Working poor … something, something.
‘Renewables have ruined all of our lives.”
We were talking about this at work yesterday, the energy death cycle. The cheaper renewables become, the more people will install them, less people will rely on grid supply, energy supply costs go up to pay for the networks therefore making renewables even more attractive. And so it goes on and on until the poor people end up paying for the gold plated infrastructure ( assuming no government intervention). We are looking at virtual metering at work which will allow us to install renewables, thereby both lowering energy costs and providing energy security to our customers, with the aim of attracting customers. When storage becomes economically viable we can essentially run our own embedded network, effectively eliminating expensive network changes.
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I’ll only install solar when my nephew (who works for Schneider) tells me that batteries are a reasonable price. Probably a couple of years away.
On a private resident it is very much worth it now. I put a 6kW system up in August and am saving around $150 a month. Will pay back in 2 years. Is also compatible with a battery so when batteries become viable I can install one and am sitting pretty.
Significant issues inside this government.
Happy to sell land & natural resources to India and China. The government refuse to tax the sh*t out of them, in fact they refuse to tax them at all.
This government views its citizens as serfs whose role in life is only to pay taxes. All so big companies can get a free ride.
Can you keep a detailed record of your daily solar readings for 1 year and the electricity bills, peak and òff-peak power generated and the tarrifs. I would liketo compare them with my 1st year. It got too tiresome to continue after that.
Have to keep it going, the current political climate makes it impossible to find investors willing to take the risk investing in new plant.
Notice Angela Merkel has just abandoned the CO2 reduction targets but kept Germany in the Paris Accord. Donald Trump did the same and was attacked by every green on the planet, not so Merkel, unsure how that one works but hipocracy seems to be an extremely strong trait of the left.
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Merkel has reviewed these emission targets in order to form another coalition, so she can retain Government.
Politics wins over environment again. Doesn’t mean that it is the correct thing to do.
If Merkel is still around at the next election, younger Germans will make her pay for this.
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“not so Merkel, unsure how that one works but hipocracy seems to be an extremely strong trait of the left.”
Merkel is centre right. Distortion of reality is the dominant trait of rightists.
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From #CoalFail to Tesla, 5 facts you need to know about energy this summer
Mark Wakeham [email protected]
Hi xxx,
Welcome back! If you tuned out from Australia’s crazy energy politics over the summer break, here’s what you missed.
Coal has been failing, the Tesla battery has been proving its worth, rooftop solar is booming and energy efficiency is the unsung sidekick that really deserves more credit.
The biggest story has been the #CoalFail crisis. In the space of one December week last year, coal-burning power stations in Australia failed without warning, or ‘tripped’, four times:
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Millmerran coal power station (QLD), 420 MW unit, failed on 12 December 2017
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Mt Piper power station (NSW), 700 MW, failed on 13 December 2017
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Loy Yang A power station (VIC), 560 MW unit, failed on 14 December 2017
Eraring coal power station (NSW), 700 MW unit, failed on 18 December 2017 -
In Victoria, Loy Yang A coal power station failed six times in three weeks over summer,[1] and this Monday Yallourn power station also failed, dropping another 400 megawatts of power.
Why? As Peter Martin writes for The Age, it’s partly because our ageing coal clunkers can’t stand the heat, and climate change is making hotter temperatures more likely.[2]
With Melbourne heading for 31 degrees today, 38 on Thursday and 39 on Friday, the repeated failure of coal-burning power stations is a major concern. The energy market operator and several leading energy experts have publicly stated this is the biggest risk to the security of our electricity system this summer.[3]
And yet if a failing coal clunker does cause a blackout, some politicians and sections of the media will probably blame renewables because it suits their political narrative.
The biggest irony is that, so far, renewables have been rescuing coal from itself! During a heatwave last Saturday, wind, solar and hydro set a new record for energy in Victoria, supplying 41 percent of the state’s electricity generation.[4]
Meanwhile, the big new Tesla battery in South Australia has been responding lightning-fast when a major coal unit fails, helping to stabilise the grid.
