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Yep, and I reckon Mike Baird sold the Poles & Wires at the peak time - they won't be worth a bumper once Solar has a decent take up rate. Maybe I'm missing something, but to me it was an exclusive case of the Govt being ahead of the game of Private Enterprise. Buying the Poles & Wires as the country is transitioning to Solar (inc going off-grid) makes as much sense as keeping Liddel power station going for an extra 5 years at some staggering cost.Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Rightio, I thought I might spruce up the spreadsheet and attach it to see if anyone finds it useful - please let me know (it was RATHER a lot of work to make it publishable).
Now I'm going to caveat the hell out of this:
- the cells that are pale blue (or should be) are the ones where you can change the data
- if you change any other cells then you're on your own baby - I've locked them but anything could happen
- the kWh figures shown are my own, and you need to change them to yours, from your last 12 months bills
- if you are billed monthly then you need to aggregate three months into one entry
- the rates shown are for postcode 2780 (which applies to most of the Blue Mountains)
- the rates may or may not be up to date - I got them 6 weeks ago - anything could happen in that time
- you may not even have some of those suppliers I have shown
- some of the suppliers have a tiered system for Peak usage - the spreadsheet does not allow for that, so bad luck for them for making it more difficult than it should be
- if the equations are wrong then suck it up - it was my best effort (and if you're that smart you can create your own)
- the low income rebate varies from state to state - do your own research and enter the correct figure, or just delete the one at the top
- I do not have a 3-tier meter (which would include Shoulder or Controlled Load 2) - that's why those columns are blank
- the best price supplier should get some pale green highlight in their name and the yearly total.
- don't forget to delete the "YES" in column A if the supplier does not discount the daily supply charge (there are 3 flagged "YES")
- I have unlocked the pale blue cells and locked the sheet - this should make it idiot proof for deleting formulae :roll:
- If you are not an idiot :ninja: then you can unlock the sheet and go your hardest. There is no password.
Other than that....bon apetit!
The saviour for the energy companies is going to be high density housing where apartments etc do not have an individual roof for solar generation. I have just found out that the inverter that we are using can divert excess power to a hot water system or some other load instead of exporting it which makes me a happy camper. It doesn't do it as well as the dedicated units but it will do it. The people who are going to cop it in the neck for electricity are those who can least afford it and that view is starting to be recognised and the political party who decides to bite the bullet and do something about the cost of energy in Oz is going to win power in a landslide.
Won't be long before solar paint is available though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Parks
Eggsellent! It will be cheaper than getting the dedicated jobbie though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Parks
Without a doubt (on all counts).Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Parks
Very good, informative thread. :2tsup:
I am moving back to Woodend (Victoria) end of December. We are considering solar energy, but will need to do it "right", i.e. grid connection or not, buy panels now or wait...
Anyone here willing to answer questions?
Cheers,
Christophe
Delete.
What happened to the delete post button?
We've already wandered a fair way off topic - perhaps start another thread for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by kungsleden
Brett, while I readily accept your problems with AGL my experience with them was totally different.
I am with them for both gas and electricity and last year I was on a discount of 18 % for gas and 25 % for electricity. As I noticed others were advertising higher discounts of 20 and 30 % and $ 50 sign on bonus I rang them and asked if they could go higher. Immediately they offered 20 and 30 % and when pressed for the sign on bonus they gave the alternative of 20 and 35 %. As the higher discount was more then our first quarter I was happy with that the extra discount keeps going on and on.
Also AGL gives Flybuy points which over a year adds up to a $ 30 savings in my wife's shopping.
So one phone call is all it took for me to get what I want as I got higher discounts then currently available with actually the same rates for usage as the other companies.
Peter.
Peter there is no doubt that my AGL experience has been "one out of the box", with some other cockups thrown in for good measure (like my meter not being on the database - that was where things went off the rails).
