The great energy debate

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Originally Posted by DonIncognito

Interesting article on going 100% renewable

https://theconversation.com/renewabl...ctricity-29200

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DonIncognito

I become a little exasperated when the title of the article refers to 100%, but as you read further down they are really only talking two thirds.

Then there is this statement:

"For instance, South Australia nominally has two coal-fired power stations, several gas-fired ones, and at least 15 operating wind farms. Wind now supplies an annual average of 27% of South Australia’s electricity generation. As a result, one of the coal stations is now shut down for half the year and the other for the whole year. And the state’s electricity supply system is operating reliably without the need for any additional non-renewable energy supply."

Clearly the author is unaware that a significant amount of power is supplied from Victoria on a very regular basis. It is true to say that the bulk of SA's own power generation is wind or other renewable (I don't consider gas renewable, although bio gas may be) and this is for two reasons.

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.

Thirdly, they have Victoria ready and waiting to supply power to top up their shortfall. You can see in the snapshot in pic 3 (post #61) that during the evening peak Victoria was supplying almost a quarter of SA's demand and on top of that the price was almost 50% more than Victoria.

The same article makes reference to 100% sustainability in some European counties, but they too are able to buy power from neighbouring countries. Also it is forecast for quite a way into the future: Not right now.

I am very open to renewables, but such statements are misleading and do the protagonists no favours as they are easily shot down.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

DonIncognito

I become a little exasperated when the title of the article refers to 100%, but as you read further down they are really only talking two thirds.

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Bushmiller

the quote you are talking about is as follows :

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So two-thirds of annual energy can be supplied by wind and solar photovoltaic

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That is not including the contribution made by CST. I had to reread it a couple of times for it to sink in. They are talking about 100%.

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• Wind 46%;
• Concentrated solar thermal (electricity generated by the heat of the sun) with thermal storage 22%;
• Photovoltaic solar 20% (electricity generated directly from sunlight);
• Biofuelled gas turbines 6%; and
• Existing hydro 6%.

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Then there is this statement:

"For instance, South Australia nominally has two coal-fired power stations, several gas-fired ones, and at least 15 operating wind farms. Wind now supplies an annual average of 27% of South Australia’s electricity generation. As a result, one of the coal stations is now shut down for half the year and the other for the whole year. And the state’s electricity supply system is operating reliably without the need for any additional non-renewable energy supply."

Clearly the author is unaware that a significant amount of power is supplied from Victoria on a very regular basis. It is true to say that the bulk of SA's own power generation is wind or other renewable (I don't consider gas renewable, although bio gas may be) and this is for two reasons.

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.

Thirdly, they have Victoria ready and waiting to supply power to top up their shortfall. You can see in the snapshot in pic 3 (post #61) that during the evening peak Victoria was supplying almost a quarter of SA's demand and on top of that the price was almost 50% more than Victoria.

The same article makes reference to 100% sustainability in some European counties, but they too are able to buy power from neighbouring countries. Also it is forecast for quite a way into the future: Not right now.

I am very open to renewables, but such statements are misleading and do the protagonists no favours as they are easily shot down.

Regards
Paul

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The article was not about the current supply situation. It was about what is the optimal mix of renewables that could supply the eastern markets power requirements. It is not just about SA. Its about the entirety of the eastern seaboard.

Of course its about the future. It would be a massive infrastructure project taking years apon years to build. Worth the cost in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by DonIncognito

The article was not about the current supply situation. It was about what is the optimal mix of renewables that could supply the eastern markets power requirements. It is not just about SA. Its about the entirety of the eastern seaboard.

Of course its about the future. It would be a massive infrastructure project taking years apon years to build. Worth the cost in my opinion.

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When I said (back on page 2) I had seen some papers which _plausibly_ showed we could do without fossil fuel, they were indeed the papers written by Mark Diesendorf, the guy who wrote the conversation article. Also spoke to him last year. I say plausible, because I still believe there is a way to go on solar thermal before it becomes commercial. However, I think it will become so long before other technologies such as integral fast reactors which a lot of people are pushing too.

Of course things have changed since he wrote that article, the coal stations in SA are now gone (or good as). And no, this wont happen immediately, it may not happen in my lifetime, but to say it wont happen at all (or even that things wont transition in that direction in the near future) is completely wrong.

