South Australia Energy Experiment Continued....

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Interesting article Shannow. I've started (loosely following the Aussie renewable power story. This sounds like early-on teething pains and will be taken care of eventually. After watching the pumped water explanation posted on here awhile back, that seems the best option, though isn't SA extremely dry?
 
Nukes - build low pressure nukes
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5 blackouts in 2 years and they just mention households. The big impacts are when you dump big huge manufacturers costing then a lot of money in the form of damaged product. For a house the only problem is resetting some clocks and most are battery backed these days. Important industrials have UPS units and diesels anyway. Weyeth pharmaceutical paid me $3000 a day to just stand around in case something happened when they were testing their diesels. The big boys have it covered.

Option 7. just live with it.

I mean, how many hundreds of millions is it worth for a house not to be minorly inconvenienced for a few hours twice a year. What does that work out in dollars per person?

As much as people want power to always be there it's not a requirement for life.

I actually enjoy dark time at my house. Quiet reflection time we all need more of.
 
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
250 MW of gas fired generation sitting idle?
frown.gif



NG prices have skyrocketed with Oz's exports now being a multiple factor of our domestic consumption...$9/GJ at 11AM today (Sunday), will be in the $10s or $11s during the week, more when the heating season starts.

A Decent CCGT with a heat rate of 7 (GJ/MWh) would have a fuel cost of $70/MWh (7c/KWh)...the gas thermals $120/MWh fuel costs.

The CCGTs can't make enough on the peaks to justify manning when the wind is blowing and the brown coal electricity is flowing from Victoria.
 
I'm amazed they are continuing on with this experiment. Ontario finally had to commit to refurbishing the nukes because privately owned gas and renewables have become an absolute nightmare with costs soaring through the roof. OPG still has the expansion (2400MW) for the one nuke in their future plans because once this defecation expose hits critical mass next election with both opposition parties saying they are going to scrap the act and potentially cancel the contracts, the desire to replace obscenely expensive gas/wind with baseload at less than 1/2 the price to bring the rates down and let that private ship sail seems pretty appealing. Also, given the fact we have a federally mandated carbon taxing scheme and our burning of gas isn't helping with that, the nukes are a pretty easy way to meet that target as well. Also, any hopes of electrifying the automotive landscape depend on inexpensive power. With many Ontarians in energy poverty at this point, something absolutely needs to change.
 
Originally Posted By: Kuato
Interesting article Shannow. I've started (loosely following the Aussie renewable power story. This sounds like early-on teething pains and will be taken care of eventually. After watching the pumped water explanation posted on here awhile back, that seems the best option, though isn't SA extremely dry?


The pumped storage proposed is salt water pumped storage.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/how-seawater-hydro-could-help-south-australia/8363054

Find an area close to the sea, with high cliffs, and basins that than be blocked and filled...then us it as a battery.

I think the concept of elevating salt water is going to draw the crabs enviro approval wise, but we'll see.

The teething pains are that to replace 1,000MW of thermal needs 3,000MW of solar/wind, and somewhere to put it...while they are disruptive, they push prices down (and regular generators out of the market), WHEN they are the primary source, then it gets a bit (lot) more expensive.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
5 blackouts in 2 years and they just mention households. The big impacts are when you dump big huge manufacturers costing then a lot of money in the form of damaged product. For a house the only problem is resetting some clocks and most are battery backed these days. Important industrials have UPS units and diesels anyway. Weyeth pharmaceutical paid me $3000 a day to just stand around in case something happened when they were testing their diesels. The big boys have it covered.

Option 7. just live with it.

I mean, how many hundreds of millions is it worth for a house not to be minorly inconvenienced for a few hours twice a year. What does that work out in dollars per person?


You nailed it...couple hours without power versus not having employment....it's a serious part of the issue.

As to one of the blackouts, the state went black...proper black start rather than a few blackout/brownouts (Funny thing was that the night before I was out to dinner with some managers, and explained why I though the state was in trouble...exactly that).

Whole states going black is horrid...
 