We’re incredibly excited about the year ahead and the prospects for clean energy and action on climate change in 2018. With the Victorian election in November, we look forward to working with you on the biggest, boldest and most creative campaign in our 49-year history.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Wakeham
and the team at Environment Victoria
[1] http://www.smh.com.au/environment/worse-than-liddell-another-coalfired-power-plant-develops-conniptions-20180110-h0g9y4.html
[2] http://www.smh.com.au/comment/a-future-without-coalfired-power-stations-is-inevitable-20180110-h0g47v.html?btis
[3] For a list of quotes, download our media backgrounder: https://environmentvictoria.org.au/2018/01/11/media-background-8-facts-energy-summer/
[4] http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/renewable-energy-solar-and-wind-to-the-rescue-in-victoria/news-story/256fa00e7749b4b70b108b2e65c4eb8a
Read more in our blog post … (below)
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environmentvictoria.org.au
Environment Victoria | 5 facts you need to know about energy this summer
8-11 minutes
1. Coal power stations keep failing
“Worried the electricity system won’t keep up over summer? Worry about coal,” wrote economics editor Peter Martin in The Age this month.
He wasn’t kidding. In the space of one December week last year, coal power stations in Australia failed without warning, or ‘tripped’, four times:
- Millmerran coal power station (QLD), 420 MW unit, failed on 12 December 2017
- Mt Piper power station (NSW), 700 MW, failed on 13 December 2017
- Loy Yang A power station (VIC), 560 MW unit, failed on 14 December 2017
- Eraring coal power station (NSW), 700 MW unit, failed on 18 December 2017
Victoria’s Loy Yang A in particular has had serious reliability issues, failing six times in three weeks over summer, and this week Yallourn has also been on the blink.
This sudden loss of hundreds of megawatts from coal-burning power stations represents a big risk to energy security.
In fact, leading energy economist Bruce Mountain has said: “The biggest single source of insecurity to the power system is a trip of a major coal thermal generator unit simply because they are so large – [it’s] not the wind or the sun, or people switching on their air-conditioners.”
Image: Global temperatures on 10 February 2017, when NSW coal power stations failed in the heat.
2. Climate change is the biggest threat to energy security
It’s understandable there’s concern about blackouts over summer. During long spells of hot weather, people crank up the air-con, increasing electricity demand and strain on the grid.
But there’s another reason to be worried: our electricity grid infrastructure, especially ageing coal power stations, are vulnerable to faults and breakdowns in the heat.
As climate change drives longer and hotter heatwaves, coal power stations are getting critically hot more often. “When temperatures in control rooms get as high as 50 or 60 degrees,” writes Peter Martin in The Age, “the electronic control systems buckle and the boilers leak.”
The Australia Institute report Can’t Stand the Heat notes that Australia’s aging coal and gas fleet is not designed to operate in extreme weather conditions. During the February 2017 heatwave, 3600 megawatts (MW) failed during peak demand periods in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, equivalent to 14 percent of Australia’s coal and gas generation in those states.
The NSW Energy Security Taskforce drew similar conclusions, flagging that “large coal thermal plants generally will not perform as well in extreme hot weather and can also have output limited by environmental constraints, for example, cooling pond temperature limits.”
Other climate-driven weather events can affect the electricity system. In September 2016, an extreme storm knocked over 22 transmission towers in South Australia, causing a ‘system black’ event. Low rainfall or prolonged droughts have also reduced the ability to use hydroelectricity generators.
3. The big Tesla battery is delivering the goods
Australia is home to the Big Banana, the Big Pineapple and the Big Gumboot (yes, really, it’s in Far North Queensland). To this list of eminent tourist attractions we can now add another: the Big Battery.
Officially called the ‘Hornsdale Power Reserve’, South Australia’s new lithium-ion Tesla battery is currently the biggest in the world.
And it’s doing some amazing things. In December it responded lightning fast to help stabilise the grid after a unit at a Victorian coal power station failed.
But the benefit of the big Tesla battery is not just providing dispatchable, on-demand supply. It is also providing a really important function for the electricity grid called ‘frequency control’.
When a major coal unit trips, the frequency in the grid can fall rapidly. If it falls too far, the grid can become unstable and fail.
More large-scale batteries are on their way, including a battery linked to a Victorian wind farm and glasshouse at Nectar Farms and possibly an even bigger battery in Queensland. (A state which already has a large share of Famous Big Things.)
