SOuth Australia`s Expensive and Useless Power Experimentnt

Originally posted by acorn: ↑

Hi Rob79.

A good post. It's refreshing to discuss the actual issues.

I think your post absolutely highlights that importance of a federal ( and state ) policy that works together. Something that is sadly lacking now. Particularly in the energy storage area .

SA problems. Yep, we've seen the car crash that is the SA energy policy of the last decade. Thanks to political differences there have been some huge mistakes made. That said, they've learned some valuable lessons, albeit the hard way. In my view, while not out of the woods yet, the path is now pretty clear for SA.

FCAS this spring ? I think we've seen how good the Hornsdale battery is in this area. Another SA innovation that ironically got done by a couple of blokes chatting on twitter. How's that for cut through ?

Yep, when those other projects come online they could/will cause problems. As you rightly point out, up to and over 50% will be risky. I would argue that if you have to constrain at all, which we do now, you already have problems from a business case point of view. That's why I believe the sooner the interconnector and some serious storage is built, the better.
I actually think we should be building the storage before the renewable projects actually.

Regarding the new SA-NSW interconnector. It will be a critical component of the future grid where renewable energy will be regularly sent both ways. It will be useful to hopefully eliminate curtailment in SA now but it is really more important for a future grid.

The whole idea of a renewable grid is to have diversified power sources spread right across the grid. From the SA/WA border down to Tassie and all the way to FNQ.

It won't provide solar and wind 100% of the time but it will be much more flexible than islanded states.

I don't necessarily agree there will be stranded renewable assets although a lack of a national plan isn't going to help that. Also, time and technical advancement will play a role here.There's going to be 20 years difference in the build date of some of these projects. I think the bigger issue might be fossil assets becoming stranded. Once again at greater risk thanks to no national plan.
Given the rapid advancement of technology, the first ones might simply not be needed once the newer ones are built. Especially if offshore wind proves successful in Australia.
It is quite possible that the southerly weather than SA, Tasmania and parts of Victoria experience is well out of sequence with NSW's and Qld's weather patterns and therefore provide an important offset during the year.

States aren't going to want to build assets if they don't need them. That's why we have a national grid in the first place.

" Seriously , how many batteries are we going to build ".

I'll replace the word ' batteries ' with the term ' energy storage '.

We will build enough storage to support the renewable generation. Energy storage comes in many forms. Have you seen the aluminium smelter that can operate as a giant battery ?

https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-big-smelters-could-also-be-giant-batteries-and-go-green-at-same-time-86721/

And then there's the capacity of the big storages which are yet to be connected to the grid.

I agree that the LCOE needs to be examined. But that goes for all types of generation. E.g. the cost of peaking infrastructure ?

The South Australian grid is a pretty much global leading example of what to do and what not to do. Apart from policy failings, there is going to be the fast changing technology that makes it somewhat difficult to model. What we do know is that renewables have performed better and become cheaper than anyone predicted.

Just wondering whether you've seen any of Andrew Blakers presentations on pumped hydro ? He makes some interesting estimates. I'd be interested to get your view on his position.

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Hi, the politics of the energy issue is a small interest to me. They are all the same in my book.

The country has been in drought for years, our farmers are struggling and people are suggesting we pump water up a hill because we have too much electricity when the sun shines or wind blows - crazy priorities in my book. I do think pumped hydro has merit though and given we are surrounded by ocean would think that would be a good place to start. Alternatively they could look to the rivers that flood regularly and think about some mitigation schemes to stop the towns getting flushed away.

Re FCAS and the Hornsdale battery - In 2014 Frequency control and ancillary Service costs in the NEM were $20m, in 2019 they were $182m and in the first quarter this year they are $112m. ref: https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markquarterly-global-fcas-prices-by-services
I wonder where are the savings being claimed and if anyone checked the calculated savings? Also the battery wastes 17% of the electricity that goes into it. If wind or solar is used then the some of the LGC's they claim are wasted. If fossils charge the batteries then that increases emissions.

South Australia rarely runs at 50%, if it did they wouldn't need the battery because the baseload generators would provide the frequency and inertia. Smaller batteries do appear to be useful for additional boost and that was shown in the separation event.

Re the video I had seen and looked again - it adds a renewable perspective however doesn't address the points in the earlier post which show someof the issues we are are avoiding. Opinions that are different to mine are of most interest, we all make mistakes and have bias. Conceptually the ANU provide a good overview but I like to play around with excel so prefer to not get too distracted if the base assumptions are not clearly stated.