Pav …………… served my ‘quality time’ now on ‘productive time'.
Regarding your comments re the storage systems working on the power grid I am afraid that has many technological difficulties in that the amount of power required is just too vast to store or would be vastly expensive to be uneconomical with the technology we have now or in the foreseeable future however storage in the home is a different matter.
Basically power demand can be broken into three major areas, first is industry, second is commercial which embraces hospitals school, offices and etc and last is the residential demand.
Both Industrial and Commercial are both reducing considerably the respective base loads however for very different reasons.
Industry has been spending millions in attempts to reduce power demand as obviously a lower OPEX translates into higher profits thus there is a financial gain.
Commercial is slightly different as we have predominately landlords developing commercial office space and the leasees are responsible for all outgoings thus the developer is not concerned if the building OPEX is lower. However in both NZ and Australia we have the NCC (National Building Code formally the BCA) and this has controlled and tightened the construction of a building to such an extent that the power consumed in a typical new commercial building in the last 3 years has fallen round 30% to 50%.
Private residents are a VERY different proposition. The NCC does cover residential property in that construction methods have become more environmentally friendly where the insulation levels are set at a minimum levels, grey water harvesting is required etc and etc however the NCC is not retro-active so only affects new homes. So Australian mums and dads still typically come home from work in the early evening on a hot Jan or Feb day to an extremely hot home ………….. open all windows and doors turn on the A/C and start to prepare dinner and we have peak power, note that peak power only occurs round 20 days per year!!!!!
In the industry peak power is round 30% to 50% above the base load and as we design for peak load obviously the CAPEX and OPEX of the grid rises proportionally ………….. Power supply companies are now penalising anyone who over designs but the small Aussie mum and dads are really the problem. There certainly are solutions in Smart Meters etc that will place a premium on the use of peak power but these come at a cost at in the present caustic political environment I cannot see this happening in the foreseeable (3 to 5 years) future. IMO Australia is perfectly placed to use solar energy and if we combine this with storage we will have residential property that will be almost independent of the grid BUT at a cost of round $50k plus. If Australia had the political will to include this into the cost of a home ie add it to the cost of the home and amortise it over the life of the mortgage it will come at a reasonable cost. I must admit I haven’t done the figures (I am an engineer not accountant or banker) but am sure the savings would almost off set the costs.
It’s very possible and extremely do-able all we need is political will!!!!!
EV’s are interesting ………………. It appears that Tesla have a supply contract with Panasonic, obviously the details will not be in the public domain but it’s a good bet that it will be over a number of years probably 5 or 7 years from date of signing with a right of renewal however it might be for a certain number of units per year and anything above that number Tesla can source from a second supplier providing an opening for Tesla to move into natural graphite battery technology.
However IMO KNL is chasing the Europeans which is a clever way of going. I have lived and worked in both Europe and the US (5yrs Europe and 12yrs US) and IMO the Europeans are far more in tune with the environment than the Americans, also Germany has possibly the most stringent environmental laws of any country so chasing the Europeans for a second off-take agreement would IMO definitely be the way to go.
And finally in closing my handle does not indicate I am hot LOL but rather friends recon my pavs are hot hence the handle hot kiwi pav (after all kiwi’s did invent the pavlova eh )
HKP
KNL Price at posting:
27.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held
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