News: AGL Australia's AGL expects to exit coal generation by 2035, page-87

(Pre-Posting edit after hours of doing stuff and finally getting back to finish post):

As I start this post... (before noon)
Both Loy Yang A & B are both operating all turbines at 62-67%... why this range???? because they probably can't go much lower without causing mechanical risk and damage.

LOYYANGA	LYA1	4	366	590	62	0
	LYA2	4	0	535	0	0
	LYA3	4	367	590	62	0
	LYA4	4	367	580	63	0
LOYYB	LOYYB1	4	392	600	65	0
	LOYYB2	4	402	600	67	0

Hours later and they are back up to 85-90% (4:30 AEDST)

You said in your last post:
"The argument is that LYP was slated as one of the last power stations to close and has been tagged for early closure.It follows after Bayswater, Erraring, Gladstone, Mout Piper also moved forward, Torrens, Callide just to name a few. At present the average grid contribution from black and brown coal is 16 MW and this is the goldilocks period for energy, not too hot, not too cold, energy demand at its lowest. Aemo stated input is 26 GW from coal. 26 GW/0.4 (your utopic capacity factor) = 65 GW, somewhat more than that of wind turbines planned."

What we are actually arguing about is this original post of yours:
"No matter what loy yang is replaced with , 2200Mw base load equivalent will take 20 play years to develop and install. It's not going to pop uplike a mushroom. In other words the closure is not going to happen in the time frame given

And please don't mention the ridiculous pumped hydro schemes, people have got to understand that are net consumers of energy and cannot be used to replace generation and until we have a time when renewables exceed the total system demand ( so storage is effective) they will cause an increase in greenhouse gases. we need more renewable generation BEFORE these schemes should be given any thought at all, if they are to be as effective as people (politicians) believe they are."

FWIW - I only called you out on the bolded bits.... since then you have posted some fact with a fair bit of opinion

The installation times on wind farms have also already been discussed... much less than your 20 year timelines. I have pretty high confidence that a project that reaches FiD in 2030 will be operational by 2035. As to the original argument and 20 year timeframe - even excluding the surge of renewables that will come from offshore wind - there is already new developments underway across all points of the NEM. These new installations will easily meet the 2200Mw that will be lost from Loy Yang.

As to the offshore wind - there has been announcements today by Federal and Victorian governments to fast track regulatory processes to support the rapid development of the Victorian offshore wind industry, and to ensure it is in place before the last of the state's brown coal generators leave the grid. My "utopic" capacity factor was not 40%... "offshore wind capacity factors are typically 50%+ greater than their onshore counterparts (we average 30-35% capacity onshore"... that makes it 45% - 53%... again big differences... like 24% being "closer" to 30-35% than 36% is (which it isnt). Makes the required capacity required to replace coal output down to 50-57Mw

Offshore turbines are now much larger than 4Mw each (they use bigger units onshore in Australia already - 4.5 is typical) ...they are up to 14Mw each now... so extending that to units required we go from your 10000 required down to 2857... a rather noticable reduction in units dont you think? I also have to note that some of the worlds largest offshore wind developers are now equity investors in the Australian projects announced to date. New wind farms will be using the biggest commercially available units - the economies of size from generator having improved capacity factors (due to nacelle height, blade length and wind resource at that height) are too big to ignore.

Even QLD Government owned Stanwell Corp will be developing their own wind farm now... announced this September this year - 500Mw - FID by 2024 and expected to be operational by 2026. Stanwell will not be the only operator that will be capable to plan, finance and develop wind farms in Australia in these timeframes either (have a look at what Iberdola has done since taking over IFN in 2020) https://www.iberdrola.com/documents/20125/1710753/NI20220421-iberdrola-acquires-worlds-largest-onshore-wind-farm-with-1000MW-in-australia.pdf

As for pumped hydro - we can agree to disagree here. I (and AEMO as an FYI) believe that the storage is required sooner rather than later... you can keep your opinion that its needed later. It is a time shifting device (storage) ... I am curious where you have come up with your time to refill on Kidston PH - I am a GNX holder and can't say I have seen or heard anything to support your claim. QLD government has also announced they will be building 2 PH setups with over 5GW of storage by 2035.... Energy Australia will be operating Kidston once it is operational next year... personally I think it will be used for arbitrage - once it is operational - we will know with certainty due to nemlog disclosure.

I am not disputing that BESS earn a healthy component of income from FCAS, but they DO also make revenue from arbitrage... there is simply not enough scale yet developed to market any noticeable impact on supply metrics... but they certainly profit from their operations.