Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Oh ****ing yay... prices will be higher..
Already the most expensive state for Power...

Oh well there goes more businesses interstate.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Yes, you'd think it would have been prudent to have had the gas operating and ready to be turned up if necessary. Still, hindsight is a wonderful thing, I suppose.
Queensland's rule that at least 15% must be generated by gas means the gas option is always there, I believe. Plus there is plenty of coal.
A study has found that Queensland can significantly increase its renewable energy sources to 50% without hitting consumers or making the network more unreliable.
Queensland consumers will pay to boost renewable energy, 'offset' by lower power costs: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

So the gas generators should just be there for, prevailing weather? Keep in mind, Tis a business, they need to be sustainable.....chatting with my old boy tonight, yep, there is an excess of 2000MW on the eastern seaboard.....where does it go?...in the magic box, just randomly dissapears

Supercritical Thinking: To Achieve World

Germany is moving, again, the pioneers and leaders, Into to coal fired plants, the backbone of baseload power generation. How many pages is this thread? Still nobody has said how renewables can be reliant as baseload power source....

Ideals and reality, I'll stick to reality

And an interesting article on the price spike in the middle of the year.
Wind farm output prediction issues contributed to SA electricity price hike, regulator finds - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
It shows the intermittent unstable nature of wind farms.

Funny article, considering engie is the current owner of hazelwood power station, also Loy yang b, but nobody knows what that is.....they have a business plan to be coal free in 3 years, be interesting to see what happens, aside from the retardation of shutting in 1600MW of baseload generation, but the clean up bill of an asbestos clad building, with a fair size pot hole to fill in, theory says the mine keeps the ground temperature warm enough for the pondage and the Barra to live.....but once they turn it into a lake....cause little else can be done, the thermal capacity to heat the surrounding earth is dramatically lessened....on and on and on

Primary actions, secondary effects...

Green energy will fix it, just will ok

Everybody wants green energy, nobody wants their power bill to quadruple, I'd like to know how many in this thread are self reliant on there own energy, those that have built solar passive residences, off the grid and live comfortably.....I promise I won't pin point them on the mined materials, cost of manufacture to get there, I'll just pay merits for putting their money where their mouth is

As we post on a forum, that is specifically based on fossil fuel burning vehicles, which are far from th most efficient and creating a carbon footprint enjoying them, hypocrisy, nah!

[quote=rovercare;2597523]So the gas generators should just be there for, prevailing weather? Keep in mind, Tis a business, they need to be sustainable.....chatting with my old boy tonight, yep, there is an excess of 2000MW on the eastern seaboard.....where does it go?...in the magic box, just randomly dissapears

... Still nobody has said how renewables can be reliant as baseload power source....

Ideals and reality, I'll stick to reality

Renewables can provide an alternative to coal-based baseload, however, there are a few complexities to it.

The simplest way, conceptually, is to provide significant amounts of energy storage, such a pumped hydro. Not really an option in SA. There are other options such as batteries (expensive), flywheel storage (still experimental at large scale) and stored hydrogen (kaboom, if it goes wrong).*

A more realistic way is to provide a fair bit of redundancy in the system, using distributed renewable energy generation, using a range of technologies (wind, solar, tidal), over a wide area, but, you really need to have something between 3-5 times the capacity to ensure that you always have power, a little less if you have some storage available. Doing this saves on storage, but gets expensive in terms of capital investment and network management.

One option that has been talked about for distributed storage is not yet an option, but may be in future, is to use batteries in electric cars as dynamic storage. Plugging them in not only allows them to recharge, but also lets the energy network suck the energy back out as required. There are economic issues, but it's workable.

*Solar Thermal is probably the most likely of all renewables to provide baseload
as energy is stored as molten sodium or hot oil, which is heated up during the day and can be used overnight to produce electricity using a steam turbine, like almost every other form of electricity generation. Nuclear Fusion, when it comes, will, of course, be a no brainer.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Nationalised power was affordable- competition hasn't made ANY power cheaper in Australia - government owned was run for the people - costs covered maintaining the networks.

Another farce played out on the public when pollies sold off assets to clear other debt.

Water, Gas, Telecommunications and power all became more expensive when privatised

I'm not so good on the water and gas, but there is no way that anyone could credibly claim that telecommunications has become more expensive since competition was introduced and Telstra was sold off. And some of the shenanigans up here in Qld with the state owned electricity network haven't exactly kept the cost of power down.

This is an interesting summary of a report on the present and future as Queensland moves to 50% renewables. Lots of interesting figures and graphs.
For example, while SA's gas was apparently off on the day it all went wrong, Queensland's gas is actually making 12% of power. It also shows that coal will remain an integral part of the power system for decades, but alternatives will increase.
Also says significant price rises are unlikely as a result of the move to 50% renewables for several reasons, including the varied ownership and the fact the government owns some generation sources.
Also says the Queensland government can install a lot of solar and save a lot of operating costs.
Solar should power government schools, TAFE, hospitals: report
I see elsewhere the Sunshine Coast Council has bought a farm and is building a solar farm which it predicts will eventually produce all its electricity.
So, it appears Queensland can increase renewables to cut emissions without causing significant price rises or endangering network stability. It's not either baseload or renewables, its both.

You cannot rely on government ownership of generating capacity to keep prices down - NSW has for many years owned major generating assets; and treated them as a reliable source of state income!

John