Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

geez people stop resisting change.

it's going to happen whether you like it or not.

it's happening because it's the best thing to happen.

get out of the way and stop slowing it down.

You have no technical understanding on this topic do you? Just slogans, hang terms and coloured font

I have not seen anyone argue that coal must stay forever at all, I've seen a lot of pragmatic view points on why it needs to stay in the immediate future though, yet I've seen nothing viable as a replacement offered by those wishing to simply, stop coal fired stations

4 small blackouts today, syncing all those renewable sources is a pain. Fired up the local genset for the night, yes fossil, same as gas and coal.

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

geez people stop resisting change.

it's going to happen whether you like it or not.

it's happening because it's the best thing to happen.

get out of the way and stop slowing it down.

Certainly don't want to slow progress...

Just want the transition to be seamless...
Don't turn off something until you have its replacement fully sorted.

Last year, even with Flinders Coal running the State experienced brown outs and rolling outages as we didn't have enough to keep us afloat including the Eastern connectors - which were restricted due to Vic/NSW loads getting priority.

I for one would like to see Thorium sitting just up the road...

They're also working on a storage collector solar set up, but it's years away...

In the meantime - we need security of supply.

In the Iron triangle alone the issue last week cost Arrium $5Mil and is still costing additional as the plants are restricted and fuelling multiple gensets.

Pirie smelter - a new very clean furnace - went cold. Total chaos for a furnace and likely to cost $10Mil plus.. (it was only burned in in the last month or so).

It's bad enough that Arrium is going to hop off the grid, restore its 6 turbines and go self sufficient. These are fired using BF and Coke ovens gases and will be augmented as required by Natural Gas.
Besides operational security it also significantly reduces production costs.

Bring on the next generation of power production, and when it's stable and capable, turn off the old mud burners and pack them up.

Until that time - we need them.

A few observations from a non engineer

The most underappreciated component in multi mode systems is switching and control, now try and get money from an accountant for this back room stuff, a wind farm will be front page news.

Doubt if batteries will be a major part of the grid, energy storage yes, for example Victoria has been pumping hydro water back up the hill for peak use since the 70s

The next big thing will probably be smart meters and power points to smooth the supply demand equation

A question, do the massive coal based turbines act like a capacitor, smoothing voltage and cycle. ?

Originally Posted by AndyG

A question, do the massive coal based turbines act like a capacitor, smoothing voltage and cycle. ?

Good attempt at an analogy but not quite right. A capacitor stores excess and gives it up when needed.
A large thermal turbine driving a large generating machine sets the pace.
Think pace car, beat of a drum on a slave ship. that sort of thing.

Once you get all these machines in sync, everything else just locks into that immovable cycle and becomes a system. It takes a huge event for that system to fall over which explains how the Victorian grid didn't collapse from the events in SA.

This is an excerpt from an email getting around work:

The real drama plays out in a 90 second window between 4:16:46pm and 4:18:16pm.
The weather triggers a series of transmission faults and three major 275 kilovolt lines are lost. Then, in two separate events, 315 MW of wind generation is disconnected. This unexplained, rapid loss of wind power is the event that begins the cascade towards blackout.
"In the events leading up to the SA region black system, generation reduction occurred at six wind farms," the report says. "There was no reduction in thermal generation."
Why it happened is still a mystery.
"Additional analysis is required to determine the reasons for the reduction in generation and observed voltage levels before any conclusions can be drawn," the report says.
Demand then shifts dramatically to the line with Victoria. Just before the wind generation failed the Heywood interconnector's flow was about 525 MW, well within its normal operating limit of up to 600MW.
The reduction in generation and the oscillations caused by the transmission network events drove demand to "flows between 850 to 900 MW" well in excess of its capacity. So it shut itself down.
Now the "non-credible" had become credible. At 4:18:15pm the door to Victoria slammed shut, draining 900MW of supply in a heartbeat. There was "a rapid reduction in the power system frequency" in South Australia and it "fell to zero". That tripped the two thermal power stations at Torrens Island and Ladbroke Grove and all remaining wind farms.
And the lights went out across the state.
It should be noted here that the report says that 14 of the 22 transmission towers that went down did so, "following the SA black system".
System had further flaws
In the eerie dark that followed the operator immediately began working through a pre-determined restoration plan. And that revealed more deficiencies in the system.
The operator has two contracts in South Australia for System Restart Ancillary Services (SRAS).Their identities are a secret for contractual reasons, so the report calls them SRAS 1 and SRAS 2.
Plan A was to use SRAS1 to jump start the thermal power station at Torrens Island and, at the same time, restore the interconnection with Victoria.
"This was seen as the quickest and safest way to restore supply to South Australia," it says.
In a footnote it adds, "wind farms cannot be used in the initial stages of a power system restoration due to the variable nature of their output".
Things didn't go well.
"Due to an issue currently under investigation, SRAS provider 1 was unable to supply sufficient capacity to restart any of the Torrens Island power station units," the report says.
SRAS 2 was out due to "damage caused by the storm".
Plan C was to hookup the interconnector with Victoria and use it to jump-start the state. By6:54pm Torrens Island was restarted but it needed another two hours before it could deliver any power.
At 6:36pm the operator was advised that the gas-fired turbines at Pelican Point could be ready in four hours. Here, it's worth noting that gas plants can't just spring into action ? they need time to warm up. Pelican Point had been off-line before the storm, bid out of the market by cheap, abundant wind.
SA power system 'extremely fragile'.
So what have we learned ?
That weather sparked a series of events that spiraled into a state-wide blackout. That it was the sudden loss of wind power that tripped the interconnector with Victoria and that loss of generation is yet to be explained.
It is also undeniable that South Australia now has an extremely fragile power system. It cannot operate with any confidence if the interconnector with Victoria is down and if the state blacks out it can't be restarted with wind power.
Politicians have said a lot of things in the wake of this outage. But judge them by what they do. South Australia is already calling for rule changes in the national electricity market because it recognises its reliance on wind and rooftop solar has made the state's system less secure. This won't be the last fix that South Australia will need to patch up the problems.
Finally, we know that the energy market is in transition to cleaner forms of power and that is unstoppable. In time the engineering difficulties posed by wind will be overcome. Or they will be as long as people aren't burned as heretics for daring to point out the real and well documented problems with integrating new forms of energy into an old grid. And, if those who claim to be friends of renewables continue to respond to any criticism with hysterics, then they will be responsible for ensuring the budding renewable industry suffers irreparable reputational damage.

https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre...07664B270.ashx

Originally Posted by rovercare

You have no technical understanding on this topic do you? Just slogans, hang terms and coloured font

I have not seen anyone argue that coal must stay forever at all, I've seen a lot of pragmatic view points on why it needs to stay in the immediate future though, yet I've seen nothing viable as a replacement offered by those wishing to simply, stop coal fired stations

Are you telling me or asking me?

The answer may surprise you , but you will never find out with that approach.

I still say, get out of the old road if you can't lend a hand , the times they are a'changing.

there are none so blind as those that won't see......

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Are you telling me or asking me?

The answer may surprise you , but you will never find out with that approach.

I still say, get out of the old road if you can't lend a hand , the times they are a'changing.

Telling

I personally sell renewable energy, I'm just simply not forming opinions on emotion, I prefer logic