Ahh my old friend Baldy, still saying we will have enough...

Ahh
my old friend Baldy, still saying we will have enough generation to close the brown and black coal plant, thought you had got over this. Second dot point, its black coal that has taken up the slack of Liddell closing what will take up the slack when others close? And lets not forget a mild summer in the southern states has certainly helped lower demand.

The major renewable increase since we last discussed the issue has been domestic solar, very little increase for wind or utility scale solar. As solar (domestic) dominates the renewable market what will provide electrical energy during the winter months? Batteries and pumped hydro do not generate anything, they are in fact net consumers of energy. As you rightly state batteries are great for FCAS but do not offer a long duration storage solution. Pumped hydro, yes for long term, but extremely expensive and limited scope, Australia is too flat and flooding areas of national park in the Snowy Mountains will not be allowed.

It was about 18 months ago I first challenged you about this, at that stage we needed to build about 500 2 MW or better wind turbines over that period to get to target, we are lucky to have built 50. As for the renewable energy zones have you heard the latest from the Star of the South? the massive 2.2 GW off shore wind turbine project has no place to build their turbines!!! The port of hastings and western port bay (which was chosen as the site) has been deemed too environmentally sensitive. This means another site must be chosen and must go through the approval process. One option is the old ESSO terminal at Barrys Beach, but guess what, this is considered a fish nursey and widening of channels etc will not be supported. So the wash up is Star of the South will be delayed by at least 30 months, I believe much longer.

As I have stated before, all for the renewable transition, but let's keep our eyes open and take a pragmatic approach don't believe the utopian rubbish being served up by some, without replacement BASE load these coal units will continue to operate. If not gas peakers will operate and then watch the price skyrocket. On a side note LYA has had a better year after the failure of a generator put a unit OOS for over 8 months, so even with lower prices performance should be better.
LYA and/or Bayswater will be operating well beyond 2040.