As an example, Gladstone power station has 6 machines each rated at 280MW. Biggest single wind turbine I could find is 8MW but let's call an "average" size of 5MW. 280MW / 5MW = 56 x 5MW wind turbines working at nameplate for every machine at Gladstone power station working at nameplate ................................. how did you come up with 12,000 Boofta? By no means am I saying wind turbines are the silver bullet for Australia's energy needs but we need to at least stick with reality

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Adriano said..
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.

Lol this is utter utter rubbish. You have swallowed the renewables rent seekers con job hook line and sinker.

Centralized large scale generation whether it's coal nukes wind solar or hydro is all significantly more efficient than decentralized small scale. Far more than tranmission losses.

Apart from the technological efficiency edge there is the geographical dispersion of demand advantages particularly in a network as large as the eastern and southern Australia grid eg the QLD coal fired generation saving the Vics many times this summer due to mild conditions there allowing export south on extreme days. The reverse happens as the heatwave rolls north.

This is always ignored by the rent seekers but without it you would need generation plus storage matched to peak demand locally which is unused 95% of the time and thus tremendously inefficient.

As harrow alludes to you need to consider the impact both cost and environmental of all this excess construction that would only be necessary 5% of the time. Utter waste.

Please Adriano educate yourself on this stuff and stop just sprouting the cult mantras. It's not helpful at all. It's part of the problem.

im happy with de-centralised solar system I have.

I used to pay $600 per 2 months for my power bill , now I pay $185 for 2 months after I installed a 6kw solar system.

It cost $3,600 to install the solar. So it should pay for itself in less than 2 years, based on the savings compared to connecting to the grid. It doesn't seem like a battery will save me a lot, but possibly?

So how is it the centralised system so efficient compared to the above system, or is someone on the take?

I agree we still need the base load to be maintained, and there are power stations currently for this and should be kept operating, but future expansions are probably not required for a long time. The future solution will be multiple types of power generation systems, a grid and including larger scale coal, hydro, wind, solar, wave etc for base loads.

De-centralised micro grids are already here, and in your backyard Bara

westernpower.com.au/energy-solutions/projects-and-trials/kalbarri-microgrid/

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Poida said..
im happy with de-centralised solar system I have.

I used to pay $600 per 2 months for my power bill , now I pay $185 for 2 months after I installed a 6kw solar system.

It cost $3,600 to install the solar. So it should pay for itself in less than 2 years, based on the savings compared to connecting to the grid. It doesn't seem like a battery will save me a lot, but possibly?

So how is it the centralised system so efficient compared to the above system, or is someone on the take?

I agree we still need the base load to be maintained, and there are power stations currently for this and should be kept operating, but future expansions are probably not required for a long time. The future solution will be multiple types of power generation systems, a grid and including larger scale coal, hydro, wind, solar, wave etc for base loads.

But you don't actually have a decentralized system. Your connected to the grid which uses centralized generation and transmission. Your only decentralized if your on a non connected micro grid or go off grid individually via battery etc.

The numbers don't stack up for this now or any time soon even with all the subsidies you already receive for your solar that makes your payoff look so attractive to you.

There are plenty of other costs to your solar system that you are being subsidised for by tax payers and other grid users. Things like the renewable energy subsidy- add another year to the pay off. The subsidised use of the grid for when solar doesn't cover you- add another 1 to 2 years to the pay off depending on what state your in. It's just that your not paying for it directly on you Bill but via taxes. That plus other energy users are paying more for the grid that you use effectively as a back up battery on the cheap. Even if you were to pay the full cost of this it would still be around 5 times cheaper than going off grid with your own battery though.

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paulyNOR said..
De-centralised micro grids are already here, and in your backyard Bara

westernpower.com.au/energy-solutions/projects-and-trials/kalbarri-microgrid/

No this is connected to the Wa grid. Yes it's a part solution to the specific problems of kalbarri and the remoteness makes it more effective than most but I wonder who's paying for it? I would suspect Perth energy users and tax payers. Nice if you can get it!