Regards
SWK

Solar thermal power stations are up and running. Have a look at the fifty or so listed by wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...power_stations

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

DonIncognito

Firstly, SA's thermal stations are old and ready to be pensioned off. One has shut down already and the other is about to be shut down. They are uneconomic.

Secondly, they have climatic conditions suited to wind farms: Arguably more so than any other state.

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Paul,
two comments.
While one of the coal stations was old and done its fair share (Playford B, being about the same age as eg Callide A). The other one (Northern Power Station) is far from old, at least in power station terms. It was commissioned in the mid 80s, which means that it is only just 30 years old. Somewhere in age between Tarong and Callide B and a good few years newer than Gladstone.

I am not sure that only SA has a climate suited for wind farms. While SA has good wind resources, so does all of Tas, the western half of Vic and the bottom half of WA. While not as good as the other states there are still some good pockets in NSW and Qld.

Regards
SWK

And just to leave with a few interesting tidbits.

From the International Energy Agency, "five countries" reached "socket parity" for residential PV in 2013. That is, the cost to the consumer of power from residential solar cells is less than the cost supplied by their utility.

As of now onshore wind power looks to be cheaper that coal power stations in the US. (US Energy Information Admin).
(Similar numbers by the Fraunhofer institute in Germany, See table 1, but you may say they are biased due to being a solar energy mob
and the financial group Lazards)



Regards
SWK

Good article and a good series of points have arisen from it.

One thing that bothers me is the term "renewable".

To me renewable means you can replce it once it is used as in bio-gas.

Wind and solar - just to be pedantic - are continuously harvestable sources of intermittent energy.

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Originally Posted by Toymaker Len

Solar thermal power stations are up and running. Have a look at the fifty or so listed by wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...power_stations

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Well, I stand corrected on that. I wasn't aware there was so much activity. Even though some of it certainly small and is still in the development phase (like the Australian power station boosters) there appear to be a lot coming on line now, so mass produced standardised (cheaper) plant wont be far away at all.
And it confirms what I said about that technology being _commercially_ available long before some other projected types.

Regards
SWK

I have just re-read the majority of this thread. Hell, it was one of the best discussions I have participated in and so much information was produced both by people active within the industry and those purely intrigued by the issue.

Thank you to artme for raising the subject.

In recent times the SA debacle raised it's head and became a political hot potato. As usual there were polies ducking for cover and casting aspersions well before their mouth was in gear.

Of course they wanted to attribute blame to suit their particular agenda. The chorus of " See, I told you." The disgraceful aspect of that was it was while the consumers were still severely inconvenienced because they were without power.

The first thing to note was that the event was a freak event. Things go pear shaped during freak events.

Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.

Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.

The interconnector between Victoria and SA shut down when it threatened to exceed it's safety margins. That left the remaining generators unable to maintain constant power as the wind turbines (and solar too I believe) have no frequency control.

The electrical power supply in Australia generates at 50Hz, which is the method by which we end up with 240V in our homes. The alternative energy suppliers could not regulate the feed at 50Hz and so the power crisis escalated.

One thing to not is that the freak weather conditions would have challenged almost any power supply and it certainly did that in SA.

I have not really heard at this stage whether steps have been taken to remedy the frequency control situation down there. It would be interesting to hear if anybody has up to date information.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

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Of course they wanted to attribute blame to suit their particular agenda. The chorus of " See, I told you." The disgraceful aspect of that was it was while the consumers were still severely inconvenienced because they were without power.

The first thing to note was that the event was a freak event. Things go pear shaped during freak events.

Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.

Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.

The interconnector between Victoria and SA shut down when it threatened to exceed it's safety margins. That left the remaining generators unable to maintain constant power as the wind turbines (and solar too I believe) have no frequency control.

The electrical power supply in Australia generates at 50Hz, which is the method by which we end up with 240V in our homes. The alternative energy suppliers could not regulate the feed at 50Hz and so the power crisis escalated.

...............

Regards
Paul

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Paul, what I find amusing is your statement "

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Secondly the system performed according to and within the limitations of it's design.

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Followed by an equally amusing

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Thirdly the design was indeed flawed.

