Bara could probably correct us here Harrow, but is that the great trade-off in network design nationally? Balancing the cost of under-utilised and maybe duplicated (across different locations) generation capacity to maintain supply in peaks; against the cost of network infrastructure that goes with a more centralised and fully utilised generation capacity? ie if you saved money by making your generation capacity only meet regular demand; and you need to import electricity during peak times; then you need to spend money on the network infrastructure to do so. Be gentle, I'm only a normal electrical engineering type, not a network engineer, who is now trying to understand money instead

^^^ True, there is an optimal combination of building generation in different regions, and building transmission interconnection capability between regions, but regardless of what that correct balance is, if you want competition in power generation you will still need to build more generators than are required, or more transmission lines, or probably both.

Nah paddles I'm not gonna correct harrow- he's the network engineer I'm from the commercial ie money side of it. Basically im pro market and hes more centralized and regulated in outlook i would say. Both have their merits and costs.

Yes the cost of a market based price signal is some excess generation and transmission lieing idle to ensure effective competition but you get excess capacity in a centralised system too possibly a little less but often more. The efficiency that comes from market signals vs central planning far outweighs that cost however and while we could debate the theory on that the practical real world results we have are the initial reductions in costs to consumers when we first deregulated.

Of course a market signal is only as good as the design of the market and the endless tinkering particularly in the emmissions space has ended up being the facilitator to our current mess. Constant uncertainty on the next step from whoever is in power has exacerbated that like you wouldn't believe.

Where to from here?

Like I said we need to stop pretending there's a magic pudding giving us free emission reductions, have a frank discussion of the costs and the best benefit from that outlay. Our current path would not stack up to that kind of analysis and so a change of direction might happen if the politics could be taken out if it. Do I think that will happen though?

Of course not. Too much mileage and dollars to be made by exploiting the green cult. It's all about power of the political kind not the electrical kind rather than saving the planet imho.

Which is why I laugh cos if not you have to cry.

It's a shame we don't have a replica Australia to test both approaches for a couple of decades for comparison.

Market or no market, either way I wish we'd kept ownership onshore, then at least the money would stay here instead of being siphoned off overseas at negligible tax rates.

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Harrow said..

Mr Milk said..
How much more? I get 15c/kWh and pay about 26c/kWh. Why would I cut back my a/c on a hot day to export power?

Very true with your a/c, but it might get people to think about other things could be shifted to another part of the day. Pool pump would be the biggest culprit for power usage at critical times on a summer afternoon that could easily be moved.

There was an article about that very thing and effectively using them as a battery... well, not really a battery, but a load that can be switched as required to suit the generation capabilities.

I think this sort of thing will be more commonplace in the future, but what if everyone wants to use their pool pumps at the same time, or in reality their aircon?

Still, I can see a lot of appliances will start becoming intelligent enough to be operated remotely with some user-inputted criteria as well. Imagine if we have fridges that can smooth out minor bumps in energy supply...

If what you're talking about FN is for some motor driven equipment to be able to have it's power output reduced with instruction from an external source/control in times of high network demand then that could be easily achievable with current variable speed drive technology and web or gsm network communications. It's just a much more advanced version of the old Zellweger relay concept for hot water units and it's interesting that no power company is offering some sort of deal for this to consumers.

On a side issue regarding revenue raising by the power industry, Bara and Harrow, when do you see the industry starting to charge domestic consumers for imaginary power? When is domestic power factor correction going to be the new "solar panel" for the domestic consumer?

I install solar and a lot of off grid battery systems for people too far from the grid. Also install 80-100kw solar for bore pumps on farms. For these farming guys, the next cheapest thing for electricity beside solar is diesel generators. Some of the farms are on cheap tariffs that are soon to be fazed out. When this happens the cost of electricity from the grid is going to be above what it cost to generate their own. Something is really wrong. Maybe the government needs to put the price of diesel up so electricity prices look cheap.

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Paddles B'mere said..
If what you're talking about FN is for some motor driven equipment to be able to have it's power output reduced with instruction from an external source/control in times of high network demand then that could be easily achievable with current variable speed drive technology and web or gsm network communications. It's just a much more advanced version of the old Zellweger relay concept for hot water units and it's interesting that no power company is offering some sort of deal for this to consumers.

On a side issue regarding revenue raising by the power industry, Bara and Harrow, when do you see the industry starting to charge domestic consumers for imaginary power? When is domestic power factor correction going to be the new "solar panel" for the domestic consumer?

Yes, the internet of things should make a lot of this quite easy. Even more clever than just switching something on or off in that you can have something work out how much energy it needs over a certain amount of time and then draw that from the grid only when the grid thinks its best.

There was a link somewhere, possibly in this thread, that had some people in the US sign up to something where they do get a better deal for letting the energy generator switch the load on and off.

There is a fridge design where you can power it for a certain amount of time and it keeps things cool for a lot longer even when not powered. This sort of thing could easily run at the off peak time and not need any energy at all during the peak usage times. They were invented for areas where power was very sketchy, but I could see you could apply the same technology to regular use.