4. Rooftop solar is reducing the strain on the grid
The growth in rooftop solar over the last ten years has been phenomenal. Victoria now has more than 1100 megawatts (MW) of small-scale solar panel systems, and they’re playing an important role in reducing peak electricity demand.
The graph below (from The Australia Institute’s Gas and Coal Watch) shows how, on a very hot day this January, Victoria’s rooftop solar:
- Reduced the highest point of peak demand from the grid (at 4pm) by almost 600 MW
- Delayed the moment of peak demand from the grid by almost three hours, meaning the grid was under strain for less time.
Source: The Australia Institute
This rooftop solar is also helping to reduce the cost of electricity by displacing expensive and polluting gas power stations.
Here’s how. To meet moments of peak demand, typically on hot summer afternoons, the grid normally requires peaking gas plants to fire up. These generators can turn on relatively quickly but are expensive to operate, and the costs flow through to consumers. Most of Victoria’s gas generators, for example, only run a few times each year when demand gets very high.
With more rooftop solar shaving off the high points of peak demand, there is much less need for gas peaking plants to turn on, or they will run for much less time. The upshot is fewer price spikes in the wholesale market, which helps lower average prices for consumers.
5. Efficiency is the energy system’s unsung sidekick
At any point in time, the electricity market has to balance supply and demand. There are two sides to it, but the media mostly focus on the supply side: coal, gas, wind and solar power plants that generate electricity.
However, often reducing demand is a much better solution than increasing supply.
Rooftop solar is one way to reduce demand and strain on the grid (see Fact 4 above). Another is energy efficiency. While less visible to the public, this unsung sidekick is doing a lot of the hard work, helping families and businesses slash their running costs and cut energy waste.
Energy efficiency simply means using less energy for the same result. In a heatwave, for example, an energy-efficient home will be able to maintain a comfortable temperature with less electricity consumed for air-conditioning.
Improving energy efficiency in a home can cut energy costs by 40 percent – or savings of up to $1,000 per year, based on the average Victorian household.
Many energy efficiency improvements save money in the long run. The up-front cost can be recovered through lower bills in as little as a few years, after which the benefit of lower bills continues into the future.
And it’s not just the public who benefit. Because residential homes and businesses consume so much electricity, getting more energy efficient in the home or at work benefits the system as a whole.
Another measure ramping up this summer is ‘demand management’ or ‘demand-side response’. This essentially involves payments to consumers to reduce their energy use for a short period. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has an excellent post explaining the concept here.
Want more detail on any of the facts above? Read our full media backgrounder >>
#Repower
We can’t keep powering our lives with polluting fuels from the last century. It’s time to repower Australia with clean, renewable energy from the sun and wind, so let’s get on with it! Join a #Repower community near you.
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I bet Morrison and Barnaby can’t wait to bring some more pieces of coal to parliament for show and tell after all of this and do a lot of fist shaking and frothing into the mike. “This is good for ‘Straya dammit!”
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China, India and now Germany can.
Wind farms under produce their rated capacity by 3000Mw each and every day. If Loy Yang closes you will have to increase the number of windfarms by 50%
You complain about aging coal that cannot be replaced as unreliable, withhold maintainance from any machinery and it will fail especially when it is run close to 100% of capacity to compensate for the inadequacies and inconsistencies of renewable power.
It always amuses me when all the solutions to problems with the power system is given by people who get no closer to to the generation side than their power switch.
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Do you even read the ■■■■ you post? Probably more pertinently, read what other people do? You’re not actually amused, you’re confused.
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I find it very amusing that often when the warmist propaganda is released, they start talking about the need to reduce demand e.g energy-efficient houses, paying people to reduce energy etc.
Why? Simply because they know the renewables are not up to the task yet and they want to try and force people on to it anyway.
Some of these articles and reasoning really is aimed at the easily led. I guess they understand their audience.
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Yeah, I’m sure everyone who installed solar panels is so cross at being duped into paying less for electricity.
Poor sheeple.
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Why do you continue to reject the fact that there are places in Europe for example that run home and industry on 100% wind power and battery storage ?
Same can be done more easily here as we can utilise solar as well.
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