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Mr Milk said..
Just listening to the Liberal Energy Minister in SA singing the praise to a new renewables storage project going in at Strathalbyn. Instead of pumped hydro, they are using compressed air.
This is the project

https://gridchangeagent.com/hydrostor-to-convert-old-mine-site-in-australia-into-caes-plant/

from the ceo ""Our competition is pumped hydro, natural gas power plants and transmission lines."

gee all of which are more efficient and way cheaper to build (unless you get a government boxed into a highly politicised corner desperate to fix a mess of its own creation by throwing more taxpayer money at you)

too funny

Bara...it's much cheaper for me if I don't pay the subsidies that educate your children. You seem to be rusted on to the idea that cheapest is best. So what kind of car do you drive?

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Mr Milk said..
Bara...it's much cheaper for me if I don't pay the subsidies that educate your children. You seem to be rusted on to the idea that cheapest is best. So what kind of car do you drive?

most efficient is always best if you are resource constrained with competing priorities like all economies are ours included. we are wasting some serious resources on inefficient and ineffective ways to tackle climate change when we could have made a real difference.

or put another way if we had gotten more bang for our buck we would have more resources to spend on education which i guess is your point?

not sure what my car has to do with it but a ranger....... how about you ?

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Poida said..
im happy with de-centralised solar system I have.

I used to pay $600 per 2 months for my power bill , now I pay $185 for 2 months after I installed a 6kw solar system.

It cost $3,600 to install the solar. So it should pay for itself in less than 2 years, based on the savings compared to connecting to the grid. It doesn't seem like a battery will save me a lot, but possibly?

So how is it the centralised system so efficient compared to the above system, or is someone on the take?

I agree we still need the base load to be maintained, and there are power stations currently for this and should be kept operating, but future expansions are probably not required for a long time. The future solution will be multiple types of power generation systems, a grid and including larger scale coal, hydro, wind, solar, wave etc for base loads.

Are these numbers for domestic or commercial ?

My last bill was $174 for 90 days...3 people house...no solar...no a/c (very rarely used)..no microwave....no netflix

oh..and my guitar playing is mostly unplugged

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dmitri said..

Poida said..
im happy with de-centralised solar system I have.

I used to pay $600 per 2 months for my power bill , now I pay $185 for 2 months after I installed a 6kw solar system.

It cost $3,600 to install the solar. So it should pay for itself in less than 2 years, based on the savings compared to connecting to the grid. It doesn't seem like a battery will save me a lot, but possibly?

So how is it the centralised system so efficient compared to the above system, or is someone on the take?

I agree we still need the base load to be maintained, and there are power stations currently for this and should be kept operating, but future expansions are probably not required for a long time. The future solution will be multiple types of power generation systems, a grid and including larger scale coal, hydro, wind, solar, wave etc for base loads.

Are these numbers for domestic or commercial ?

My last bill was $174 for 90 days...3 people house...no solar...no a/c (very rarely used)..no microwave....no netflix

oh..and my guitar playing is mostly unplugged

they are for a domestic house, 3-4 people plus an office running three or four computers
2 aircons
3 fridges
microwave
1 television
gas hot water and stove
acoustic guitar most of the time,

I swapped to a smart meter at the time of installing the solar and was wondering on the old meter.

no Netflix, r u reading books and seeking quiet reflection ?

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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 is not the future for batteries with its finite (shortish) life and only being able to use 70% of stored energy. Plus disposal issues and cost.
Flow battery technology is making advances for both domestic (eg. Zinc bromide 10kw) or vanadium flow for larger applications.

Plus a flow battery can fully discharge multiple times, up to 4,000, without performance loss (claim by producers ;) then another lot with reduced performance.
The liquid can be replaced as necessary.

But as stated, why go the battery route when you can use the grid as your virtual battery.

