Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

ah well , you croweaters will soon be the proud owners of a gaggle of "aero" generators.

theyre just small portable turbine generators whose turbines are derived from leftover aviation industry engines...good recycling.

good money spinner for someone.

I installed similar but larger 100mw (I think) units out in the SE Qld Gasfields in 1996.

They were shipped here in large crates and installation took a few months for 4 units.

I just can't understand why SA govt isnt going at least this size......they still will be lucky to have these baby size units by christmas.

BTW, they can build units that size with diesel engines.

Gav.....speak up.

Todays story on Snowy 2.0 could be a game changer, 2,000 mw of peak load recyclable hydro will smooth peak demand, and suck up surplus power.

Just need a couple of state of art coal burners running at 100% 24*7 to do the heavy lifting whilst the transition continues.

New coal may not be perfect, but its way better than whats running in the Latrobe today.

This quote is taken from WUWT but seems to be a good analysis of the SA situation.
If the graphs don't come out go to WUWT

Guest essay by Paul Miskelly and Tom Quirk
With $90 billion spent on batteries and 4,000 MW of more wind farms, South Australia could be a totally renewable state, at least for electricity.
South Australia along with one or two other states has been described by Al Gore as the canary in the coal mine for climate change and renewable energy. This interesting comparison was rewarded by South Australia putting the canary in the dark as there was no coal. But it would be interesting to see what the electricity supply of South Australia might be like with zero CO₂ emissions as is the fond wish of many and even of learned societies.
There are many combinations of renewables that could be considered with wind, solar, biomass, pumped storage and various storage technologies. The following is the simplest, combining wind farms and batteries.
The starting point for this analysis is the dominance of wind power in South Australia. To expand this renewable source we must add battery storage as there are no present alternatives. The present 1575 MW of wind farms meets some 35% of demand and expanding this to give an average 100% of supply. We must store the surplus and use that when the wind falls away. The performance of the present demand and wind farms supply is sampled from AEMO data for 3 January to 31 March 2016.
So wind farm output is increased by 358% to 5644 MW, an additional 4069 MW of wind farms, so that the average over 3 months equals the average demand. This is presented in Figure 1 and shows periods of surplus and deficit of supply.

Figure 1: Variations of demand in South Australia for January to March 2016 and 358% increased wind farm supply. (Source AEMO)
The total surplus is equal to the total deficit and the detail is shown in Figure 2. There are periods for example 17 to 24 January 2016 where the average deficit is 750 MW for 168 hours, a total of 125,000 MWh. This is a measure of the energy storage that is needed from the surplus energy of the period 13 to 17 January. For the year 2016 the demand in South Australia was 14,400 GWh so the storage need is of the order of 1% of the demand for the year.

Figure 2: Variations of surplus and deficit from wind farm supply compared to demand for January to March 2016
The variations in storage needs are shown in Figure 3. The maximum storage need is defined as the value necessary to satisfy demand at all times. This is a value of 270 GWh (270,000 MWh) for the period analysed. This is 2% of the annual demand for electricity in South Australia.

Figure 3: Storage of surplus wind farm energy to match demand
The challenge is to identify storage technology for some 300 GWh of supply. The base case is to calculate the amount and cost of lead acid batteries to satisfy this need.
A very thorough summary of storage technologies is to be found in Sustainable Energy[1]. Figure 4 is a summary of the storage technology power and energy density capabilities. The range of batteries extends from lead acid to lithium-ion and beyond. For this analysis the energy densities are the mid range values for lead acid and lithium-ion.
On the bottom far right of the figure, the hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) show energy densities of a factor of ten greater than the batteries considered here.