Again, I think the danger with this sort of thing is that sometimes everyone does want to use everything at the same time, so do you design for that or just shed loads?

Large commercial chiller systems have used this concept for years, you make ice when the power is available or cheap and then melt it when you don't want to use electricity.

"so do you design for that or just shed loads?" .................. think of it from the power company's point of view FN, they will simply balance customer complaints against spending money.

Crusoe, why can't these farmers simply use a diesel driven pump? Every time you make your energy change (ie fuel to rotation to electricity to rotation) you get losses.

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Ian K said..
The consumer price is buffered so of course when it gets a bit hot everyone cranks the AC to the max and we run out of power. What a stupid system! Supply and demand should be felt by the person with a finger on the switch.

www.accenture.com/us-en/blogs/blogs-european-utilities-demand-dynamic-pricing

Could you connect a solar panel to an AC unit? Ive often thought about it. How big or how many solar panels would make it work and would you need some type of storage? Or can they run straight off the panels?

We have an abundance of sun

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Paddles B'mere said..
Large commercial chiller systems have used this concept for years, you make ice when the power is available or cheap and then melt it when you don't want to use electricity.

"so do you design for that or just shed loads?" .................. think of it from the power company's point of view FN, they will simply balance customer complaints against spending money.

Crusoe, why can't these farmers simply use a diesel driven pump? Every time you make your energy change (ie fuel to rotation to electricity to rotation) you get losses.

The pumps are down a hole. They need to utilise the pump with a common energy source. If they had a diesel driven bore bump then they would need a seperate set up so they could utilise solar.

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DARTH said..

Ian K said..
The consumer price is buffered so of course when it gets a bit hot everyone cranks the AC to the max and we run out of power. What a stupid system! Supply and demand should be felt by the person with a finger on the switch.

www.accenture.com/us-en/blogs/blogs-european-utilities-demand-dynamic-pricing

Could you connect a solar panel to an AC unit? Ive often thought about it. How big or how many solar panels would make it work and would you need some type of storage? Or can they run straight off the panels?

We have an abundance of sun

You can buy air conditioners that have provision for connecting solar panels directly to them. Read this.

aussiesolarworld.com.au/solar-air-conditioner.html

Righto, the pump is a submersible and the diesel is to backup the solar, my plan won't work

The solar a/c is a cool concept, the solar provides dc to a storage system (batteries) and the compressor is driven by an inverter.

The key to a low carbon energy future is decentralisation and localising generation.

That's where renewables win every time. Renewables can generate power in a localised, fully scalable format - something coal, nuclear and hydro can't do and still remain cost competitive with renewables.

The market knows this and is dumping coal and avoiding nuclear. Only the government is brave enough (or desperate enough) to scale up hydro in an even more centralised format than Snowy 1.0.

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Adriano said..
The market knows this and is dumping coal and avoiding nuclear. Only the government is brave enough (or desperate enough) to scale up hydro in an even more centralised format than Snowy 1.0.

Curious to hear how you can have localised storage that is cheaper and more environmental than large scale pumped storage.

Hey Harrow, if we remove the environmental/construction costs associated with construction of both storage forms (batteries and panel production costs vs environmental costs associated with the footprint of a dam) then doesn't efficiency become a big factor? ie it's more efficient to store and then retrieve energy in thousands of household batteries than store and retrieve it from a pumped hydro system. I would have thought that distributed generation and storage would also place less strain on network infrastructure too. ie a large and centralised energy storage facility will need power station sized infrastructure, switchyards and protection systems.

I would believe that the move away from coal is more finance related than anything else. I keep going back to "would you invest in a video shop?". If clean energy keeps going the way it's going, and government legislation heads towards it too, then within the next few decades a financial investment in coal fired power generation will become a bad investment.

I'm thinking of all the batteries that would need to be built, and the chemicals, mining, and ultimate disposal after their limited life. I wonder if there is really enough lithium in the world to provide enough batteries for a 100% renewable energy future, taking into account the fact that they will need to be continually replaced over the longer term?

And what's the big deal about a dam? Why are naturally occurring lakes a wonderful thing, but man made ones so bad?

How is that possible that country like Australia suffer two disasters at same time. Catastrophic flooding and decades long drought.At the time as rain falls at Queensland all effort is to direct those precious water back to the sea.Obviously we could direct same water in opposite direction and flood some plains, create artificial lakes.Then move could convert cattle farmers into fish farmers without loosing of food production area. But plans like that require more then 2-3 years perspective taken by any government at the helm.Plans like Snowy 2.0 could be pay off and leave lasting legacy for hundreds of years. The problem is that Australian scenery is more affected by wildfires manages more or less instead of water management.It looks like Australia continent is still too small too find empty space that can be flooded to create artificial lakes.