A decentralised generation/storage system doesn't mean seperated from the network, it means that your generation/storage is spread out around the network. I've got a fairly open mind to new concepts and agree that education is a big factor in making the world a better place for so many different things, but what other initiatives would be better to spend money on, as opposed to subsidising newer/cleaner electricity generation technology? I still believe that the reason that electricity prices have risen is because we (the Australian community) are now incorporating all the emissions/environmental costs associated with production, however I agree that it will put us at a competitive disadvantage if other nations do not incorporate those costs.

Out of curiousity Bara, did you get into your role/industry with a finance background or an engineering background?

I love the idea of pumped hydro as a battery!!! But no as you know it, one tank at the top , one at the bottom and place it into a high rise. Yes there is a 2 to 1 energy loss but you use excess energy to pump up the water and use it when needed. It would also stabilise the grid.
I tend to think of coal power like the last horse carriage maker arguing against cars . If coals not killed then the planet dies

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kato said..
I love the idea of pumped hydro as a battery!!! But no as you know it, one tank at the top , one at the bottom and place it into a high rise. Yes there is a 2 to 1 energy loss but you use excess energy to pump up the water and use it when needed. It would also stabilise the grid.
I tend to think of coal power like the last horse carriage maker arguing against cars . If coals not killed then the planet dies

How much does a flat cost in a high rise? And you want to reinforce the floor and supporting structure and fill it with water?

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Paddles B'mere said..
As an example, Gladstone power station has 6 machines each rated at 280MW. Biggest single wind turbine I could find is 8MW but let's call an "average" size of 5MW. 280MW / 5MW = 56 x 5MW wind turbines working at nameplate for every machine at Gladstone power station working at nameplate ................................. how did you come up with 12,000 Boofta? By no means am I saying wind turbines are the silver bullet for Australia's energy needs but we need to at least stick with reality

Wind turbines start operating at wind speeds of 4 to 5 metres per second and reach maximum power output at around 15 metres/second. At very high wind speeds, that is gale force winds of 25 metres/second, wind turbines shut down. A modern wind turbine produces electricity 70-85% of the time, but it generates different outputs depending on the wind speed.Over the course of a year, it will typically generate about 24% of the theoretical maximum output (41% offshore). This is known as its capacity factor. The capacity factor of conventional power stations is on average 50%-80%. Because of stoppages for maintenance or breakdowns, no power plant generates power for 100% of the time.

So reality is 24% of a wind turbines potential power is available with an onshore turbine.
In other words about 76% of a wind turbines rated output is never achieved.
Okay now more reality, Gladstone station generates 1,680 MW say 80% is 1,344MW
Average wind turbine produces 24% of 2 MW = .48MW
So about 2,800 average wind turbines to cover Gladstone when the winds
blowing between 4-25 metres per second. Average cost of building a commercial 2MW turbine is $4m installed.
So the cost of producing 1,344MW with wind turbines to replace Gladstone is $11.2 Billion
The 6 generators at Gladstone cost less than $279 million.
The cost of renewables is currently thousands of times more expensive than coal fired power.
Plus, the cost of disposing of these wind turbines at end of life is still unknown.
You asked for reality, how much coal can you buy for $11 billion dollars, that's the difference
between the 2 sources of power. Renewables are an idyllic dream of unrealistic believers in climate change.
I wish it were true but it simply isn't, maybe a few hundred thousand solar panels somewhere, but Heh
they cost a lot per MW too.

Yep, so you still want to cook the planet. WHAT IF YOUR WRONG. WHAT IF IM WRONG ?

Boofta, again your numbers don't stack up. A quick google search indicates that current budget estimates for a new coal fired station can cost $3500/kW of generating capacity (totally unverified information but I don't see any reason to dispute it considering even government are balking at the cost of new coal fired power). So using that number, to replicate Gladstone power station at 1680MW it will cost a around $5.8b and you're saying $280m? We've gotta compare apples for apples here mate. I accept that wind might be double the price of coal in terms of energy recovered (not power), I also understand that there are many other forms of alternative energy out there and that no single one of them is the "silver bullet" right now. I also understand that either energy storage or low loss worldwide energy transmission is the holy grail for current alternative energy technology. But to call it quits on moving forwards with alternative energy research and manufacturing simply because coal is cheaper right now is caveman talk. We've gotta start thinking about moving away from coal over the next few decades, the financiers are already doing it, so when the big money men are getting suss there's gotta be something to it (it could simply be them reacting to public sentiment however) you can't keep flogging the dead horse forever Boofta, and it will cost money to buy a new horse.