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It would be interesting to observe the desgners of the system giving evidence before a Royal Commission in effect saying "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong.:doh:

From my recollection the "chorus" of politicians (and I may add) other real experts all stated that SA had gone too far too early with relying too much on renewables.

Even before this "freak" event happened there were plenty of people saying that, and they were the ones saying "I told you so".

SA is now deficient in baseload power generation as it has chosen to rely on baseload power generators in other states.

With the upcoming shutdown of Hazelwood in Vic, and probably other power generators, they may not be able to get enough power out of Vic.

It is interesting to note that SA over the last few days is going through yet another substantial power outage.

It is also interesting to note that Bob Hawke again renewed his call (at the Woodford Folk Festival) for nuclear power generation in Australia.

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

It is interesting to note that SA over the last few days is going through yet another substantial power outage.

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The cause of the most recent power blackouts here in Adelaide was a severe storm that hit the state on Tuesday night (27/12) and caused widespread damage to power lines, power poles and other infrastructure. It was nothing to do with a lack of baseload power or an over-dependence on renewable energy sources or the Victoria/SA feeder...the blackouts would have occurred regardless of power source. The areas where blackouts were prolonged were mainly in the Adelaide Hills where there are lots of trees and a majority of power supplies are via overhead cables.

No highly centralized power network such as the ones operating in every state and territory could have survived a weather event such as the one above without sustaining significant damage to lines and poles.

My take on the series of events was that freak storms wrecked transmission lines. The remaining wind system was overloaded so it shut down (hence the operating as designed to "protect" the system). However this left the interconnector from Victoria as the only supply, which was unable to cope so it too shut down to protect itself from damage. This resulted in a blackout. Consequently you could consider that there was indeed a design fault.

This is a link to the third preliminary report from AEMO. The final report is due in March.

http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files...ember-2016.pdf

Clearly there are several issues that need to be addressed. The most disturbing factor for me however is the continued dialogue by politicians to cast spin to limit renewable energies. This to my mind is a gross misrepresentation of the facts to suit their agendas and is despicable, if I may quote that cartoon character.

I thought this might be an opportune moment to add further comment following the decision yesterday in SA to shed load instead of firing up a Gas generator. I have no additional knowledge of that strange decision.

One final mention I should make is that the market has changed dramatically since the inception of this thread. Two factors are that the cheap gas has gone and particularly right at this moment we are experiencing an unusually protracted period of hot weather. There are other issues too.

Regards
Paul
(Just a reminder that I work in a thermal power station, albeit good one.)

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I thought this might be an opportune moment to add further comment following the decision yesterday in SA to shed load instead of firing up a Gas generator. I have no additional knowledge of that strange decision.

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Not as easy as it sounds to fire up the second generator at Pelican Point at short notice....because of the current shortage of domestic gas the operator has first to source enough gas on the spot market (=$$$$$$) and then they have to submit an outrageous price bid to sell the electricity.

As I understand they offered the electricity but nobody was willing to pay their price.

So much for the benefits of private enterprise in a service industry.

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Not as easy as it sounds to fire up the second generator at Pelican Point at short notice....because of the current shortage of domestic gas the operator has first to source enough gas on the spot market (=$$$$$$) and then they have to submit an outrageous price bid to sell the electricity.

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This quote from Wikipedia seems to suggest other reasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelica..._Power_Station

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Reduced operation

Since March 2013 the power station has generally operated at half capacity due to over-capacity in the South Australian region of the National Electricity Market. Grid generation capacity was reduced in early 2016 when the Northern Power Station closed. Generation at Pelican Point was increased to full capacity at the request of the South Australian government for at least a week in July 2016, due to much of the state's wind generation being offline due to damaging high winds, and the Heywood interconnector being unavailable due to works associated with a planned increase in its capacity.^[2] It returned to only operating one unit (half capacity) and the owner claimed that the National Electricity Market rules prohibited the second unit from responding to a request for electricity market responses on 8 February 2017.^[3] The result was that the extremely hot weather in Adelaide plus little wind to drive wind turbines led to the market operator requiring "load shedding" for 27 minutes during the evening electricity demand peak.^[4] The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather

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But really the long and the short of it is that we are now reaping the "benefits" of selling off our electricity assets for short term gain, resulting in losing control of them completely.
This is not peculiar to SA, the same thing will be happening in Victoria once Hazelwood is closed down by its' private operator (Engie, also majority owner of Pelican Point).

