how does it add up, page-12

BTW – don’t know why I said “*We've* done one step” when it’s just my point that “we” haven’t!

But onto more interesting matters – nice to have figures, thanks, and it’s kicked off me finding the odd figure or two:
“The Appleyard report states that it would cost more than $5 a kilolitre to pipe water from the Kimberley to Perth. That can be compared with the cost of desalination at only $1.16 a kilolitre. More importantly, the environmental impact of piping water from the Kimberley will be far greater than the environmental impact of a desalination plant. The energy cost of piping water from the Kimberley is about 5.8 kilowatt hours a kilolitre. That can be compared with an energy cost of only 4.5 kilowatt hours a kilolitre for the desalination plant in Kwinana.”

By contrast the CETO report has 1 kilolitre displacing about 2kWh per kilolitre of desalination, the difference between 2 and 4.5 seems a bit high to be inefficiencies in the process – unless Kwinana doesn’t recover the energy from the 800psi brine.

However it shouldn’t be thought that desalinated water is managing to get the equivalent of $500/MWh – it appears electricity cost is maybe only half the opex of an RO plant. And RO capex is probably quite something. Still worth getting interested in though.

On raw power costs – am I right to guess that coal generation sets wholesale prices around $30/MWh and you’ve got a renewable incentive worth $40/MWh on top for a total of $70/MWh?