So the plan won't be to just shut down all coal stations, it'll be more to shut them down as they become financially unviable over the coming decades I reckon. The financiers of the power generation companies will possibly get to where they will only fund newer technology generation and won't help out with refurbs of old technology because they'll be suss on not getting their money back.

To be financially viable, a coal power station needs to run close to full output a lot of the time, which is exactly what they did in the past. It is very unlikely a new coal power station would ever be financially viable in the future in Australia because there is so much renewable generation being built that the coal power stations will be running less and less. When there is wind or sun, the coal will be outbid by the renewable with zero fuel cost. So, we'll simply see them gradually retire as they age and reach the point where major refurbishment is uneconomic.

If new coal was ever built, whether it was for political coal party reasons or because of a genuine need to fill in the gaps for the renewables, it would need to be government backed because of the poor commercial return they will get.

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Paddles B'mere said..
Boofta, again your numbers don't stack up. A quick google search indicates that current budget estimates for a new coal fired station can cost $3500/kW of generating capacity (totally unverified information but I don't see any reason to dispute it considering even government are balking at the cost of new coal fired power). So using that number, to replicate Gladstone power station at 1680MW it will cost a around $5.8b and you're saying $280m? We've gotta compare apples for apples here mate. I accept that wind might be double the price of coal in terms of energy recovered (not power), I also understand that there are many other forms of alternative energy out there and that no single one of them is the "silver bullet" right now. I also understand that either energy storage or low loss worldwide energy transmission is the holy grail for current alternative energy technology. But to call it quits on moving forwards with alternative energy research and manufacturing simply because coal is cheaper right now is caveman talk. We've gotta start thinking about moving away from coal over the next few decades, the financiers are already doing it, so when the big money men are getting suss there's gotta be something to it (it could simply be them reacting to public sentiment however) you can't keep flogging the dead horse forever Boofta, and it will cost money to buy a new horse.

So the plan won't be to just shut down all coal stations, it'll be more to shut them down as they become financially unviable over the coming decades I reckon. The financiers of the power generation companies will possibly get to where they will only fund newer technology generation and won't help out with refurbs of old technology because they'll be suss on not getting their money back.

Gladstone cost less than $300 million to build Google it.
No mate, the plan is to shut down and stop maintaining power stations, it's happening in VIC and SA
I have no quarrel with using anything that's, better, cleaner, not ridiculously costly, more sustainable, whatever.
But none of the intermittent power sources will replace fuelled generation in the next 100 YEARS.
Seriously, the biggest battery in Australia/World lasted less than 10 minutes a couple of weeks ago.
Yeh yeh bla bla it's only to smooth out fluctuations etc etc
Reality , it cost $90 million for 10 minutes (actually lasted 8 minutes) backup
That's $9 million per minute
A big battery for 24 hours supply would cost $12,960,000,000 that's $12.69 billion
And how many months of charging would the big battery need to recover.
Before we destroy civilization with religious dreams of cheap, clean power we need to think realistically.

Boofta, you seem make up the numbers and then use them to create "facts". I'm not even bothering looking it up on Google because we simply cannot use a 50 year old capital expense value to reflect the cost of current day infrastructure without allowing for discount rates and other factors like depreciation and impairment. The reality is that the actual accounting value of an older, existing coal fired station may in fact be quite low, but the cost of refurbishment and maintenance is quite high and the return on investment therefore quite shakey. This might make the financing difficult, and if we consider the number one rule of finance is that risk must be rewarded, then the finance terms are possibly non-workable, making the entire endeavour non-viable.