I am equally sure that plenty of people have had poor experiences with all the different retailers. What it came down to was how AGL handled it - and that was extremely poorly indeed.
Having said all that, the main point here is what we have to go through - with ANY retailer - to get a better deal. I believe that they should be compelled to offer everyone the same deal, whatever that may be and whatever they think they need to do to be competitive. They may not be able to afford to offer everyone a 32% discount on elec (or maybe they can.....), but they can quite obviously afford to offer everyone 25%, but are not until we complain, so what about the poor buggers who aren't in on the joke, like my mother, or who do not have the skills to screw out the best deal (or the damned patience and persistence)?
Fizza says that he has secured an agreement with them that they will write to 2 million households who could be on a better deal. I'll bet that they don't offer the highest (pre-retention) discounts to them though - in the hope that they'll be grateful for being offered a little more than they were getting and will happily accept less than they could bargain for.
Let's face it, this current circus must be costing them all a fortune in human resources with the amount of time they must be spending on the phone. Bloody ridiculous way to run a business if you ask me.
Sturdee, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you charges for;
Electricity - kWh and supply
Gas - MJ and supply.
It would appear different postcodes have different rates so it would be interesting to see actual costs.
You can PM me if you prefer.
I’ve been with AGL since Adam was a boy and the best they have done for me was 5% on the Electricity but that was some time ago. Guess I need to have a chat with them :D
I used to get a discount for paying on time by BPay but I got an account keeping fee but when I went to direct debit to avoid the fee, they said I couldn’t have the discount because they couldn’t be sure that the payment would be made on time - go figure??
WPQuote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Just in the interests of accuracy, Liddell is indeed owned by AGL (They bought Liddell and Bayswater as a package), but Hazelwood is owned by the French company Engie, who also own Pelican Point. Pelican Point and Hazelwood have had their own controversies. Pelican Point is a two unit gas fired station. They had been running two units at half load. Realising this was uneconomic, they moth balled one unit, removed it from the system and ran the remaining unit at full load. When SA had a power crisis they were criticised for not restarting the unit: They couldn't. No fuel and no presence on the schedule.
Hazelwood, which is a very old brown coal station was one of the dirtiest stations in the world, certainly the dirtiest in Australia. Unfortunately Victoria's base load power is based on brown coal stations. However this is a small digression for which I apologise.
The crux of all this is that if you want a competitive market and one that encourages (deliberately) private enterprise, you cant' then turn around and say "that's unfair" or "that's not what we want you to do." In other words you can't have it both ways.
In the retail market there are similar issues. Once you can approach different companies to lock in a better deal to some extent you cannot complain (other than poor performance on a specific instance such as Brett experienced). Of course some people are better shoppers than others. Brett is the electrical retailers worst nightmare while they hope that the majority of their customers are like Brett's mum. In time the better companies will endure and the poor companies will fade away just like with a supermarket, but the rub is that generally we are not so conversant with the intricacies of electricity supply as we are with buying a kilo of bacon.
A competitive market in the electrical generation field has reversed the focus from continuity of supply to price. This is what the governments of both callings have wanted: They should heed the old mantra "Be careful what you wish for."
Regards
Paul
I'm on the rates applicable to Metropolitan Victoria, I know that country and interstate are different as we all have smart meters (and paid for) which will now be introduced nationally.
However here are my rates:
Electricity
Peak 25.05 c per KWH, HWS 16.79 c per KWH and supply charge $ 1.1047 per day all plus GST.
Discount 35 % on the usage rates (prior to the GST) and not on the supply charge.
Gas
First 2950 MJ is at $0.02315, next 2950 MJ is at $ 0.02013, next 2950 MJ is at $ 0.01604, next 5900 MJ is at $ 0.01387 and then the rest is at $ 01292.
Supply charge is at $0.7413 per day all plus GST.
Discount 20 % on the usage rates (prior to the GST) and not on the supply charge.
I get my bills emailed and pay by direct debit and the discount is actually called a pay on time discount.
