Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by Eevo

getting back to wind power.

wind power doesnt work. its been the worst thing for consumers. more outages due to wind farms not putting out, higher prices.

Rubbish. Complete unadulterated rubbish. Wind energy cannot be considered on its own, it is just one part of a complex system, there must always be backup. Which has been predominately gas and will be storage in the near future. Just because there isn't any large storage at this very instant doesn't mean that storage won't progressively replace fossil backup in the near future.

we're talking about why it isnt installed NOW. dropping prices isn't relevant.
what part of NOW are you not understanding?

Do you genuinely not understand that you can't just slope off to woolies and buy a case of rechargeable aa's to tide the state over? That factories have to be built to cater for worldwide demand, not just in some backwater in dumb****istan? That SA is just one tiny corner of the planet?

its nice to talk about the future but we're having power outages NOW.

Which, once again, are due to mismanagement of available resources, storms, knackered machinery etc. If you can't manage a grid with wind energy you should just find someone who can, as is practice in other parts of the world.

if solar is "way past parity", why does it only have 30% penetration?

It's growing, it's growing way past just households, the 30% figure was a snapshot in time and not a final target. Putting solar on the roof requires funds, which have to be borrowed if you don't have them.

if grid sided storage is viable, why has it not been done? or are we waiting for falling prices? how long do we wait? 5 year, 10 years?

It is being done. It will be done more, just not all at once. It takes time to get approvals, finance, manufacturing, connection, purchasing agreements etc. so rolling out storage will take whatever time it takes. The process could be hurried if thick heads didn't whine every time someone wants a little progress towards a clean energy future. In the mean time people could afford their own storage batteries if they hadn't just wasted thousands on pretty driveway ornaments. It's just a matter of priorities.

im not sure if this article is pay walled or not.

No Cookies | The Advertiser

BLAMING ETSA’s privatisation for high electricity prices — as a recent The Advertiser editorial did — doesn’t solve the problem but it does give clues to what needs to be done.For several years with Tom Playford’s ETSA, South Australia had the lowest electricity prices of any of the mainland states. Only Tasmania, with cheap hydro-electric power, was lower.
Today SA’s price is about the highest, so it is interesting to compare what we had or didn’t have then with what we have now.
We didn’t have retailers, we didn’t have generator bidding, we didn’t have a futures market, we didn’t have a governance bureaucracy costing over $160 million a year but in itself not producing a single unit of electricity, we didn’t have the so-called National Electricity Market which is neither national nor a market.
The Commonwealth has no constitutional authority or responsibility for electricity supply in the states but depends upon state legislation for which SA has been the bellwether and with a few large generators and fixed wiring to consumers who have no choice of supplier it in no way resembles a trading market.
There is no need for a bidding arrangement or a futures market. Any competent system operator would or should know the condition, actual costs and performance of each generator and schedule them accordingly for optimum combined output.
Retailers are also unnecessary. As such they don’t own or operate any part of the generation, transmission or distribution systems and contribute nothing to the production or delivery of electricity.
They send out the bills and collect and distribute the money but they don’t own or read the meters. The money function could almost certainly be done more efficiently by the distributor, who does own and read the meters.
The argument that retailers compete and keep prices down is a farce. The electricity you get comes from the same generator, through the same wires and the cost of producing and delivering it to your premises is exactly the same regardless of whom your retailer may be.
Get rid of retailers, the ridiculous generator bidding arrangement, the futures market and much of the governance bureaucracy, none of which are necessary and we could significantly reduce the cost of electricity.
Wind and solar renewables can increase supply costs because they are intermittent and unreliable. To maintain voltage and frequency and system stability they must be backed up continuously with conventional generation or recoverable storage. This means, in effect, that we have to operate and maintain two systems at the same time.
As well as the obvious problems with our present supply, the closure of the Leigh Creek Coalfield and Northern Power Station mean that much of the electricity on which we depend will come over 800km of vulnerable overhead transmission line from brown coal-fired generators in Victoria.
In the circumstances we now have there is clearly a need for an open and comprehensive public inquiry into cost and reliability and future arrangements for our electricity supply. As present arrangements depend upon SA legislation, the responsibility for such an inquiry clearly rests with our State Government.
So the question is: When is it going to happen?
Bruce Dinham is the former general manager of ETSA.

Originally Posted by Eevo

i'm not talking about the hardware damage. the hardware damage i can accept.
the lack of intetia in the grid caused by high percentage of wind, caused the outage.

if we had zero wind farms, and that transmission line went down, it wouldn't of caused a state wide outage.

keeping the lights on is more important than cheaper.

also this morning, wind was generating about 60% of our power.
price of power in qld (where there are no wind farms) was still cheaper.

The "state wide power failure" is of course a useful unit of faux outrage, the truth is that it was a minor annoyance for the bulk of SA customers and over within a few short hours. Just imagine if the black start generators had operated as planned, it would have been just a half hour or so. All the other customers wouldn't have had a snowballs chance of quick restoration due to grid damage. Port Lincoln of course would have liked its town genny to work as planned, not crap itself in the one moment when it was needed most.

