Future of the Australian Electricity Market

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

MUCH more solar generation, induction rather than (bottled) gas cooktop (how quickly gas has gone out of fashion?)

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At the time we went for solar residential systems were pretty much limited to a 5KW inverter. Subsequently larger arrays were permissible. which allowed 5KW to be generated for longer periods and I am not sure of the restrictions today.

Funny you should mention the gas issue. We are in the process of bringing our "state of the art pre-war (2nd not 1st) kitchen" into the 21st century. As part of the reno we looked at stoves, and while we really like gas for cooking, it is of course a fossil fuel, so we have gone to induction and electricity. In time this will be provided by solar power. Maybe while we are still walking the earth. :shrug:.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Induction is incredible. I read a recent article on the BBC that all the top chefs have (essentially) switched to induction.

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It's damn good alright. I only have a single portable hotplate that I bought to make sure I like it (and I do). This one always delivers full power (2000w) so when I turn it down to 200w it is only on 10% of the time. That's only "kinda" ok. I'm sure that is better controlled with the more expensive "proper" built in units.

However, there is one thing that you can't do with induction (or any other electric cooker), that you can only do with gas – hold the pan above the heat for flipping a stir-fry over and over, which I do ALL the time. A "flip-fry" is far more efficient than a stir-fry for moving the ingredients around. Firstly, with induction, the pan is no longer getting any heat, and secondly the hotplate starts beeping like the house is going to burn down...

We have 3-phase power to the house, 6.6kW of panels on the roof connected to a 3-phase 5kW Fronius inverter. The system routinely kicks out 5kW on a clear sunny day. Output from the inverter is spread across 3 phases, so I needed 3 current sensors when I put in Zappi V2 EV charger. The Zappi needs to know TOTAL solar power being generated across all phases, then it only charges the car at that rate so nothing is drawn from the grid. If the sun goes behind a cloud the Zappi suspends charging automatically until there is enough excess solar to charge again.

No problem adding more panels to the roof, BUT you can't "upgrade" an inverter. That would mean throwing out/selling the existing one and buying a new one of larger capacity. So, if you want to expand solar you may as well add more panels and a new inverter as a separate system (e.g. on my workshop roof). I thought (in NSW) you could have at least 5kW solar per phase, but I'm not sure what the rules are now. I wish I had put on 11-12kW of panels feeding a 10kW 3-phase inverter.

We always thought "gas cooktop is best", so put that in when designing the kitchen. All this "gas bad, electricity good" Animal Farm (Orwell) stuff only happened in the last couple of years I think. I'd need to find an induction unit which would be a drop-in replaceemnt for the gas cooktop in a stone benchtop :(

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

All this "gas bad, electricity good" Animal Farm (Orwell) stuff only happened in the last couple of years I think. I'd need to find an induction unit which would be a drop-in replaceemnt for the gas cooktop in a stone benchtop :(

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For me it's not so much gas being a fossil fuel, because the amount consumed for a cooktop is tiny (also remembering net zero targets). It's having the connection fee of 70c per day, or the bottle storage and refill costs.

Very true. For us, a 45kg cylinder lasts about 5 years (we had gas cooktop in the old house too). At one stage I was starting to think I had acquired a Magic Everlasting Gas Cylinder.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

A Tesla Powerwall 2 is $14,000 installed, and they are 13.5kWh or 13,500Wh, so about 1$ per Wh.

Mr B's Atto 3 has a 60kWh battery and the whole bloody car only costs $48,000+ (and the + doesn't affect the battery size).

Let's say it costs $20,000 to replace the battery in the car. That's about 33c per Wh to purchase a battery that goes into a difficult shape of a vehicle, not a nice neat rectangular box.

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There is rarely a consistent correlation between the cost to produce an item or a service and the cost to the consumer of that item or service. The cost to the consumer is based on what people are prepared to pay. The key is to find a business where you have a low production cost for an item that people will pay a lot more for than the cost of production.

A good example of this is compare the cost of photocopying a document for 10 cents a page. The business scans your document to a digital file then prints out that file through an expensive printer onto sheets of paper which they provide, using lots of resources. Compare this to taking the same document and scanning it to a PDF for 40 cents a page. They still scan your document to a digital file, then save that file onto a USB stick which you provide. They charge you four times as much and use less resources and the only materials you get back, you paid for and supply as a separate transaction.