Of course as I'm an old fellow I also get the Victorian government winter energy allowance on gas and HWS electricity use and the Commonwealth government pensioner rebate.
Trust that this helps.
Peter.
BTW AGL will, if you are on emailed bills and pay by direct debit, give you FlyBuy points on the total amounts paid which in our case gives $ 30 of free grocery shopping a year at Coles. But again you have to ask for this.
Here we go again with yet another way to slice up the cat, and come to the same damned result. When I put those rates into my spreadsheet and using my kWh, lo and behold, at $1238 per year it comes in at third place, just behind the AGL Retention rates (32%) at $1196 per year, and $1161 for the Origin Retention rates that I am getting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sturdee
This is despite Sturdee getting one of the highest off-peak rates of 16.79, and I think THE highest supply charge of $1.1047, because he also gets THE highest discount I've seen at 35%.
Fair dinkum, it's just bullsh. Obviously these twats work backwards from the $1238 figure with the mantra of
"ok, Sturdee's postcode has to be different to work out but give us the same bottom line....."
"Uhh, why? Why don't we use the same rates is next door?"
"Coz it's energy prices dummy! They have to be different and difficult, other wise people will know what we do - make money for jam."
"But doesn't that cost us more in admin?"
"Relaaaax, the poor sodding customer pays for that too. Relax and enjoy the party"
Peter, another data question if I may: did you have a frightening rise on July 1, mainly in the off-peak rate? I'll wager that your rates were something like 22c/10c/$1 prior to July 1.
The supply charge, whilst high, I think is the same all Victoria as it covers the supply network and the on going repayment of the smart meters that Victoria installed at the consumers houses. This was also affected by the bush fires payout. This rate is set by the government and not the retailer.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
The smart meters charge will affect other states soon as the government will start to introduce them nationwide in December, so prepare yourself for another shock.
Incidentally there was no increase in rates or supply charge in July for me and the rates were the same as is available here from Origin Energy and other suppliers according to my internet searches, using 15 postcodes around Melbourne, at the time.
Peter.
After reading this article on Smart Meters I'm having difficulty in seeing much, if any benefit to consumers. Seems to be more for the Energy Cos, in that they don't have to send around meter readers.
At the moment I'm pretty sure the our Off-Peak (Controlled Load 1) is only for the Hot water service. If a smart meter means that I can use CL1 power for other things (anything consuming elec overnight) then yes there would be a small benefit. Out of the list of "energy guzzlers" that they nominate, only the washing machine would apply to us.
I doubt the neighbours would appreciate me running the thicky/DE overnight.....
The main benefit of smart meters is for the energy companies, who apart from not requiring meter readers, can switch of power remotely to either a meter or specific appliances in your house if you go to special rates. It also allows them to offer different rates for different times of the day.
These are not relevant to me but I had and am still paying for the compulsory installation of them.
I have only recently retired from this industry and can confirm that, as evidenced by all of the earlier posts, it is an incredibly complex business model and, within that complex model, large and diverse components of it, are contrived to suit various political and social needs. The discussions in the posts above are like studying the very end of a dog's wagging tail and, by that, trying to understand the dog itself?
At this point it is worth introducing the term 'arbitrage'. Arbitrage can be likened to legalised gambling and this is a constant that runs right through this complex model.
This whole model starts with forecasting and buying forward. To create these forecasts, this industry is one of the largest industrial users of pure mathematicians in the country. Their role is to create models that predict future power consumption in incredible detail, complexity and accuracy. It takes into account temperature, time of day, day of the week, season, socio-economic circumstance etc, and I'll discuss just one of many examples of this. On (say) a 40 degree day, the power consumed in a single hour can vary by a factor of up to 10 fold. If the 40 degree hour is at 2 to 3pm on a Sunday in early Summer after a cooler prior day then the power consumed would be 1 UNIT per customer. IF however the 40 degree hour is on a Wednesday between 5 and 6pm after a series of 40 degree days, then the power consumed across the same socio- economic group would be at least 10 UNITS per customer. A different socio-economic group can apply a further multiplier of up to 4. So, let's say you are a retailer, the weather bureau forecasts a 40 degree day, your mathematicians go to work and forecast a power usage of 32.845 MILLION UNITS ( being somewhere between 1 and 40!) for 2 - 3pm. Your purchasing group then go to the market to buy 32.845 MILLION UNITS of power for that hour which might be in 2 hours time.