Originally Posted by Eevo

SA already has the highest power prices in aust. SA had the second lowest power prices in aust when there was no wind farms.

Correlation does not imply causation, you know. It may have escaped your notice but SA's infrastructure was sold off at around that time? To greedy offshore billionaires? Every customer pays hundreds of dollars per year to these guys? Qld I believe still owns its infrastructure.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Rubbish. Complete unadulterated rubbish. Wind energy cannot be considered on its own, it is just one part of a complex system, there must always be backup. Which has been predominately gas and will be storage in the near future. Just because there isn't any large storage at this very instant doesn't mean that storage won't progressively replace fossil backup in the near future.

so we have to run two system. no bloody wonder our power is the most expensive in aust

Originally Posted by bee utey

Do you genuinely not understand that you can't just slope off to woolies and buy a case of rechargeable aa's to tide the state over? That factories have to be built to cater for worldwide demand, not just in some backwater in dumb****istan? That SA is just one tiny corner of the planet?

so the technology doesnt exist. next stupid idea please.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Which, once again, are due to mismanagement of available resources, storms, knackered machinery etc. If you can't manage a grid with wind energy you should just find someone who can, as is practice in other parts of the world.

or we could get rid of wind and return to a system that although wasnt perfect, did work and was much better than the unreliable wind farm.

Originally Posted by bee utey

It's growing, it's growing way past just households, the 30% figure was a snapshot in time and not a final target. Putting solar on the roof requires funds, which have to be borrowed if you don't have them.

if it was 60% you may have a case. i'm not against solar but i wouldn't be calling it cheap for households. its also a non synchronous energy source which destabilises the grid.

Originally Posted by bee utey

It is being done. It will be done more, just not all at once. It takes time to get approvals, finance, manufacturing, connection, purchasing agreements etc. so rolling out storage will take whatever time it takes. The process could be hurried if thick heads didn't whine every time someone wants a little progress towards a clean energy future. In the mean time people could afford their own storage batteries if they hadn't just wasted thousands on pretty driveway ornaments. It's just a matter of priorities.

it's not being done.

sydney? no
melb? no
bris? no
perth? no
darwin? no
hobart? no
adelaide? yes. oh wait, bee uteys place isnt all of adelaide.

it's not progress if it sends us back to the stone age.

driveway ornaments???

Originally Posted by bee utey

The "state wide power failure" is of course a useful unit of faux outrage, the truth is that it was a minor annoyance for the bulk of SA customers and over within a few short hours. Just imagine if the black start generators had operated as planned, it would have been just a half hour or so. All the other customers wouldn't have had a snowballs chance of quick restoration due to grid damage. Port Lincoln of course would have liked its town genny to work as planned, not crap itself in the one moment when it was needed most.



Correlation does not imply causation, you know. It may have escaped your notice but SA's infrastructure was sold off at around that time? To greedy offshore billionaires? Every customer pays hundreds of dollars per year to these guys? Qld I believe still owns its infrastructure.

how many other states have had statewide outages? zero

are statewide outages acceptable? no


of the two black start generators in SA. 1 was taken out by lightning, the other i dont think that they have released the cause of being being unavailable???
i cant comment on pt lincoln. i've not been following their issue.


privatisation, although imho a non optimal solution, didnt cause the state outage.



greedy offshore billionaires is true but not relevant.

Originally Posted by Eevo

how many other states have had statewide outages? zero

are statewide outages acceptable? no

Keep gnawing at that bone if it makes you feel better. The whole of SA is a small fraction of the population of a major city elsewhere, not actually a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Most people affected shrugged their shoulders and got on with life, the outrage was manufactured later.

[/QUOTE]of the two black start generators in SA. 1 was taken out by lightning, the other i dont think that they have released the cause of being being unavailable??? [/QUOTE]

There were there to do a particular job and they failed. It's like carrying a spare tyre with a hole in the side and not knowing about it.

i cant comment on pt lincoln. i've not been following their issue.

Just another equipment failure that inconvenienced a large number of locals.

privatisation, although imho a non optimal solution, didnt cause the state outage. greedy offshore billionaires is true but not relevant.

It has a lot to with price rises which you continue to blame solely on the cheapest source of electricity on the market.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Keep gnawing at that bone if it makes you feel better. The whole of SA is a small fraction of the population of a major city elsewhere, not actually a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Most people affected shrugged their shoulders and got on with life, the outrage was manufactured later.



There were there to do a particular job and they failed. It's like carrying a spare tyre with a hole in the side and not knowing about it.



It has a lot to with price rises which you continue to blame solely on the cheapest source of electricity on the market.

SA wide outages are acceptable cause we're not a big deal? i dont buy it.

yep, i agree. they should be held accountable.


yes and no. it's always the distribution network that costs the most. hoever we're not talking about that section of the grid.

Originally Posted by bee utey

It has a lot to with price rises which you continue to blame solely on the cheapest source of electricity on the market.

Brown coal thermal generators (the cheapest source of electricity on the market) have not contributed to price rises in SA.