Why can they get away with this? Because people want PDF copies of documents so that they can email them so they are prepared to pay more for less service because it is convenient. Prices are not dependent on what the item costs to produce. It's all about how much people are prepared to pay for them.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Ok, so I have a question about batteries:
A Tesla Powerwall 2 is $14,000 installed, and they are 13.5kWh or 13,500Wh ...

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Elon's marketeers say the capacity is 13,500 Wh, but when you look at the warrantee his lawyers say that it is 13,100 Wh.

This is a first for me; I think I believe the lawyers.

Work out how much electricity you can realistically put into the battery over its expected lifespan, without rosy glasses, then divide that into the capital cost. Bloody expensive storage fee. Add the interest foregone, and it is much cheaper to buy from the grid!

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

... I can rapidly see a day where my dinosaur will be taxed out of existence.

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Interesting hypothesis, Evan. The governments now collectes a lot of tax on fuel, car import duty and rego, but only spend less than half of that on roads. With the pervasive ethos of not taxing green electric vehicles, this is going to put a big hole in their revenue.

Prepare for an inovative new tax!

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Work out how much electricity you can realistically put into the battery over its expected lifespan, without rosy glasses, then divide that into the capital cost. Bloody expensive storage fee. Add the interest foregone, and it is much cheaper to buy from the grid!

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All the more reason not to buy a house battery now. In reality, it's never been a good idea because of the time to recover costs, but even as house batteries become more viable (price) using your car battery has to be the only way to go – why buy two batteries when you only need one, and that is many times bigger...and cheaper? In the not too distant future you won't have any choice but to buy an EV if you are looking for a brand new purchase. I can see house batteries coming to a grinding halt quicksmart, except for the people who don't drive.

Not very much comes for nothing.

If we use the car battery to power our household, that power had to come from somewhere. That somewhere is either a sufficiently large solar array at your home or the grid ( could be any form of power for the moment although one day it could be 100% renewable.) If you use the car battery to power your home, you don't have that amount of consumed power to run your vehicle and you will have to recharge it somewhere. If your solar array is large enough, you may be able to achieve this, providing you did not have to leave for work (or pleasure) before the sun came up.

What is possible is, if and when peak and shoulder pricing comes into effect, whereby you can charge your batteries and/or car during low prices from the grid and use that stored energy at night when prices are high. We are already seeing this on the grid for the wholesale market and it is the complete opposite of the pricing regime, say, one year ago.

While an EV battery might well be a good back up for night time supply it seems to me that it too comes at a price.

No such thing as a free lunch.

Regards
Paul

Even the smaller EV batteries are (relatively) huge capacity compared to Tesla Powerwall. Our house uses about 9kW/day (including heating hot water in heat pump system) - with very little inconvenience or hardship, I could easily get that down to 6-7kW total/day.

Assuming zero sun and no opportunity to recharge from solar, the 60kWh in the EV is still sufficient for several days' use without impacting too much on the range of the EV. During the recent floods and power cuts in NZ, several Atto 3 owners happily ran their whole house from their car battery for a whole week, and still had sufficient juice left in the car to drive it. These days 60kWh isn't that large for an EV, several already have 70-75kWh batteries. It's a completely different proposition to a Tesla Powerwall.

Paul, I think the general idea with car batteries powering homes is that the house might need (say) 5-8kWh overnight – mostly in the evening – and that is coming out of a battery with a capacity of (say) 60kWh, so it's only consuming 8-13% of the car charge.

The whole scenario will be different for every different consumer: how many days do you work from home (when you can charge your car during the day), how far is it too work, how much power do you consume in the evening, how big is your solar array, can you charge your car at work from green power, and no doubt a few other things thrown in there. Someone mentioned a moveable feast earlier. This has a long way to play out yet, but I do feel somewhat excited to be living through this transition.

In 20 years people will say "What was all the fuss about? The solution was easy." The solution is always easy in hindsight, but it has to be deduced and arrived at first, otherwise we'd have skipped the whole horse and cart thing, skipped ICE vehicles, skipped EVs, and we'd be transporting around in....well, what, exactly? :D

Who knows what is coming soon? With battery tech being a "gold rush" we may very easily find ourselves with batteries that have a module that is easy enough to pull out of the car and drop into the house to run it, while we toddle off to the shops for some Thursday night shopping, or go to work.