Now, as a retailer, you know that the mix of your industrial, residential and commercial customers pay an average of $15 per unit for 2 - 3 pm on a Wednesday so your aim is to buy from the generators at a price of less than $15 per unit because the difference will be your profit.
Now, let's say you are one of the multiple generators that this retailer will approach to buy the power for an hour in 2 hours time. You don't know that the retailer is trying to purchase an entire package at less than an average of $15 per unit. As you can see above, I am using anonymous UNITS but my real World experience is that, in relative terms, generators can, and do, offer power at NIL to $10,000 per UNIT for fixed amounts. So, the retailer WHO MUST BUY 32.845 MILLION UNITS tries to buy across all of these offers to get a total of 32.845 MILLION UNITS at less than $15 per UNIT. Traditionally, base load power stations will offer a low price to encourage retailers to buy enough to enable them to keep running their plant continuously and at an efficient operating level because they can't ramp up or down easily. However, 'peaking plant' CAN turn on and off quickly but costs more to generate so they will offer in the middle range of prices but for a smaller volume. Now, let's look at the generator who sells at $10,000 per UNIT to a retailer who can only sell to their customer at $15 per UNIT. This doesn't appear to make any sense but, if the retailer can't get 32.845 MILLION UNITS from other sources, then they MUST buy enough at $10,000 to top up their quantity or they face crippling penalties both commercially and reputationally because there will be blackouts. Is $10,000 a real World number? YES! There is a hydro generator in Australia who can offer power at that sort of price. If a retailer needs them to generate, they push a button, release the water, generate the required units for the required time and then stop. Later, when the high load period has passed, THE GENERATOR will buy power from another ( say) base load generator at say $12 per UNIT and pump the water back up to a high reservoir to await the next high load period and repeat the process at ( say) $10,000 per UNIT again!
Jetlag is setting in so I'll stop for now and continue later this week if anyone is interested. If not, I'll go back to wood work?
(recently returned) fletty
Like the hydro generator Fletty mentioned, there is a private power station in the Hunter Valley that is diesel fired. They charge probably more than the Hydro plant but only have to run for a very short time each year to make money.
Welcome home Mr Flett
Interesting Alan, I now understand how pumped hydro can work, I couldn't see the logic before your post. Please continue after jetlag has subsided.Quote:
Originally Posted by fletty
lol!Quote:
Originally Posted by fencefurniture
Yes please.Quote:
Originally Posted by fletty
Some questions come out of what you have written so far:
1. Who is it that buys these "futures" of power? I think you indicated it was the retailers buying from the generators, but where does the wholesaler fit into that?
2. What is the daily supply charge about? Is it a rort or is there actually something of substance to it?
Sounds like even more reason to be on Solar and as little dependent as possible on the grid.
WRT smart meters, I don't quite understand how a retailer can reach out and shut off one particular appliance during a power pre-crisis. For example, in this 1920 house there are two general power circuits, a lights circuit, an oven circuit, and the CL1 Hot Water circuit. To shut down an appliance on the general circuits they would have to shut down the whole circuit.
To the best of my knowledge, and using a pool pump as an example of something that could be shut down (i.e. non-urgent power usage), pool pumps would just be on a general circuit, so how can they be isolated? Or is it the case that they can only shut down a circuit that has dedicated non-urgent appliances on it (or something)? Furthermore, how would the consumer know it's the electricity retailer shutting it down, and not just some power or appliance fault?