The plan is definitely to shut down power stations as they become financially non-viable, I have clearly stated that earlier. And sure, big coal fired stations cannot be replaced entirely in the near future, but as technology gets better/cheaper in the coming decades, and the existing stations become expensive to maintain, then they'll be mothballed. From your "yea yea bla bla" I take it you don't understand the engineering concept behind the mega-battery from what has been described earlier and so therefore you're hardly in a position to have an informed opinion on it, from my understanding these big batteries can actually make coal fired power stations work more efficiently because you don't have to have so much reserve spinning away to cover frequency drop (which makes them more viable and therefore able to provide cheaper power), I just can't put it any simpler than that.

The decision to shut down power stations is purely a business decision (albeit being based on the political climate of the day), but it's just about money. If a power company board decides to spend money fixing up an existing coal fired white elephant and the returns go bad for the investor, instead of just biting the bullet and investing in newer technology then they may actually be not acting in the best interests of the shareholders and be breaking the law. Have you considered that angle?

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boofta said..Gladstone cost less than $300 million to build Google it.

You need a few BILLION aussie dollars to build a coal power station now. Google told me Gladstone was 508 USD, in 1976. That would be $3.7 billion aussie today. Even your $300 million would be $1.5 billion today, but that figure is too low.

When you start getting regular tube leaks, the unscheduled outages kill you, and full boiler replacement is expensive. No-one's gonna do that in an old fossil burner now.

The empirical evidence speaks for itself... hard-nosed business people are voting with their feet, and closing down, even when the government begs them not to (eg. Liddell power station in NSW).

Liddel was the classic example Harrow, even Malcolm Turnbull was playing the political card and weighed in saying they shouldn't close it and he was a banker in a former life, he should know better. He was basically advocating that the board should make decisions for his political gain and potentially not act in the best interests of shareholders.

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Poida said..
im happy with de-centralised solar system I have.

I used to pay $600 per 2 months for my power bill , now I pay $185 for 2 months after I installed a 6kw solar system.

It cost $3,600 to install the solar. So it should pay for itself in less than 2 years, based on the savings compared to connecting to the grid. It doesn't seem like a battery will save me a lot, but possibly?

So how is it the centralised system so efficient compared to the above system, or is someone on the take?

I agree we still need the base load to be maintained, and there are power stations currently for this and should be kept operating, but future expansions are probably not required for a long time. The future solution will be multiple types of power generation systems, a grid and including larger scale coal, hydro, wind, solar, wave etc for base loads.

I bought a 2KW system in 2011 for 5K. I know it's only 2 data points... but that's a fairly impressive drop in price. On a per KW price that's a 76% drop. YoY that's around 19.5% pa decrease in price. Based on my first few bills after installation, I think my system paid for itself in around 6-8 years. Payoff in under 2 years means anyone who can afford solar should be installing it now - it's a simple household economic decision. I believe that houses with poor access to sun will be devalued from now onwards compared to their neighbours (as will poor saps with "FTTN" NBN, but that's another story).

I think batteries are still a "luxury item" for the average folk. But, given 20-25% YoY drop in price (which is expected by many analysts), they will probably be a simple economic choice for even the average consumer in 5 years or so. Solar systems alone do not allow you to retain power in a local blackout... batteries + solar do. Some folk may value that enough today to install them today if they live in an area susceptible to outages every storm.

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Harrow said..
To be financially viable, a coal power station needs to run close to full output a lot of the time, which is exactly what they did in the past. It is very unlikely a new coal power station would ever be financially viable in the future in Australia because there is so much renewable generation being built that the coal power stations will be running less and less. When there is wind or sun, the coal will be outbid by the renewable with zero fuel cost. So, we'll simply see them gradually retire as they age and reach the point where major refurbishment is uneconomic.

If new coal was ever built, whether it was for political coal party reasons or because of a genuine need to fill in the gaps for the renewables, it would need to be government backed because of the poor commercial return they will get.

Harrow, is there any technology with coal power that would let them become on-demand? Can they have coal powered systems that could ramp up or down that would still be efficient?

What is it that makes them need to run at a particular output?