I betcha it ends up like battery tools – you have a whole bunch of tools, a smaller bunch of batteries, and just swap them around as needed. More or less :D

Snap....lol

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

These days 60kWh isn't that large for an EV, several already have 70-75kWh batteries. It's a completely different proposition to a Tesla Powerwall.

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Yep, and what's the bet that the vehicle manufacturers start making the whole system modular? Bigger battery capacity for same size, "plug your car into your house, etc etc". It's a whole new marketing opportunity.

When I look at the changes/improvements in battery technology over even the last 3-4 years, the rate of change and innovation is staggering. Sodium ion batteries just starting to appear, and a whole bunch of chemistries that we can barely imagine are already being trialled. Cheaper, higher capacity, smaller, lighter, faster charging, you name it.

In even another 2-3 years the large capacity EV battery market will be unrecognisable. In fact, I know that in probably 2 years the BYD Blade battery in my EV will be considered old tech. Large lumbering infrastructure like power grids, involving huge investments and long payback times, don't handle rapid technological change very well !

I can see hybrid batteries coming: one part that is super quick to charge, another that has range but slower to charge, and another that covers the other...whatever that is... :D

FF,I think you are right about the combo battery.

For the same reason we have several modes of power generation, there will be several modes of storage.

Its hardly a revelation that all tech has the "desirability triangle". As you say, some batteries charge fast, others hold a charge for a long time, others discharge fast.

One battery type might not come out king, but there might be a three-combo-battery installed that has one of each of the three desirable attributes.

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I was thinking about people using their cars during power outages. One COULD use up 80% of the car battery, drive it to town... "fill er up" and toddle off home after doing the shopping.

Another idea is that there is a lot of talk here in Canberra of a Big Battery. Some monster thing.

It hardly takes a genius to see this rolled out in a network ... city, region, suburb, building. Each with their appropriate "size" installed. Hell, why wouldn't the power companies store these monsters in a few car parks in residential buildings to act as giant power-smoothing capacitors and peak-management solutions. I'm sure they are all over it.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

I watched one dude who EV'd an old Beetle and its is so crazy powerful that he had to strengthen the motor housings directly to the transmission and put on a little set of wheelie-bars :) ITS SO COOL!!!

I think there will be a HUGE industry in converting cars to EV.

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I do think there will be some sort of industry with this, but I doubt it will be huge: people who just want a cheap car to run won't be even slightly interested in a fabulously expensive conversion of their little Corolla or Hyundai – they'll just get a proper EV, down the track when they become available on the second hand market. I suspect it will restricted to those who have some kind of "classic" car and who have the bucks to convert it just to keep the vehicle going. I'm not sure what the cost of conversion is, but it has to be around $25k or more (and $15k or more of that is just for battery).

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

One COULD use up 80% of the car battery, drive it to town... "fill er up" and toddle off home after doing the shopping.

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There's yet another marketing opportunity: "Spend $300 and get a free charge while you shop". The more you spend, the longer it takes to get the goodies in the trolley, the more the EV gets charged, and so it goes on.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

I was thinking about people using their cars during power outages. One COULD use up 80% of the car battery, drive it to town... "fill er up" and toddle off home after doing the shopping.

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Or one could have charging available during work hours and plug the car in at home for overnight power supply. We will soon be in that exact position when Master P. becomes the BYD service manager and gets a drive car if we could be bothered but the limited feed from the car would not meet our needs in Winter.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

the limited feed from the car would not meet our needs in Winter.

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That is supposed to change when V2H comes in. There's a few things that need to line up, as this article explains:
Electric Vehicles - V2L, V2G, V2H ...?

I suppose an Atto 3 can be converted to V2H? It's not like you have to change the whole battery, I wouldn't think, just an interface?

V2L will be super-useful for tradespeople. One of the problems with battery operated (high power consuming) tools is that they become heavy. No problem, just take your regular power saw along.