There is another aspect that I don't quite understand about the transmission of power (And I turn mean politically). IF SA is using power generated by a plant in QLD wouldn't there be tremendous losses along the grid as it travels such huge distances? What sort of time frames are we talking to send the power along the distances? Surely WA would have to generate 100% of the power it consumes?
No, the whole circuit doesn't have to shut down. I don't know how any particular smart meter works but if the appliance itself has an appropriate detector, a shut down/start up signal can be sent to the meter* which can selectively switch off the appliance(s) by sending the signal to it (them) via the house wiring (even though you have 240 volts on the wires you can _also_ put other signals on them, do you remember plug in intercoms?). Using digital signalling codes _can_ also allow switching of different appliances at different times (if needed).Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
* the command signals to the meter most likely will be sent via the digital communications used to send the metering data back and forth. However it can be done just as easily through the electrical lines from the zone substation to address all the meters in a particular area, rather than one by one digitally. In fact, there are old analogue off peak HWS systems from the 90s that work in that exact way.
(what I really mean is, there are plenty of ways to do it, but the appliance in question needs a detector of some sort so it can be remotely switched. Getting the signal to it then is not so hard)
Regards
SWK
A quick answer (I have to run). Bushmiller may elaborate.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
Earlier in the thread Fletty talked about Arbitrage
There are actually _two_ electrical markets. One is physical with real electricity flowing about the place. The other is financial with money flowing about the place.
The power generated in QLD (say) will likely be used up near where it is generated (or at least never goes so far as SA) but the market itself allows for a person in SA to "buy" from QLD. Think of it like two big pots. The QLD generator puts his power in to the power pot due to some agreed rules and takes his money out of the money pot according to some other rules (those arbitrage rules). The SA consumer pays his money into the money pot and gets his power out of the power pot and doesn't really care where it really comes from. The money may go from SA to QLD, but the electricity never really did.
Poor old WA "misses" out because, even though it is easy to include them in the money pot, they cant play in the electricity pot unless there are physical wires to join them to the east coast.
Regards
SWK
Ok, so saving elec drain on big usage days to prevent blackouts won't be particularly useful until there are enough smart big drain appliances in the market. That could be "quite some time".
I don't see much future for that up here either. There are very few air-conditioners, almost nil swimming pools (there isn't a pool shop within cooee), and a pretty high take-up of solar panels. Mind you, I doubt we'll have any say in the matter.
Speaking of the take-up of solar panels, my partner's daughter has just had house built in Oran Park - near fletty. This is one of those new Landcom estates, so everything is brand new, fibre to the house and all that.
- This is an area that is VERY hot in summer
- There are NIL trees anywhere.
- I'll wager that 80% or more of the houses have ducted aircon
- EVERY house has a black (or near to) roof. :doh:
- NONE of the houses have Solar panels:doh::doh:
- From any given back "veranda" you have between 3 and 6 black rooves crowding in on you - that's all you can see, apart from kilometres of Colourbond fencing!
When Lola returned from a visit there yesterday, she said "Guess what? I finally saw a roof with a few solar panels today!"
This is how my idea of selling excess power to a selected user works. I export into the grid and it gets pooled and the person buying gets some electricity from the pool not the exact electrons I exported. Some years ago there was an attempt to sell green power at a higher cost, it may still be done for all I know and it worked on the same principal of pooling.Quote:
Originally Posted by swk
Hmmmm :think: As I thought, but in the light of "The money may go from SA to QLD, but the electricity never really did." why would that matter?Quote:
Originally Posted by swk
You're just jealous of life in suburbia :U, be damned if I would go back there to live. Ozzie houses are badly designed but that is for another thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
It is, and it's ridiculous. You can have the pleasure of paying anything up to an additional 10c per kWh to purchase Green power. How they expect that to have any kind of take-up rate I will never understand. Consider the following:Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Parks
- The best form of Green energy is having your own solar panels (not accounting for the manufacturing foibles of solar panels, and the carbon footprint involved)
- Your peak energy costs might be say 22c pkWh
- That might result in a 5-7 year payback for your panels (remembering that they only produce power in peak or shoulder)
- You elect to pay an additional 10c pkWh for Green energy
- That extra 10c would mean that your payback period would reduce 3-5 years if you devoted your philosophical 10c to the panels instead.