Perhaps another nail for N Powerreneweconomy.com.au/taxpayers-should-not-fund-bill-gates-nuclear-albatross-20636/

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Harrow said..
I'm thinking of all the batteries that would need to be built, and the chemicals, mining, and ultimate disposal after their limited life. I wonder if there is really enough lithium in the world to provide enough batteries for a 100% renewable energy future, taking into account the fact that they will need to be continually replaced over the longer term?

And what's the big deal about a dam? Why are naturally occurring lakes a wonderful thing, but man made ones so bad?

Lithium will be recycled, and it's not the only battery available. I'm with you on larger batteries rather than household size for efficient maintenance. You might put a few hundred kWh battery every few suburban blocks or in the bottom of a block of flats.

The big deal about a dam is the environmental effects. Changing seasonal water flow affects habitats. But where there are already artificially created holes, say old mine sites for example, that water can be pumped between that objection carries little weight. The Kidston project is an instance of repurposing old mines.

www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/coordinator-general/assessments-and-approvals/coordinated-projects/completed-projects/kidston-pumped-storage-hydro-project.html

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Paddles B'mere said..
Hey Harrow, if we remove the environmental/construction costs associated with construction of both storage forms (batteries and panel production costs vs environmental costs associated with the footprint of a dam) then doesn't efficiency become a big factor? ie it's more efficient to store and then retrieve energy in thousands of household batteries than store and retrieve it from a pumped hydro system. I would have thought that distributed generation and storage would also place less strain on network infrastructure too. ie a large and centralised energy storage facility will need power station sized infrastructure, switchyards and protection systems.

I would believe that the move away from coal is more finance related than anything else. I keep going back to "would you invest in a video shop?". If clean energy keeps going the way it's going, and government legislation heads towards it too, then within the next few decades a financial investment in coal fired power generation will become a bad investment.

diesel generators may be a better investment

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kato said..
Perhaps another nail for N Powerreneweconomy.com.au/taxpayers-should-not-fund-bill-gates-nuclear-albatross-20636/

This same article show that the most popular Australian investment is in solar roof PV. The most expensive from all.

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Harrow said..

Adriano said..
The market knows this and is dumping coal and avoiding nuclear. Only the government is brave enough (or desperate enough) to scale up hydro in an even more centralised format than Snowy 1.0.

Curious to hear how you can have localised storage that is cheaper and more environmental than large scale pumped storage.

You don't...that's what wind and solar and future hydrogen are for....it's about reducing transmission costs and scaling projects to local needs.

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Macroscien said..

kato said..
Perhaps another nail for N Powerreneweconomy.com.au/taxpayers-should-not-fund-bill-gates-nuclear-albatross-20636/

This same article show that the most popular Australian investment is in solar roof PV. The most expensive from all.

Yep, but people are frustrated by gov inaction so they are doing it themselves

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Adriano said..You don't...that's what wind and solar and future hydrogen are for....it's about reducing transmission costs and scaling projects to local needs.

And the localised storage is cheaper than the transmission costs? I'd like to see the numbers for that.

Harrow, the beauty of localised storage in people's premises is that it will be purchased/installed (with government subsidy) by the consumer and will sit on the consumer's property at the consumer's risk. Maintenance and installation costs will all be borne by the consumer and not the power company

Just why should the government susidise domestic batteries? There is negligible public benefit from them. They still need to be backed up by just as much grid capacity because they all go flat together during cloudy weeks in winter.
Unless the price drops by a huge amount, they will never make sense economically. In my case, I get paid $0.15 kwh and pay $0.26. My supplier is effectively renting me battery capacity for $0.11 kwh. Say I use 9 kwh every evening (I only generate 8kwh on a sunny June day) then my virtual battery costs me $365/yr. What does a 10kwh battery cost to supply and install? $10K? And what is its life?10 years? Straight line depreciation is $1000/yr. I'd be better off buying $10K worth of power company shares and collecting the $500/yr dividend for a net gain of $135/yr instead.

"Just why should the government subsidise domestic batteries?" ............. to kickstart investment in the technology, just like they did with solar panels. Yes, theoretically if all batteries are discharged and the market suddenly demands a high load then there could be an issue, but in this rare case I'd imagine they'd just load shed again. I can't imagine this would happen very often though because usually high demand goes hand in hand with a hot sunny day.

Wind turbines
A good sized fossil generator needs about 12,000 wind turbines to replace it's output in all conditions.

They also don't produce electricity if the wind is blowing too slowly. If the wind speed decreases by half, power production decreases by a factor of eight. If winds too strong they shut down, if too little wind they produce nothing.

They are not cheaper to than normal generation, plus the cost of disposing of worn out turbines is still being calculated.

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Paddles B'mere said..
Harrow, the beauty of localised storage in people's premises is that it will be purchased/installed (with government subsidy) by the consumer and will sit on the consumer's property at the consumer's risk. Maintenance and installation costs will all be borne by the consumer and not the power company

'cause the consumer can be relied upon to ensure the required maintenance is carried out.