This article: New year, new bidirectional cars: 2023 edition - dcbel


"The Silverado EV offers a 200-kWh battery pack that delivers 400 miles of range, 100 miles more than Ford’s electric pickup. On the bidirectional power front, the Silverado packs up to 10 electrical outlets and can deliver 10.2 kW of power – slightly more than Ford’s 9.6 kW offering. This can be useful on a jobsite or come in handy during a camping trip. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging is possible."

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

That is supposed to change when V2H comes in. There's a few things that need to line up, as this article explains:
Electric Vehicles - V2L, V2G, V2H ...?

I suppose an Atto 3 can be converted to V2H? It's not like you have to change the whole battery, I wouldn't think, just an interface?

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BYD is such a disastrous shambles V2H might be available now and no one would any the wiser.

In my opinion every house hold will go off grid.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

This can be useful on a jobsite or come in handy during a camping trip. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) charging is possible."

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ahem......

Attachment 525768

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Originally Posted by AlexOsk

In my opinion every house hold will go off grid.

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Only if two cr1teria are met.

Firstly, that it is cheaper to generate your own electricity as opposed to buying it from a retailer

Secondly, if you yourself can guarantee continuity of supply.

And thirdly, (my "two" is very similar to my "couple" in that it contains one more, at least :rolleyes: ) you can afford the capitol outlay.

I agree that it sounds quite an attractive proposition, but a little bit too much idyllic.

Regards
Paul

PS: Fourthly ( :D ) you have your own charging station! I am thinking apartment situations here.

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Originally Posted by AlexOsk

In my opinion every house hold will go off grid.

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Time will tell, it would seem impossible for that to happen in large urban areas but never say never. What I think is more possible is any isolated community/village/town will have their own energy storage supplied by local rooftop solar or wind and will be standalone from the grid. My town for instance is an excellent example of that and WA have already started down that path.

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Originally Posted by AlexOsk

In my opinion every house hold will go off grid.

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Not in my lifetime.

But then, 120 years ago, every house was off grid.

Timely article from today's SMH:

The explosive technology that could create batteries from seawater

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Timely article from today's SMH:

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Incredibly irresponsible reporting by the halfwits at the SMH.

Fishing with explosives has been banned in most jurisdictions for eons. Those explosions are incredibly damaging to the environment. They kill or stun all fish within a wide area; they kill everything smaller over a much wider area. Wipe out the bottom of the food chain and you eliminate everything above it.

And the SMH used to be a respected newspaper.

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

And the SMH used to be a respected newspaper.

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Are there any "respected" newspapers left?

I thought "respected newspaper" was an oxymoron, like "Army Intelligence" :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I thought "respected newspaper" was an oxymoron, like "Army Intelligence" :rolleyes:

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boom boom

Basil Brush - Boom Boom!! - YouTube

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

I thought "respected newspaper" was an oxymoron, like "Army Intelligence" :rolleyes:

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boom boom

Basil Brush - Boom Boom!! - YouTube

"I'll be here all week folks, please try the veal"

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Originally Posted by doug3030

Are there any "respected" newspapers left?

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Pravda ?

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Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Apparently people are already ratting the battery packs out of written off EVs (of all brands) to use as very high capacity house batteries. BYD state that the lithium iron phosphate battery (LiFePO 4 battery) in Atto 3 is designed to be shoehorned into an enclosure for use as a house battery when it has reached end of life for the car (maybe degraded to 80% of original capacity - but that's still 50kWh for home use vs the 14kWh of Tesla wall battery). Trouble is the BYD Blade battery is expected to last for over 1 million km in the car, so I may not be around to see that !! Also, at the current (sic) rate of battery chemistry development, it's pretty safe to say that any existing technology will be obsolete in a few years anyway.

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Given that these Lithium-iron-phosphate batteries are so much better, what is stopping these to be standard in domestic wall batteries?
I agree that battery chemistry will make current batteries obsolete. On the other hand, one has to bite the bullet sooner or later! We happen to have bought of 5kW panel array 10 years ago when we had the opportunity to do so and despite the fact that panel efficiency has improved significantly, we have not regretted doing so.

We are thinking about adding batteries to our system but the "cost recovery" would a quite long, particularly now that electricity costs are no longer dictated by supply & demand only and are becoming a political issue.

Cheers,
Yvan

Real cost recovery is an interesting phenomenon.

