has Australia dropped the ball on solar?

DC link from Perth or the east coast to Darwin and Alice Springs got a damned good laugh here. Which think tank dreamed that one up?

And what a good idea using wind and solar to split water into hydrogen and oxygen so it could run a fuel cell. Roofs crammed with solar panels, wind turbines in the front yard, hydrogen, oxygen and water tanks filling the back yard. Don't forget your hazardous area zones. Where do we put the fuel cell?
Forget about that, where do we get the water? Oh, yes, the desal plant.

Have we dropped the ball? We never picked it up. About six years ago, the company I was working for was going to design a molten salt power plant in Australia. This needed government funding to get underway. The Australian Government declined but the American Government picked up the tab so it went to America.
Sad. It would have been a good project to work on.

You can't escape it. You need something to supply the base load and something that reacts quickly to supply the peaks. There are alternatives to the mud burners but solar or wind are not capable. Wind is really only good for line regulation.

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Originally Posted by isuzurover

But it does run on ideas ;)

Utsira in Norway had a demo plant without traditional baseload system - which provided 40-50% autonomy from the grid (as in 24 hr - not a few hours a day).

The system was only planned as a 4-year trial but the kept it going for 8 last I heard.

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Wow, 10 houses for a few days.

Pretty sure people have been on stand alone for many years succesfully, but I wonder if I went and turned on 5 Clothes dryers, 7 electric hot water systems, 4 ovens some kettle and toasters and of course soem A/C how well there system would function

Its hardly viable evidence

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Originally Posted by Chucaro

Not AC in my homes and I do not have solar panels because our electricity bill is of $250 per month for 9 month of the year and $300 for the 3 winter months. The cost of a solar system and the energy used to manufacturing it does not justify to have t in our case.
When we built our homes me designed them for passive heating during winter and cooling in summer including our 10 years in Qld.
Now in Kingston, Tasmania we bought a house with double insulation in the roof, insulation on the walls and an orientation were we have the sun heating the place from 9 to 4 in winter. :)
Planning is the way to go and be smart in how you use energy.

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I agree, I don't have A/C either

I would love to build a solar passive home, but I like where I live to much to move

Still does not make solar and wind sustainable for base load generation

Here's a cool solar application:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-2...-plane/5544002

And baseload renewable energy is possible if we are prepared to invest in it, which certainly won't happen under the current backward-looking Abbott Government, which has definitely dropped the ball.

http://bze.org.au/media/newswire/liv...ewables-131007


Studies for the government's own review of the RET have also found that, after an initial cost rise because of the upfront investment, it could actually result in lower power prices after 2020.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-2...-bills/5544658


So, it seems a clear choice between staying with the current coal-based system and watching prices skyrocket or investing for the future and being better off in the medium to long term. Pretty easy choice really IMHO.

Sent from my D1 using overweight hamsters.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Here's a cool solar application:
Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard to attempt to fly around the world in solar plane - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

And baseload renewable energy is possible if we are prepared to invest in it, which certainly won't happen under the current backward-looking Abbott Government, which has definitely dropped the ball.

Living Green: Power in Renewables | Beyond Zero Emissions


Studies for the government's own review of the RET have also found that, after an initial cost rise because of the upfront investment, it could actually result in lower power prices after 2020.


Renewable energy target: Economic modelling shows household bills to rise in short term, drop long term - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


So, it seems a clear choice between staying with the current coal-based system and watching prices skyrocket or investing for the future and being better off in the medium to long term. Pretty easy choice really IMHO.

Sent from my D1 using overweight hamsters.

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Price rises are for distribution, very little price movement in the wholesale price of power, put simply, prices have not risen for the "mud burning, earth killing brown coal generators" again, this is a furphy

You also still need a grid to be renewable, which is where the price rises are....

Also, there is nothing about the actual how to achieve 100% renewable base load in those articles, they lack, as always, substance on the technical aspects which make it impossible to achieve 100% reliably and relatively economically

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Originally Posted by rovercare

Wow, 10 houses for a few days.

Pretty sure people have been on stand alone for many years succesfully, but I wonder if I went and turned on 5 Clothes dryers, 7 electric hot water systems, 4 ovens some kettle and toasters and of course soem A/C how well there system would function

Its hardly viable evidence

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You are right about Utsira in Norway. But to move closer to home, the ACT is on target for 90% of energy requirements to be supplied by renewable resources by 2020 with solar contributing about 20%. The rest will be generated from wind and from waste. (See 90 percent renewable energy target - Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate). The expected cost of achieving the 90% renewable energy target will peak at around $5 per household per week in 2020. Even with this commitment to renewables Canberra is likely to maintain the lowest electricity prices in Australia. Oh, the population of the ACT is about 350,000 people, living in about 145,000 households.

Cheers
KarlB
:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KarlB

You are right about Utsira in Norway. But to move closer to home, the ACT is on target for 90% of energy requirements to be supplied by renewable resources by 2020 with solar contributing about 20%. The rest will be generated from wind and from waste. (See 90 percent renewable energy target - Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate). The expected cost of achieving the 90% renewable energy target will peak at around $5 per household per week in 2020. Even with this commitment to renewables Canberra is likely to maintain the lowest electricity prices in Australia. Oh, the population of the ACT is about 350,000 people, living in about 145,000 households.

Cheers
KarlB
:)

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2/3rds of their generation is wind...interesting when the air is still

I would imagine its easier to keep elec prices low in the ACT.......the size of the distribution grid is how big compared to the other states and territories?...

