'l all be Rooned" downfall of any and all renewable sources of energy. Hell, they would even be able to help coal fired stations with their still existent base load issue by "consuming" energy overnight when the generators would really rather not have to test out the PID settings to ramp the boilers down and back up again and then release it over the day when demand starts to outstrip supply. There is probably even money to be made trading energy like that, and unless you suggest re nationalising power or providing subsidies, making it possible to make money is the only way things will happen.

The mechanism for pumped Hydro is this....

I) When power is cheap water is pumped uphill
II) When power is expensive you run the water downhill make more power and then sell that power.
III) It's not Pumped Hydro it is "Wet energy trading" therefore limited by the differential between buying & selling, the closer those two points, the less desirable "Wet energy trading" can quickly achieve negative returns.
IV) The Grid does not discriminate between any form of electricity generation, for the purists out there, indeed even the mighty Hydro Scheme may draw on power generated by coal.
My apparent criticism of Pumped Hydro is just that apparent. Pumped Hydro may be costly, but at least it's not going to be a black hole. At worst we can use it reticulate water during drought at best it will generate some cheaper power whilst employing our existing grid and be recouping the cost of construction and make it appear the LNP is doing something, that's a 5/10 outcome.
Interesting.... I have never once proposed that Coal is a good thing. Having spent many winters in Beijing I can assure unconstrained use of Coal is a dirty, smelly, business.
I mentioned the NBN because our Nation cannot afford a repeat of the profligate and flamboyant spending that's characterized the NBN. We need to back a winner, for the sake of our children we must move away from Carbon based tech, but not before a viable alternative is found and as of yet that alternative hasn't been found until that time we have no alternative but to use Fossil Fuels efficiently.
The closest we have found to a safe and secure alternative is Nuclear but the Green's killed off Nuclear in the 1970's and 1980's in this the Green's are responsible for much of the Carbon floating around in our ever-warming atmosphere. Green's complaining about Global Warming is a little like Ben Cropp talking about saving the Grey Nurse from overfishing if only a Crocodile had so many tears.
It is a ridiculous notion that the Premier of South Australia is going to find the answer to the Worldwide Power crisis & save the planet. If the SA Premier wants some half-arsed NBN Powered Star Sprinkles Power Scheme he should have to pay for it out of his own Super. The last time I heard anything as absurd as this proposal was the Multifunction Polis (MFP) for Adelaide, what a cracker that one was!
Maybe there will be a Super Battery and maybe it will resolve the World's energy storage problem, but it hasn't happened yet... Maybe there is a super efficient Windmill, but it hasn't happened yet... Or a Biogas generator that will save the "bacon" but it hasn't happened yet!
What I do know is this.... My Mother in Law has chilblains because she is scared of turning on her larger heater, and uses instead a little bar heater on her feet, hence the chilblains, her story isn't unique. In 2017 her story in inexcusable whilst the privileged are enjoying Solar power subsidies.

The only answer I have in the short term is.... use energy dense fuel sources efficiently. By way of a cautionary note: beware spending money on snake oil as it will buy you Hyperloops

[AndrewJ]

One thing i think everyone is missing here.
If we ever manage to get truly "cheap" power, the nature of our "economy" will mean that we can ( ie need to ) populate at a faster rate in order to get economies of scale, and we will be back to where we started.
Bit like the stupidity in Melbourne of continually widening the one or two "fee"ways, vs making a diverse network.
When opening them the pollies say look at this, 10 extra years of easy travel for your tolls. Then it is full again in less than 6 months because the roads fill immediately to the congestion level people will tolerate before they start taking the rat runs instead.
One crash and the whole system dies.

Andrew

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Not having heard of pumped storage hydro before I did a google and wikipedia came up with this. It basically is a lossy process ie only ~80% of the energy used to pump the water up is recovered in the regeneration of power. It only works financially by saving during cheap power periods and generating when the spot price goes up. Unless it uses power that would otherwise be lost, ie wind or solar excess, it seems to be a rather ineffective way to support the system. But I guess it is a necessary option when you have limited choices.
I just cannot figure out how your pollies over there are so pigheaded about renewables.

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH), or pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES), is a type of hydroelectric energy storage used by electric power systems for load balancing. The method stores energy in the form of gravitational potential energy of water, pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation. Low-cost surplus off-peak electric power is typically used to run the pumps. During periods of high electrical demand, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power. Although the losses of the pumping process makes the plant a net consumer of energy overall, the system increases revenue by selling more electricity during periods of peak demand, when electricity prices are highest.
Pumped-storage hydroelectricity allows energy from intermittent sources (such as solar, wind) and other renewables, or excess electricity from continuous base-load sources (such as coal or nuclear) to be saved for periods of higher demand.[1][2] The reservoirs used with pumped storage are quite small when compared to conventional hydroelectric dams of similar power capacity, and generating periods are often less than half a day.
Pumped storage is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2017, the DOE Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for over 96% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide, with a total installed nameplate capacity of over 168 GW.[3] The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%,[4][5][6][7] with some sources claiming up to 87%.[8]

[AstralTraveller (David)]

"I just cannot figure out how your pollies over there are so pigheaded about renewables."