Figure 4: Scatter plot of power and energy density for storage technologies from page 400 of reference 1.
So for the lead acid batteries adopting a value of 40 Wh/kg for 300 GWh of storage requires 7,500,000 tonnes of lead acid batteries. For higher energy density lithium-ion batteries have an energy density of 140 Wh/kg so only 2,100,000 tonnes would be needed.
But this could be realized at what cost? Estimates of lead acid battery costs are around $0.20 per Wh while lithium-ion batteries vary from $0.50 to $0.90 per Wh. The Power Wall 2 lithium-ion battery from Tesla[2] is A$8,000 for 14 kWh but this is a retail price of $0.57 per Wh. The wholesale bulk price could be as low as $0.30 per Wh with better performance than the lead acid battery in discharge rate and lifetime.
Willem Post has a detailed article on energy storage in Germany[3]. His base case is lead acid batteries with massive, bulkenergy storage. The cost per Wh is $0.32.
So the battery storage is some $60 to $90 billion to store the surplus energy from 4,000 MW of new wind farms with substantial running costs due to battery lifetime and erratic discharges.
This analysis outlines the storage required to address wind’s inherent intermittency. It does not address the requirements, presently unaddressed by wind energy technology, of grid stability and control, which is the need for the provision of synchronous inertia to protect grid stability. Should the battery route be chosen to address this requirement, such provision may indeed require more battery storage.
Of course South Australia could close all the gas fueled power stations and build massive interconnectors to the other states and then blame them for CO2 emissions. Perhaps that is why the South Australian government talks of nationalizing the power stations/

---

[1] Sustainable Energy, Second Edition 2012 by J W Tester, E M Drake, M J Driscoll, M W Golay and W A Peters MIT Press
[2] https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/powerwall
[3] http://www.theenergycollective.com/w...age-in-germany
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Originally Posted by AndyG

Todays story on Snowy 2.0 could be a game changer, 2,000 mw of peak load recyclable hydro will smooth peak demand, and suck up surplus power.

Just need a couple of state of art coal burners running at 100% 24*7 to do the heavy lifting whilst the transition continues.

New coal may not be perfect, but its way better than whats running in the Latrobe today.

If and when it's finished it will be a useful asset for managing all the extra wind and solar farms that will have been built by then. The Snowy pumped hydro plan builders will hope that they haven't been pushed out of business by the continuing precipitous fall in battery prices. Oh any they will hope that there's not another massive drought by then either.

That is an interesting analysis of what it could cost to run SA solely on wind farms and batteries, thanks.
As the author says, it doesn't address the current situation where the batteries are only for peak demand and the new gas station will stabilize the network, which is a much more affordable $500m solution.
Turnbull's Snowy proposal is also interesting, but it won't happen fast enough to fix SA's situation. The study will take a year and then up to seven years to construct. Still a good idea in theory though. At least it represents some useful involvement from the federal government, for a change. It might eventually save Victoria and NSW from running out of power.
The Snowy scheme is excellent. We saw an interesting hydro scheme in Myanmar which supplies Yangon. They reuse the same water three times to power three sets of generators at varying levels in a rapidly-descending valley. Very impressive.
I think they also need to get serious about rewarding people who put solar power from their premises back into the grid, as that could do a lot to support the network. At present the payment has been cut so low because of lobbying by the power companies that it's not worth doing and that is one of the reasons people are moving to instead install batteries and meet their own needs first.

Damn you Sir for introducing facts into the conversation, I prefer to rely on the potential of Unicorn farts and fairy dust

Originally Posted by PhilipA

This quote is taken from WUWT but seems to be a good analysis of the SA situation.
If the graphs don't come out go to WUWT

Guest essay by Paul Miskelly and Tom Quirk
With $90 billion spent on batteries and 4,000 MW of more wind farms, South Australia could be a totally renewable state, at least for electricity.
South Australia along with one or two other states has been described by Al Gore as the canary in the coal mine for climate change and renewable energy. This interesting comparison was rewarded by South Australia putting the canary in the dark as there was no coal. But it would be interesting to see what the electricity supply of South Australia might be like with zero CO₂ emissions as is the fond wish of many and even of learned societies.
There are many combinations of renewables that could be considered with wind, solar, biomass, pumped storage and various storage technologies. The following is the simplest, combining wind farms and batteries.
The starting point for this analysis is the dominance of wind power in South Australia. To expand this renewable source we must add battery storage as there are no present alternatives. The present 1575 MW of wind farms meets some 35% of demand and expanding this to give an average 100% of supply. We must store the surplus and use that when the wind falls away. The performance of the present demand and wind farms supply is sampled from AEMO data for 3 January to 31 March 2016.
So wind farm output is increased by 358% to 5644 MW, an additional 4069 MW of wind farms, so that the average over 3 months equals the average demand. This is presented in Figure 1 and shows periods of surplus and deficit of supply.