Using waste is getting to a more viable way of baseload generation as its predictable, moreso and controllable, unlike the sun and the wind

The government has made a promise, so I guess it must be true:)

Don't worry about being hooked to the rest of the eastern seaboard for stability though or the lack of commercial/industrial type stuff in Canberra, which is actually the predominant consumer of electrickery.

I agree that the issue of "base load" power is critical to the future of renewables in Australia and other places.
However we DO now have the technology to make much wider use of renewable energy sources.
Smart meters (and grids) can ration energy for non-critical uses such as refrigeration and air conditioning so that they switch off for short periods of high load.
New battery technology such as the Vanadium Redox units can theoretically be installed in Megawatt sized installations to buffer the output of large solar and wind generators.
The advent of electric cars (yeah, I know... very slow to be adopted) will eventually provide a huge, dispersed array of battery buffers in the grid and it's now becoming close to viable to install domestic sized battery banks for grid-connected small scale solar installations, so the energy you generate during the day can be stored for night time use.

Then as has been mentioned, there's the use of salt tanks to store heat energy, the use of pumped water to generate hydro, and the breaking of water into H2 and O2 for use in a fuel cell. (Which by the way produces WATER as its by-product of combustion so it's not as though they'll use up vast quantities of water in the process. Certainly not as much water as is required by nuclear and COAL fired power stations which have to generate steam!!! Not to mention the threat to our critical surface and underground water caused by coal and coal seam gas mining.
I live in an area where our underground water is our most precious resource and while it might suit city forks to glibly say "we have plenty of coal and gas, so why not use it", the mining of these NON-renewable commodities has the potential to cause all sorts of environmental,economic, health and social problems in MY community. This has already happened in many parts of Eastern Australia and the South West of WA. (Read the book "Rich land, wasteland").

The head of the SA high voltage power distributor, Electranet, has said publicly that in the next few years, it'll be cheaper for new housing developments (especially in rural areas) to be self sufficient in renewable power, rather than connect to the grid. Same for many communities at the end of the grid. In fact the grid managers would love to see the more remote parts of their grids go "self sufficient" as it's so costly to supply them with power.

I was at a "Community Energy Congress" in Canberra last week and heard about some small remote aboriginal communities in the Kimberley being supplied with mainly diesel power at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. (Yep, we taxpayers pay much of that cost). Madness, when renewables can do the job much more cheaply.

Re the issue of "base load" power, don't forget that in Australia we have hardly even considered the use of bio energy from forest thinnings, waste streams, sea grass (yes, seaweed!) and agricultural "waste" etc. In Europe, many rural communities use co-generation plants fed by renewables to supply power and heating for the community. In Adelaide a company called ResourceCo is collecting building site waste , separating out the metal, (which they sell) and rubble (which is made into concrete) and then shredding the combustible component for use in the local cement factory (the state's biggest single user of power).

Right now, in the South East of SA (where I live) there are a couple of major project son the books to use forest waste to generate industrial quantities of BASE LOAD power. Also a company looking to make wood pellets. largely for export to Europe, because we're too stupid to have large scale bio energy plants in Australia!

Regarding the issue of renewables being a problem for the network in terms of managing voltage fluctuations etc. Well as has been mentioned in many parts of Europe, renewables are THE major source of local power. They seem to manage the networks OK in Germany, Denmark, etc. Why can't we do it in Australia?
I suggest the local power retailers, generators, and distributors need to get used to the fact that the energy game is going to change dramatically (despite "King Canute" Tony Abbott and his colleagues trying to hold back the tide). It's a scary scenario for them, because as the price of power goes up, more and more people will choose to go off-grid or generate some of their own power. Then the remaining poor sods still relying on grid power will have to be charged more to keep the whole edifice viable, which means even more will adopt local renewable power etc etc.
Note that the price of solar panels is now close to being cheaper than coal fired power (especially when you consider the REAL costs to us as taxpayers in subsidising coal extraction.... see this article Mining the age of entitlement | The Australia Institute)
That only mentions actual dollar subsidies and does not mention the hidden social, health and environmental costs. (Including global warming costs folks.... don't forget THAT little elephant in the room!)

Now I have children and grand children and when I die, I'd like to think that my generation did NOT dig up all the coal and extract all the gas and wreck the environment in the process, just so we could suck on so called "cheaper power" for a few more years, instead of adopting long term sustainable renewable power. The next generations will judge us very harshly if we don't stop being so myopic, and well...selfish!


Alan

Its a great supplement, the issues with why we can't do it here, is yayy, Germany has a lot of renewable energy, but is hooked in a grid which which far smaller than ours on the eastern seaboard, linked to a whole heap of nuclear, coal fired etc generators, whilst this allows a country to utelise more renewable as a percentage of what is on their network it substantially lessens

We need to find a viable way to spin turbo generators, large ones, to make it viable, and of course it has to be economical, again, much more difficult on a grid spanning the eastern seaboard of Australia with a sparce population

Also a lot that are on renewables in small pockets around the globe have 1, reliability issues 2. no manufacturing/industrial stuff to contend with

The general public is not willing to have their A/C turn off on a hot day......now if you could change peoples mindsets!......but remember, the only person you can actually control all the time is yourself:D

I admire your use of a few token taboo words like climate change and coal seam gas, they generally get peoples 'emotional mind' kicking in

Are YOU prepared to pay the bill?

Some renewables can produce baseload power while it seems the way forward is a mixture of technologies and strategies. Coal will retain a role for a while, but its going to be of declining importance as time passes, I think.


Renewable energy can provide baseload power - here's how