- That's a pretty stoopid commercial decision to make
Paying the extra money is for people with more money than brains, and is still just rewarding bad behaviour, because I am not at all confident that the retailers would purchase that Green power, as they say they will, particularly in times of high drain. Who holds them accountable?.
It may be that some of those people paying for Green power don't have a viable Solar roof, and they need to feel good and Green, but surely it would be better if their money was sent towards solar panel or battery research?
I just forget the numbers now, but Germany is producing more Green power than dirty power IIRC, and one of the Euro countries (maybe Germany again) will be totally self-sufficient on Green power much earlier than any other country - somewhere in around 15 or so years, from memory.
And yet here we are, on the sunniest continent of all, building new estates with no solar panels in sight. :doh: That would be a classic example of needing legislation for mandatory panels on every house. Put in some extra subsidies if necessary. The cost of a 7.5kWh array is around $8-10k after rebates, which is pretty small beer in the context of a new house build costing about $350-400k, especially given that these air-con hungry houses will repay that $8-10k within just a few short years and provide virtually free elec for >20 years after that.
Rather than building new coal power stations, or propping up filthy 50 year old ones for another 5 dirty years, wouldn't it be better to put those massive funds into building community-serving batteries. One very large battery complex in each neighbourhood with solar panels everywhere that is viable? It must surely be cheaper to build one large battery complex than one for every house. It would also be better for drain and distribution I would think (low vol consumer's batteries would be somewhat wasted).
Mass production is the way to get prices down. Battery tech is getting very close now.
What am I missing here?
There would have to be the inevitable exemptions for heritage houses and so on, but they are a pretty small percentage.
Big business fears change unless there is a benefit in that change that makes more profit for them because they fear the shareholders will write down the value of their companies. That is one view, there are other reasons as well of course then the executives would lose money so it is in the end a greed system IMHO. That might sound simplistic but get between any person, you or me for instance and their money and the fangs come out.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
A few thoughts off the top of my head that we have to bear in mind when discussing the market as a whole:
WA,NT and some other districts (Mount Isa for example) are not part of the Eastern Seaboard electricity market. They are stand alone.
The Eastern Seaboard is interconnected. There are interconnectors between
NSW and QLD
NSW and Vic
Vic and SA (two)
Vic and Tas.
These interconnectors are limited and have varying capacities. There are often constrained so also cannot always deliver their full nominal power. None of these interconnectors is even remotely capable of delivering all the power to a neighbouring state. So if all the power stations in Victoria shut down SA, tasmania and NSW would be unable to supply the demand. Vicoria would have a blackout and they have the most interconnectors (ie. from three states.
There are in simple terms two markets supplied by the generators: The contract market and the spot market. Wholesalers enter into contracts at fixed prices to avoid excessive cost during times of peak demand. I am not privy to the intricacies of these commercial arrangements, but I am led to believe they are for a minimum of three months typically and could be longer. However not all power is sold like this. The remaining power is sold on the spot market and this is the area that is volatile and so full of controversy. It is the area that is quoted in the media. At any one time the contract area may represent around half of the market bearing in mind that it is fixed and not a function of demand.
I believe this is an area that Fletty can contribute far more than I.
A high demand, say in SA, does have an effect on QLD but not directly. A scenario is that the price rises in SA so Victoria starts supplying via the interconnectors. Victoria buys power from either NSW or Tasmania at a cheaper rate and NSW buys power from QLD. There is a cascade effect.
