Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by bee utey

FTFY.

You've forgotten the foreign owned energy shifters again...

so i the energy shifters were aust owned, they price would come down? i dont think so.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

AGL rejected Turnbull's pressure to extend Liddell for five years because it would have been more expensive than to invest for the future, so AGL has adopted a strategy which combines gas with renewables and a battery bank.
These are profit-making companies which are rejecting outdated politically inspired ideology and instead making rational cost-effective choices for the future.
You would think that would be supported by a government which claims to favour free enterprise, but is actually intervening to try to distort the free market for political ends.

Yep, exactly the point I was trying to make, and forgot it was AGL these days, Macquarie goes back to when I lived 80km away

Originally Posted by PhilipA

[LEFT][COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]I
There is a Chinese company willing to buy it it seems.
IMHO you can only say "Let the market decide" if there are no subsidies involved or penalties for retailers who do not buy the output of windmills or solar.
Regards Philip A

Yep, and that applies just as much to the fossil fuel brigade too.

Coal power subsidies? No thanks - just policy, please | afr.com

Originally Posted by Eevo

so i the energy shifters were aust owned, they price would come down? i dont think so.

They might if they were state owned. Queensland recently told their power company to stop ripping off their customers.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Just as a counterpoint I give a reference from WUWT about the recent extreme storm in the USA NE>
The only thing preventing blackouts and probably many freezing to death was the ramping up of coal, oil, and gas plants.

DOE: If it weren’t for coal-fired electricity plants, the Northeast would have blacked-out during recent bomb-cyclone | Watts Up With That?

Another example of fossil fuels saving the day is that during the recent extreme winter in UK , they had to import 2 shiploads of CNG from Russia to keep the gas for heating flowing. Very lucky those ships were available .

So what happens in OZ when we have a similar storm to the SA one , if all the fossil plants are gone?

Regards Philip A

None of the countries mentioned have completed the transition to 100% renewable energy sources so it's a rhetorical question. But, just to humour you: Australia has vast areas of sunny flat country that can be covered in solar and wind farms (and still run a few sheep). Once their output exceeds the grid's daily average use, some of that energy can be converted to valuable chemical products. Recently SA announced its first major hydrogen electrolyser to be installed in the north of the state. The hydrogen can currently be used in a number of ways, including storage at a percentage of the natural gas in the existing pipeline system. It can be exported to other countries using modified LNG equipment. Hydrogen can be converted into ammonia or methanol by simple processes to make it easier to transport. There are no technological barriers to storing a large amount of chemical energy, just financial ones. If the world demands sustainably sourced fuels, Australia is an excellent country to supply them. And as you know from fossil fuel export facilities, the bigger the facility the lower the cost of the exported product. Dinky little start ups are just for testing, the big stuff will come in time.

Neoen’s 50 MW hydrogen electrolyser at proposed wind and solar facility in SA receives grant – pv magazine Australia

Originally Posted by bee utey

They might if they were state owned. Queensland recently told their power company to stop ripping off their customers.

that's nice but i dont live in qld.

the

Queensland was smart enough not to sell off it's electricity industry for cash grabs at the expense of consumers, which means the Qld govt still pockets nice annual profit dividends from the state owned distributors, meaning it can just tell the companies not to gouge the consumers quite as much, unlike those states which naively put cash ahead of public benefit.

BTW power distribution prices are set on the spot market so they change every minute. This is supposed to be good for consumers, but is it?

Originally Posted by Eevo

that's nice but i dont live in qld.

the

But most of us smart people do