Helium is a better investment.
Please explain.
- There are very finite supplies in the world
- It can’t be manufactured (at least until fusion technology is commonplace)
- It is essential for many medical applications
- It is being frivolously wasted every year - how many helium balloons do you see any weekend? You should despair at this colossal waste of a finite resource
- The US as one of the major sources has stupidly decreed it must waste all of their supplies within our lifetime
- It can’t be harvested - as a lighter than air gas it floats to the stratosphere
- etc
Thanks. That’s a good answer. One more question, where the hell do we get it from if we can’t make it and it all floats away?
I am starting to notice some quite important articles coming out of The Age which is questioning how much our Governments have been allowed to sell out the common person and to favour the rich and powerful.
MARCH 29 2017 - 8:14PM
The real reason our power companies block battery systems
Brian Robins
If you’re wondering why battery storage is still on the fringe of the energy debate in Australia, and why power prices are high, just ask Dr Tony Marxsen, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
He made it plain earlier this week the big power companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars on quick start power stations, so-called “gas peakers” and they aren’t going to be giving up their sway over the market any time soon: they want to make sure they get a return on their money.
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Richard Turner, the founder of Zen Energy, a renewable energy outfit, asked Marxsen on Tuesday when the electricity market would shorten to five minutes from the present 30 minutes the settlement period. Sound technical? Sure, but that change would see a rapid rollout of battery storage with the potential to bring down power prices.
At the heart of the electricity market is a 30-minute settlement period. Power generators bid to supply electricity in five-minute blocks but the price they receive is averaged out over 30 minutes. Pressure is building for change, but the power generators don’t want to budge since the status quo gives the coal and gas generators a return over a longer period, while batteries which can be turned on, and off, quickly, are penalised.
Pressure is building for change, but the power generators don’t want to budge. Photo: Supplied
“The fundamental challenge is it will affect adversely the business model of investors in gas peaking plants,” AEMO’s Marxsen said of any change. "They’ve entered into contracts based on existing arrangements therefore there is the need for transition.
“A five-minute [interval] is the long term future of Australian energy but it is a matter of transition – in a matter of years.”
The trouble is Australia’s thermal power generators are a powerful oligopoly and have been lobbying hard to keep storage out and to prevent the market operator from changing the rules. The overseer of the energy market, the Australian Energy Market Commission has just extended for the second time, now until mid-year, a review into the vexed issue.
“Transition can be painful,” Grattan Institute’s energy program head Tony Wood said of the roadblocks to changing the competitive landscape. “The losers will shout louder than the winners will.”
But the way Zen Energy’s Turner sees it the lack of access to the electricity market is forcing some states, like South Australia, to put $150 million on the table to back battery storage. He expects Victoria to follow suit with the closure this week of the giant Hazelwood power station.
“Governments are putting money on the table … to substitute for what should be available on the grid,” he said. “The rules have to change quickly.”
"Last Wednesday in Adelaide, we had four 30-minute periods when in the first five minutes the wholesale electricity price hit $14,000 a megawatt hour. When those events happen, the big generators power up to meet that demand. Even if the price is negative in the final few minutes of that 30-minute window, the generators receive the average price for that 30 -minute period of, say, $2500.
“Is that market manipulation? Maybe, but they get away with it. If there was five-minute pricing, the battery would come in, grab that demand and eliminate that pricing event. Batteries just help make the system more stable rather than wait for generators to fire up and get going. Even after averaging the price out over 30 minutes they’re making a ridiculous amount of money, protecting their investment – and preventing the introduction of new technology.”
Chaired by Ross Garnaut, who headed up the federal government’s climate change review, Zen has teamed up with Santos to use gas as a back-up for renewables. It is also working up plans for solar farms as it evolves towards becoming a power utility.
“What people don’t understand about renewables is the need for diversity of sources. You can’t just have wind,” he says. You also need solar for when the wind doesn’t blow and batteries to help smooth the energy flows to meet demand."
So removing the half-hour average settlement rule and allowing payment in five-minute blocks would tilt the playing field towards batteries, which store output from wind and solar systems, and save energy users money.
The road blocks slowing the penetration of renewables in the energy sector comes as the Commonwealth Bank has raised $650 million through an issue of five-year green bonds, carrying an interest rate of 3.25 per cent on the fixed rate portion of the raising and 2.715 per cent on the floating rate portion of the raising. The funds are to be invested in renewable energy and low carbon assets.
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Let the operators make the market rules. No wonder they prefer unstable conditions. Create a price spike when conditions suit and rake it in. In peak demand. Meanwhile the dickheads in government drool on about baseload and coal.