There are indeed transmission losses. Initially power stations were built at the load centres. However the majority of people do not chose to live next door to a power station and even more importantly, as fuel is the single largest cost in a thermal power station, increasingly in recent times the stations were built close to fuel supplies. Bayswater's coal is delivered by conveyor. Millmerran, where I am employed, sits on top of it's own coal mine and consequently has one of the cheapest fuel sources in Australia. Remember again that all coal fired station burn absolute rubbish quality coal. Today that is as it was not always that way.
Solar power using photovoltaic cells takes up a huge area. Really huge: Acres and acres. The great outback (the desert preferably) would be perfect except that it is in the outback: Miles from anywhere. That means huge expense with transmission lines and voltage losses even at high transmission line voltages up to 500KV (500,000 volts). So solar rooftop is a very good alternative, but again not perfect.
Domestic power comes from the three phase power lines that run down your street. Roughly speaking a third of the houses use each phase (which gives us our 240V). They were designed to deliver power and tend to balance out fairly well. However they were not made to have power fed into them and if all the solar power in the street comes primarily on to a single phase rather than spread evenly there is a resulting imbalance. This is why some antagonists say solar is bad. Unfortunately the owners of these lines have not met up to the challenge and they have not anticipated changes in the nature of supply.
Lastly, solar, until an economic form of storage has been developed and whether it is batteries or something else, only delivers an average of say 25% (that's a figure off the top of my head, but it is to convey an idea) as there is not night time generation, reduced generation leading up to dark and after sunrise and varying amounts dependent on the time of year and cloud cover.
Having said that I am a big fan of solar power. When I mentioned this at work to my boss, he said he was OK with that, but I would be the first to go! :( :D
I know this is a little off the retial topic, but it may be regarded as background information as to why the retailers work the way they do. I hope Fletty will contribute more on that front.
Regards
Paul
For a long time Germany was the leader in solar, but it was only 3-4% of their total. I don't know what it is now. Unfortunately the advantage Australia has is that coal is so cheap. It put solar at a severe disadvantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
It the power industry we have thought that there would never be another thermal coal fired station built and I suspect not, but Turnbull has, possibly mischiefly, raised the prospect again. As the governments (state) seem reluctant to build stations it will be down to private industry and they will look at the market and say no way: No stability with governments running around like the proverbial chook.
The batteries are not close to delivering economic storage. The Tesla power wall is an emergency back up. The one in SA when complete will deliver 100MW for one hour and then it's stuffed. They have the smallest demand of the mainland states at up to 2500MW (peak). It will help but it is not an absolute panacea.
Regards
Paul
Regards
Paul
I'm thinking that the tech will probably be right in about 2-3 years and then a couple of years of early adopters so pay for the R&D. That's why I think that batteries will be viable in about 4-5 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bushmiller
However, there's a couple of things that could expedite that with some Govt $$ input (perhaps all 3 levels of Govt). It is clear that we are going to have to do something about generating electricity, and very soon. Power stations take years to build (5 years? Longer?). By starting to mass produce batteries there would surely be a speed up in the R&D process. If the Govts were to fairly heavily subsidise the take up of batteries (in other words make the nett price about the same as post-early-adopters price) there would be a much higher take-up rate which would start to become a self fulfilling prophesy. The money for these subsidies would be from what they save in building coal-fired power stations (surely we are looking at some enormous investments, very soon).
My point being that we need the solution before it can be delivered via new power stations.
There would also be a side-benefit for WA - they have significant Lithium reserves (should quell a little of the political wailing and gnashing of teeth). :U
Power generation has been neglected for too long by both persuasions of Govt. SA last summer was a timely warning to everyone, and a glimpse of the future. The blackout may have been for different reasons, but it happened, and should be heeded.