You leave our pollies alone! It's not just renewables. Rarely has the world seen such outstanding ignorance, prejudice, and malevolence on such a wide range of issues, supported with such misinformation and displayed with such hubris. It's an achievement worth celebrating. I for one feel that Australia should develop a space program capable of putting a man (actually quite a few men and some women) in space.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by ZeroID

It basically is a lossy process ie only ~80% of the energy used to pump the water up is recovered in the regeneration of power. It only works financially by saving during cheap power periods and generating when the spot price goes up. Unless it uses power that would otherwise be lost, ie wind or solar excess, it seems to be a rather ineffective way to support the system.

Yes, pumped-storage hydro is a "lossy" system - but so is ANY energy storage system - the First Law of Thermodynamics tells us that!

However, the "round-trip" efficiencies are comparable to any other large-scale energy storage system that has been demonstrated to date, and it scales MUCH bigger than any other currently available technology (such as Li-Ion batteries etc.)

As to the economics - there have been some notable "market failures" where pumped-storage systems have been owned and operated by traditional "carbon-based" energy companies, and the pumped-storage plant has been run to generate maximum revenue for the energy company, rather than to provide maximum benefit to the community as a whole.

"Maximum revenue" means that you run all your plant to provide as much power as possible at times of high demand / high spot price - but not TOO much, because that lowers the spot energy price. (Energy companies actually do best when there is a slight shortfall of supply, so the spot price stays high.) For energy companies who are reliant upon fossil fuels, pumped-storage hydro reduces the amount of base-load plant they need to build, but it doesn't help with reducing our net CO2 output.

"Maximum benefit to the community" would mean you "farm" as much renewable energy as possible and store it for release when demand exceeds supply, minimising our reliance upon fossil fuels, or even eliminating it altogether. If you are a carbon-based energy supplier, this isn't possible, because every mega-watt-hour you generate ultimately comes from burning fossil fuels. If you are a renewables-based energy company, then pumped-storage hydro (and other "battery" schemes) are a natural adjunct to help us move to a zero-emissions energy future.

I for one can't really see a MORE effective and sustainable way to supply our energy needs.

[gary]

2018 has been a sobering lesson in how expensive the construction of state-of-the-art nuclear power stations can be.

So much so that Westinghouse Electric* filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, because of US$9 billion losses from nuclear power plant construction projects.

Their AP1000 reactor which was designed to passively cool itself after an accidental shutdown was seen as the solution in a post-Fukushima nuclear reactor market.

But three decades of highly skilled engineering, regulatory reviews and construction later, the AP1000 is yet to generate a watt of power.

A pair of AP1000's being built in South Carolina were abandoned after costs spiralled from US$10 billion to an eye-watering US$25 billion.

Meanwhile, a pair of AP1000's being built in China have suffered several engineering shortfalls.
The blades on the circulation pumps that are crtical to the reactors safety would stop spinning too quickly after the power was shut off, before the signature passive cooling could kick in.

There were leaks in the steam pipes exiting one of the reactor vessels.

Meantime a glut in power in China may not make either reactor ever economically viable in the market and so economies of scale for the reactors may never come about.

The missed deadlines and cost overruns have lead to the conclusion by many in the industry that the rapid growth of nuclear power has peaked and is now a thing of the past.

As at today, the costs of renewables has plumetted making them the current choice for the lowest $/kW in Australia.

Elsewhere in the world, such as Europe, the United States and China, renewables have become ubiquitous.

For example, in 2015 there was a solar eclipse over parts of Europe that resulted in a 18GW dip and 25GW rise in the amount of power in the grid just from solar alone.

25GW is equivalent to the output of about 18 nuclear power plants fully ramped up.

Currently there is about 84GW of solar deployed in Europe, equivalent to the output of about 60 nuclear reactors.

The current cost to just build that many AP1000-class nuclear reactors would run at around AUD 1 trillion.

Everyone wants cheap power in Australia. But the rest of the world is facing the same experience. And it will get cheaper.

But if by "cheap" you mean the types of prices we paid per kW/hr decades ago, it is not going to happen at this point in time.

The reason is that the existing coal power plants have come to the end of their lives. Like an old car, they have reached the end of the road.
So even if there wasn't the requirement to urgently decrease CO2 outputs, they would need replacing anyway.

So either way we go, there are a lot of capital replacement costs at the moment but they will be amortized over time.

But unless you have very deep pockets and are willing to throw a lot of money at improving reactor designs for the benefit of the rest of the world,
nuclear power in Australia would be the most expensive option.

Westinghouse Electric would appreciate it though. They are looking for a willing buyer to take them out of bankruptcy.



* Footnote. Westinghouse Electric built the first hydro-electric power plant in 1895 in Niagara Falls

[Shiraz (Ray)]

I will say it again . This tread is about a private company spending its own money over the next couple of years on a significant power system based on solarPV, a big battery and pumped hydro. They will do so because that approach represents the best and cheapest technology for future power generation.

This is not a decision by the LNP, the SA government, or the Greenies, although they should all welcome it.