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South Australia current demand is 1609Mw per hour, a 100Mw battery will last 3 minute 43.7 seconds.
What then?
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They build more.
The way you’ve interpreted the three minutes is completely out of whack. The article suggests that battery will smooth the pricing curve by taking away or reducing the peak pricing.
Let’s say the average demand is the 1600mw, then the peak was 1800mw. Lets say the batteries came in and provided 100mw over the hour. Then the balance is only 100mw which is filled in by other market players and paid for at $14,000 per mwh. So we’ve HALVED the cost of one peak period (assuming the batteries put the power on the market for nothing given they should be charged when costs are 0 which is the whole idea).
The battery solution was thrown up to eliminate the prospect of blackouts, brownouts, load sheding and catastrophic system failure not to elimiate price surges. Having used the power in the batteries for smoothing out the price surge it has to be replenished immediately at the higher prices and may be in competition with ot h er states.
The future is here.
Why does it have to be replenished immediately? Also i’m commenting on the article. Aren’t you?
A flat battery in South Australia’s case is just 100 million dollars worth of scrap metal.
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You’re going to love this, then.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-30/new-solar-project-announced-for-sa-riverland/8400952
Lyon Group announces $1b battery and solar farm for South Australia’s Riverland
By political reporter Nick Harmsen
Updated yesterday at 5:08pm
Lyon Group’s solar project in Chile
Photo: A solar and storage facility in northern Chile, showing 20MW solar and 12MW battery storage. (Supplied: Lyon Group)
Related Story: Proposed solar plant to store power in shipping container-sized batteries
Related Story: Port Augusta solar project needs $100m to shine, firm says
Map: Port Augusta 5700
A $1 billion battery and solar farm will be built at Morgan in South Australia’s Riverland by year’s end in a project the proponents describe as “the world’s biggest”.
The builder, Lyon Group, has already proposed a smaller solar farm and battery storage facility, named Kingfisher, in the state’s north.
Lyon partner David Green said the project was 100 per cent equity financed and construction would begin within months, employing 270 workers.
“Riverland Solar Storage’s 330-megawatt solar generation and 100-megawatt battery storage system will be Australia’s biggest solar farm with 3.4 million solar panels and will also include 1.1 million batteries,” he said.
Mr Green said land had already been secured and grid connection was already well advanced.
Work on Lyon’s 120 megawatt Kingfisher project is slated to begin in September next year.
“If the 4.7 million solar panels at Riverland and Kingfisher were placed end to end, they would reach from Adelaide to Brisbane and back, and then all the way to Melbourne,” Mr Green said.
Mid Murray Council chief executive Russell Peate said such an announcement in this “day and age of employment” was “brilliant” news for the region.
_ “From an employment perspective, that will have a massive effect on the Riverland and particularly Morgan,” he said._
“We will need to work with the developer in terms of accommodation, but it will also impact on school enrolments, the Country Fire Service, ambulance volunteers — and that will be fantastic for that area.”
Tom Koutsantonis, David Green and Jay Weatherill
Photo: Lyon partner David Green with Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis [L] and Premier Jay Weatherill [R]. (ABC News: Nick Harmsen)
Lyon to bid for SA battery tender
The Lyon Group has already signalled its intention to bid for a SA Government tender to build a battery storage system with 100-megawatt output.
Lyon Group solar project
Photo: The Lyon Group has already proposed a smaller solar farm and battery facility in the state’s north. (Supplied: Lyon Group)
The tender arrangement would give the Government the right to tap the battery storage at times of peak demand, but allow the project owner to sell energy and stability into the market at other times.
An expressions of interest process closes on Friday.
Other companies, including Carnegie, Zen Energy and Tesla, have all suggested they could be interested in bidding.
Mr Green said the outcome of the tender would not determine whether or not Lyon’s projects were built, but would influence the final storage configuration in terms of the balance between optimising grid security and capture of trading revenue.
“The South Australian Government’s leadership on large-scale battery storage has come together with technology cost reductions and international financial interest to provide a timely solution to some of the challenges in the state’s electricity system,” he said.
Lyon Group projects
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FIRST DAY POST HAZELWOOD – TASSIE HYDRO PROPS UP EASTERN ELECTRICITY GRID
If anyone wants to invest in cobalt, CleanTeq has been the go to name, but it has already gone on an impressive share price run…I didn’t have any of it.
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Is he trying to prove we produce more fossil fuel power than renewables? Well ■■■■ me