I would have thought that it is because of increased population individual consumers, rather than industry, that we need these new stations. There is, after all, not a great deal of manufacturing happening here now. O'course, Climate Change and record temperatures aren't helping at all, with increased air-con needed.
There would still be a need for (new) industrial strength power, and I don't know what kind of clean generation can supply that. Pumped Hydro running off Solar arrays?
I saw a story last week that said if we have widespread rooftop solar AND pumped hydro in a few hundred dams all our problems can be solved within a decade.
let me see if I can find it.
Yes, out of a paltry 22,000 suitable sites nationwide for pumped hydro (which is 100s of times more than we need forever, or something ridiculous like that).Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Pfffft. What are we thinking? What would the scientists know? Business & Govt is always right.
Now as interesting as this discussion has become (and should continue), none of this has anything to do with excusing the disgusting behaviour of the retailers, and their rubbery discounts. Regardless, they still have to cope with the vagaries of the system, and could still have "fair to all" consistent prices. I'm sure their mathematicians could cope with working something out.
This one Ev?
Pumped hydro storage 'could make Australia run on renewable energy alone within 20 years' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
This explains Pumped Hydro pretty well:
Pumped Hydro: Australia's energy future? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
This is excellent - explains the state of things very clearly:
4 Corners "Power Failure" from last May:
Power Failure - Four Corners
Chris, you will be very interested at 41.30 (power sharing)
Yes, that was it.
wind, hydro, solar, wave, thermal, batteries = The future.
coal = death, cancer, poison and pollution.
As SWK says in a later post, they are not current standard appliances BUT, due to requirements to sell into markets such as California and (from memory) Oregon and several European countries, many appliances already have the necessary internal switching but we aren't aware of its existence! To use 'smart metering' and 'smart domestic networks' we have to stop thinking in current paradigms. I was heavily involved in a global smart grid project which will produce some fantastic results for humankind but ALL of the clever development work was NOT technical because ALL of the necessary technology already exists. The clever work was in human reactions and interfaces. There is a fantastic project currently being built in Stockholm (and I tried unsuccessfully to get it considered for Sydney's Barrangaroo project as well) and I could rave on for hours about it....... but won't here!Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
The best way I can illustrate it and stay within the theme of this post, is to describe a project carried out here in Western Sydney. A batch of air conditioners was modified by the manufacturer (although I still think that all they did was turn on the feature already hidden inside the unit) and these units were installed in (from memory) 200 homes in the 'hot belt' of Western Sydney. During a hot spell, the network provider could selectively turn off (and on!) the compressor and/or fan. In that way, when the compressor was turned off for 10 minutes per hour, and the fans left on, no customer reported the heat (nor discomfort!) increasing but the peak load on the network was reduced substantially. The key numbers behind this trial are that 92% of Sydney homes have air conditioners AND 27% of the network exists ONLY for peak loads. So IF all of Sydney's air conditioners could have their compressors turned off on rotation for 10 minutes per hour, then this 27% of the network could handle future population growth and not just sit there waiting for about 20 hot days per year? Another use of smart meters relates to my earlier comment about base load generators needing to have a flat load profile. To achieve this, before leaving home, you could load the washing machine and clothes dryer and go to work. The network provider, or even the generator, could see the total network load dropping at sometime during the day (usually between 10 and 11 am) and then remotely start all of the washing machines and especially, the clothes dryers, to even out the load on the network. In this way, the customer would be rewarded by having a lower tariff and the generator would lower the cost of generation resulting from operating at suboptimal loads.
If you want to see where this can lead, get me to tell you about the Stockholm Royal Docks project but make sure you have enough beer and food on hand for a 3 hour discussion on what can really happen IF the networks are able to do what CURRENT technology already allows us to do.
I will probably have more time than expected to write more about this soon because today's doctors visit might mean an operation on my hand and NO WOODWORK for 3 weeks :o
fletty
Oh dear - the dislocated fingers were not in fact dislocated after all?Quote:
Originally Posted by fletty