Figure 1: Variations of demand in South Australia for January to March 2016 and 358% increased wind farm supply. (Source AEMO)
The total surplus is equal to the total deficit and the detail is shown in Figure 2. There are periods for example 17 to 24 January 2016 where the average deficit is 750 MW for 168 hours, a total of 125,000 MWh. This is a measure of the energy storage that is needed from the surplus energy of the period 13 to 17 January. For the year 2016 the demand in South Australia was 14,400 GWh so the storage need is of the order of 1% of the demand for the year.

Figure 2: Variations of surplus and deficit from wind farm supply compared to demand for January to March 2016
The variations in storage needs are shown in Figure 3. The maximum storage need is defined as the value necessary to satisfy demand at all times. This is a value of 270 GWh (270,000 MWh) for the period analysed. This is 2% of the annual demand for electricity in South Australia.

Figure 3: Storage of surplus wind farm energy to match demand
The challenge is to identify storage technology for some 300 GWh of supply. The base case is to calculate the amount and cost of lead acid batteries to satisfy this need.
A very thorough summary of storage technologies is to be found in Sustainable Energy[1]. Figure 4 is a summary of the storage technology power and energy density capabilities. The range of batteries extends from lead acid to lithium-ion and beyond. For this analysis the energy densities are the mid range values for lead acid and lithium-ion.
On the bottom far right of the figure, the hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) show energy densities of a factor of ten greater than the batteries considered here.

Figure 4: Scatter plot of power and energy density for storage technologies from page 400 of reference 1.
So for the lead acid batteries adopting a value of 40 Wh/kg for 300 GWh of storage requires 7,500,000 tonnes of lead acid batteries. For higher energy density lithium-ion batteries have an energy density of 140 Wh/kg so only 2,100,000 tonnes would be needed.
But this could be realized at what cost? Estimates of lead acid battery costs are around $0.20 per Wh while lithium-ion batteries vary from $0.50 to $0.90 per Wh. The Power Wall 2 lithium-ion battery from Tesla[2] is A$8,000 for 14 kWh but this is a retail price of $0.57 per Wh. The wholesale bulk price could be as low as $0.30 per Wh with better performance than the lead acid battery in discharge rate and lifetime.
Willem Post has a detailed article on energy storage in Germany[3]. His base case is lead acid batteries with massive, bulkenergy storage. The cost per Wh is $0.32.
So the battery storage is some $60 to $90 billion to store the surplus energy from 4,000 MW of new wind farms with substantial running costs due to battery lifetime and erratic discharges.
This analysis outlines the storage required to address wind’s inherent intermittency. It does not address the requirements, presently unaddressed by wind energy technology, of grid stability and control, which is the need for the provision of synchronous inertia to protect grid stability. Should the battery route be chosen to address this requirement, such provision may indeed require more battery storage.
Of course South Australia could close all the gas fueled power stations and build massive interconnectors to the other states and then blame them for CO2 emissions. Perhaps that is why the South Australian government talks of nationalizing the power stations/

---

[1] Sustainable Energy, Second Edition 2012 by J W Tester, E M Drake, M J Driscoll, M W Golay and W A Peters MIT Press
[2] https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/powerwall
[3] http://www.theenergycollective.com/w...age-in-germany
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Only catch to Snowy Hydro is its downstream impacts.

Originally Posted by AndyG

Damn you Sir for introducing facts into the conversation, I prefer to rely on the potential of Unicorn farts and fairy dust

Lovely set of graphs etc spoiled entirely by the snivelling conclusion at the bottom of the page based on something pulled out of his arse.