It says a couple of those are from transmission lines being taken out by weather. I remember reading about one that broke your transmission towers like toothpicks. Then a transmission short circuit on another event.

Not green energy related.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
It says a couple of those are from transmission lines being taken out by weather. I remember reading about one that broke your transmission towers like toothpicks. Then a transmission short circuit on another event.

Not green energy related.


That was selective journalism...the fact that the wind had no ride through capability meant that they tripped early on in the debacle.

When they re-started, they immediately put snowtown (wind) in as soon as there was enough diesel power in to connect the asynchronous generation to...then they had to kill it as they couldn't control frequency to reconnect to the rest of the Eastern seaboard.

Fact that you used the snapped "like toothpicks" means that you have taken the message on board and assimilated it...think I even showed you at the time the maps of where the toothpicks went down, versus the load centre and interconnectors...
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
As much as people want power to always be there it's not a requirement for life.


At forty below zero, loss of power is literally a matter of life and death.

Reliable power used to be one of the defining characteristics of the First World. Now, thanks to decades of mismanagement, we're having to buy backup generators, like the rest of the Third World.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
It says a couple of those are from transmission lines being taken out by weather. I remember reading about one that broke your transmission towers like toothpicks. Then a transmission short circuit on another event.

Not green energy related.


http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/sa/...70328_PM_Update

News just in fresh after the Market Operator finished their analysis...
 
When we were discussing this some time ago, I mentioned the wind and solar means a fresh look would have to be taken at system protection. It's easy to see after the problem. I would envision several settings philosophy depending on system conditions. A signal would be sent out countrywide to place relays in a different settings group instantly. This could even be done dynamically to save the system.

When you go into a typical substation do you see microprocessor relays or electromechanical?
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
250 MW of gas fired generation sitting idle?
frown.gif



NG prices have skyrocketed with Oz's exports now being a multiple factor of our domestic consumption...$9/GJ at 11AM today (Sunday), will be in the $10s or $11s during the week, more when the heating season starts.

A Decent CCGT with a heat rate of 7 (GJ/MWh) would have a fuel cost of $70/MWh (7c/KWh)...the gas thermals $120/MWh fuel costs.

The CCGTs can't make enough on the peaks to justify manning when the wind is blowing and the brown coal electricity is flowing from Victoria.


The whole equation of how to justify renewable needs to be changed. Instead of pricing it against the total cost, fixed cost like standby labor and capex must be now shared by all bill payer, just like backup generators for businesses that need them.

I still think if we do it right, like using inverter and HVDC power transmission to address the synchronization, we can make renewable work eventually, but it is probably going to cost more than advertised at today's cost.

Don't forget though, if you single source on anything, like NG, coal, oil, or nuke, someone will be profiting from the monopoly and you'll be paying through the nose. So, the more variety out there done the right way the better.
 
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Pandabear,
good post.

Yes, there have been studies done by here via the market operator and universities on what 100% renewable looks like...

http://ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/fi...2016-03-02a.pdf

tripling the wholesale rates, and 20-30% higher bills.

Note the reliance on schedulable bioengergy...with doubt that there's enough green stuff to burn to meet the assumptions.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear


I still think if we do it right, like using inverter and HVDC power transmission to address the synchronization, .


Who are you? Thomas Edison? DC doesn't solve a thing.

The world is still AC and you'll have to synch up at the end of the transmission line.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette

Who are you? Thomas Edison? DC doesn't solve a thing.

The world is still AC and you'll have to synch up at the end of the transmission line.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

Don't forget a lot of things can run on DC more efficiently: data center, train, EV charging (they are showing up everywhere in office parking lots), elevators, etc. DC would at least address Shannow's suggestion of not having enough AC to synchronize solar power feeding back into the grid.

All you need to do for low hanging fruits is to feed DC into DC consumers instead of into legacy residential consumers.
 
One of the Links to S.A. is DC, as is the mainland to Tasmania cable (the one that broke last year).

DC can't be stepped up and down in voltage without transformers and AC, so a DC link isn't going to be supplying 5VDC to distributed USB ports...
 
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