Inertia is the enemy FN, changing the rotational speed of many tonnes of steel takes heaps of energy and doesn't happen quickly. Changing the speed of smaller machines is much easier (less inertia to overcome) but the smaller machines can't handle the big step loads without help because their smaller inertia cannot overcome the step loads. That's where the losses are; keeping enough energy on tap to be able to quickly change rotational speed in order to chase the change in frequency caused by fluctuating load demand slowing down or speeding up the machine. The technology that I'm aware of has always been a complex generator/boiler/system control system that monitors network frequency and many other inputs and cranks up the boiler the moment it thinks that frequency is falling. The big consideration is the time delay from knowing you need more power to being able to actually output the power. Over to you on the current/new technology Harrow.

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Paddles B'mere said..
Inertia is the enemy FN, changing the rotational speed of many tonnes of steel takes heaps of energy and doesn't happen quickly. Changing the speed of smaller machines is much easier (less inertia to overcome) but the smaller machines can't handle the big step loads without help because their smaller inertia cannot overcome the step loads. That's where the losses are; keeping enough energy on tap to be able to quickly change rotational speed in order to chase the change in frequency caused by fluctuating load demand slowing down or speeding up the machine. The technology that I'm aware of has always been a complex generator/boiler/system control system that monitors network frequency and many other inputs and cranks up the boiler the moment it thinks that frequency is falling. The big consideration is the time delay from knowing you need more power to being able to actually output the power. Over to you on the current/new technology Harrow.

Could a bunch of smaller coal powered units be able to ramp up and down faster, with something like a battery to smooth things out?

What about a huge weight that rotates in order to provide that same inertia in the power supply?

With inverter technology seemingly come of age, can the speed of power plants be decoupled from the frequency requirements of the grid?

Is it needed anyway if the engineering is done to allow smaller units to ramp up or down as required?

It sounds like its an engineering problem, so I am surprised that no one seems to have solved it yet.

FN, it's not the ability or inability to be able to ramp up and down quickly that is killing the coal, it is the fact that they need to run at high output for most of the day to get enough return on the capital investment. Once enough renewables are built, coal will get pushed off the bid stack most days, and they'll only run at night when there is no wind. That's just not enough sales to make a profit, and it's why people are building gas turbines. The fuel is expensive, but much less capital, so it's worth it just to supply the peaking power when the price spikes.

FN, that's my take on the concept behind the big Tesla battery in SA. Their authorities have chosen to try heaps of small generators that will no doubt be running heavily loaded for maximum efficiency/viability and the battery is used to help "protect" them from large step loads.

FN the machine you are talking about is a flywheel, and yep these are sometimes used as a UPS for big installs as they can store large amounts of energy, I don't know where one would be installed locally however. In my former life I'd only ever heard of them being used in big data centres to maintain supply whilst emergency power could be brought up to frequency. Some engineering porn on flywheels is the flywheels used in motorsport for KERS, most notably Nissan's famous failure LMP1 car. These things are f@#king incredible, most notable is the force required to accelerate them in only seconds. In the Nissan, the carbon/steel flywheel accelerates at 19,000rpm per second up to 60,000rpm where the force on the outer edge is a ludicrous 47,000G's. It spins in a vacuum with the outer edge at a speed of mach 2, so it doesn't just vandalise itself.

www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/flywheel-hybrid-systems-kers/

Harrow, you've just woken me up to the real economic issue:
- all this new technology generation is more economically viable than coal when it can generate
- coal is still needed for the times that this stuff can't generate
- coal generators need to be fully loaded at all times to be economically competitive with the other technologies

Have I got it half right?

Mini-power sations by Energy Australia

www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/energyaustralia-to-turn-charities-into-mini-power-plants-20190211-p50x1u.html

As you can see this is an infrastructure issue.

The big guys recognise the power(?) of virtual energy storage for residential solar power generation and can not only accomodate that but utilise local power storage and re-use (sell) to their advantage.

And you can bet that local storage will not just be to suit the requirement of its immediate location.