Tesla powerwall for solar energy storage

[Shiraz (Ray)]

The more I read, the less it seems that renewable energy technology is the issue - as many posts here have demonstrated, there are lots of exciting new technologies for renewable generation and storage. The big problem seems to be that our local fossil energy suppliers misjudged the market by a huge amount and are now wallowing in excess capacity in both generation and distribution. Rather than see them go under, it looks like the government is trying to restrict competition from additional excess capacity as more renewables come on line - hence their desire to get rid of the RET or at least reduce it (as happened). By all accounts, we will continue to have excess thermal capacity for more than a decade into the future, so don't expect future governments to be too sympathetic to renewables - I suspect that the fossil fuel lobby (and part of the media) will not let that happen. I guess that the huge overcapacity also explains why we pay so much for power - someone has to pay for the excess thermal generators and power lines and we have significantly less manufacturing industry left to help.

So it seems that the primary driver behind the obvious campaign to demonise renewables is a profitability crunch in the fossil power industry - the problem is not that renewables are not yet good enough, but that they are already too successful. I wonder what impediments will be put in the way of home battery systems..

https://retreview.dpmc.gov.au/sites/...ril%202014.pdf
http://www.aemo.com.au/News-and-Even...-next-10-Years
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-0...t-says/5658926

[bugeater (Marty)]

The price we pay for "electricity" on our bill is mainly transmission and distribution (T&D). Not generation. So we aren't paying for the excess capacity - investors in the unneeded generators are. We're paying because every man and his dog seems to need an airconditioning unit and the network needs to handle the peak demand when they are all turned on at once. In some states there was also a fair amount of overinvestment in T&D, which all ends up in your bill. Also, I think there were expectations of increasing demand which didn't eventuate. Partially this is due to energy efficiency measures. No doubt renewables play a part (and isn't that really the point? displacing carbon intensive generation?) but there are a lot more factors at play.

[AndrewJ]

I can vouch for the stupidity in poles and wires as well.
I had my house rewired about 20 yrs ago.
2 years ago, i got a knock on the door and a note that my wire to the house was "too low" over my driveway and would have to be replaced.
I told em to nick off and i wasnt paying. They said no probs, its free??
( and that i had no choice )
They added riser struts to the pole and still couldnt get the clearance, so had to add safety trip joints so the wire would break if a truck hit it.
Anyone who has seen my drive knows you wont get a truck up it :-)
When they finished, i asked why they hadnt done my neighbour, who still had an ancient two wire ( with uninsulated neutral and porcelain insulators ) going to her house from the same pole at the same time.
She was with a different retailer
All i can say is a lot of the money appears to be going into the pockets of the massively duplicated ( and bloated ) boards, executives, management, HR and advertising for each of these myriad new retailers.
The people who did the wires were only subbies??????
The old SECV may have had a few rorts going on in it, but it was probably still cheaper than what we have now, and it actually trained apprentices along the way.

Andrew