Spending $10k on a battery to get say $5k back over its lifetime is a narrow way of looking at the "overall cost"

If NOT spending $10k generates $100k+ worth of problem down the road for our kids and grand kids to solve then the $5k immediate cost is cheap.
Leaving the $10k in a will for our kids to solve a $100k+ future problem can also look pretty churlish.

Same reason why I will eventually be getting an EV and replacing my gas HWS with a heat pump (we already have solar and are electric for everything else).
All up I'm considering spending somewhere in the $80-90k range and at this price i'm definitely not saving me any money.
Not sure about a house battery because the car battery will probably soak up any spare solar. I'll wait and see how it goes
I've had a long chat with my son about this and how this would reduce his inheritance, but he is more than happy for me to do this.
AND
if I die sooner rather than later he will inherit the lot anyway.

All this manly applies to people who have the readies, people struggling to pay for pressing expenses like rent and power etc will have different priorities.

In 2010 at a small ski resort village in the northern Italian alps the householders and resort buildings were using/importing/burning $100k+ a year of heating oil to provide heat mainly during the winter.
The net result of all this was that a combination of the topography microclimate together with burning oil turned the local ski fields "brown" and covering the village on many days with a foul smelling smog.
A group of locals hired some engineers (including one of my cousins) and they came up with a plan to burn green waste trimmed from the ever encroaching forrests along road sides, and sawdust from the half dozen or so saw mills in they area.
They setup a pari of highly efficient 10MW biofueled burners that provided hot water to all houses in the village via a large loop PLUS generated electric power.
The stumbling block was every house in the village had to replace their oil burning heaters with a smart heat exchanger at a cost of about 2k euros.
For families with small kids suffering from the smog this was a no brainer but for seniors (mainly older women) approaching the ends of their lives it was a bit harder.
The town committee in charge of the project set up teams of parents and kids to visit these grannies and explain to them why they should switch.
Within a month they had everyone on board.
Result is clean ski fields, no smog - just an occasional faint whiff of piney aroma.

OK this is a small scale local solution and is not being implemented on a larger scale due to the energy economics of biofuel transport and large scale particle generation by burning impacting on health.
Biofuel burning has since been capped in Italy while more efficient burners are being developed, but it still shows a future way of thinking that we seem to be slow at getting onto here in Oz.

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Originally Posted by BobL

Same reason why I will eventually be getting an EV ...

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And they will stop making ICE's.

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... Not sure about a house battery because the car battery will probably soak up any spare solar. I'll wait and see how it goes ...

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Bob, you have the level of mathematics required; have you considered doing some simulations on the various permutations of the alternate strategy of using the car battery as the house battery? If you have an EV it is a sunk cost. I will remain mute for the time being so as not to influence you.

Nevertheless. There are 8,760 hours in a year.

A car driven 20,000 kms in a year at an average speed of 80 kmh is actually driven for 250 hours. It is parked for 8,510 hours - or 97.1% of the time.

A low usage vehicle like mine that does 6,000 kms per year is parked for 99.1% of the year - mainly in my drive.

A commuter's car may spend ~25% of the year parked near the place of employment, mainly in daylight hours.

Most people use their vehicles for less than 100 kms per day, except for the occasional long trip, usually planned in advance.

It would not take a lot of fuzzy logic and a learning curve on a very smart energy manager to integrate solar, the car, the grid and the family's usage patterns.

Over to you.

Another thing to consider is the cost of getting grid power connected to larger acreage properties. We're on 20 acres, house situated towards the back of the block, and I think the cost to get 3-phase power connected from the front boundary was $30k when we first built 20 years ago. I hate to think what it would be now, probably at least $50K or a lot more. The original house had in-slab electric heating running on 3-phase off peak (which was actually surprisingly economical), but due to the damage in the bushfire this wasn't re-usable even though the house slab survived. Bung 15kW of solar on the roof, add some kind of battery storage (house battery, or car battery when V2H is more supported), and even a small back up generator, and go completely off grid? Total cost would still have to be way less than getting a rural property grid connected on Day 1, plus no more supply charges or power bills for all time.

Not convinced about small wind turbines though - cost/benefit analysis doesn't seem to stack up for small home scale systems.