Jay Weatherill, SA Premier, is now talking about the possibility of "nationalising" electricity generation again!

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

This quote from Wikipedia seems to suggest other reasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelica..._Power_Station

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"The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather." Translation - the second generator was fired up after the national authority granted the plant operators exemption from the supply guarantee rule.

A guaranteed gas supply is still an issue......most of the gas from Moomba and Bass Strait is currently being piped to Gladstone to feed the LNG plant there because they cant get enough gas from local CSG fields.

I don't have an intimate knowledge of the energy suppliers and political cabin Australia so I can only go on reports I read and heard. If these are correct, then the thing that annoys me re this gas shortage is the amount that goes OS. Reports have overseas households in Asia paying less for their Australian gas than Australian households pay. I believe we are the only country selling fuels overseas that allows this price variation to occur.

seems to me, the major issue in SA is a false assumption around the "National energy market".

Leaving aside the issue of transmission losses, which are, I believe, substantial, there are just not the wires required to allow electricity generated in NSW's Hunter Valley to be consumed in Adelaide. Nor the wires to allow most of SA's potential demand to be supplied from Victoria.

so when the sun goes down and the wind's not blowing and everyone is running an air conditioner, there's not enough generating capacity to go around -- unless the gas fired generator at Pelican Point runs both its units. But to run both units requires the operator to enter into a take or pay contract for the necessary gas, the cost of which can't be recovered if the wind is blowing, which it does much of the time.

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

"The owner later clarified that it is not allowed to bid into the market if supply cannot be guaranteed, and it did not have a current gas supply contract for the second unit. It was able to respond promptly one directed to do so on 9 February during continuing high temperature weather." Translation - the second generator was fired up after the national authority granted the plant operators exemption from the supply guarantee rule.

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my translation would be "the second generator was fired up after the operator received an assurance that the cost of entering into a take or pay contract for the required gas to run the second unit would be covered. "

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Originally Posted by ian

my translation would be "the second generator was fired up after the operator received an assurance that the cost of entering into a take or pay contract for the required gas to run the second unit would be covered. "

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Either way the root cause is still the same......a government that lets the nations gas reserves be shipped overseas as LNG at the expense of domestic users.

Quite an interesting day in the generation business, but before I get into that I should congratulate you blokes on doing the research on the SA situation from the other day.

There was quite a deal of mis-information touted initially by politicians and subsequently beaten up by a more than eager media circus. As Kiwigeo and Big Shed have pointed out, the gas turbine station at the centre of the controversy was indeed Pelican Point. After running at half load for a year the owners decided to shut down one unit (mothball), which resulted in a couple of points. Firstly it was not in the availability mix and secondly it was not allowed, as a consequence, to bid into the market. The third issue is that a piece of equipment shut down for a year may or may not start if it was required in a hurry.

As Kiwigeo alluded to, it was not a simple business to crank it up despite the impression from the media that all they had to do was give the order and press the button. The order was given today, but I don't think the unit came into service today. I suspect it was desperately needed in SA, but it didn't run.

So that brings me to the interesting aspect of the day: Today was one of the most volatile in terms of demand and market price that I have seen. Any power generator capable of generating made money today. In recent weeks it has been QLD that was at the top of the money trail, but today NSW took the cake. I calculated that one station with four units had the potential to make $50 million in one and a half hours. This is a round figure and not actual because of a number of factors including contracts.

This occured when the market price hit $14,000/MWhr and remained at or near that level for one and a half hours. Compare this to the 25c/KWhr you pay at the retail level. The wholesale price in KWhrs was $1.40 (more than five times the retail price). The wholesale price has gone up in recent months, but it would still not exceed 10c/KWhr normally.

This is the penalty that is paid under a so-called competitive market: Fourteen times the normal price. Ok, today was exceptional. It will be interesting to see how the weekend develops as temperatures are expected to be considerably higher than today in QLD.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

It would be interesting to observe the desgners of the system giving evidence before a Royal Commission in effect saying "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong.

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I'll reply to this a bit late, I was overseas around Christmas. My comments here might lead on to another post about the current SA situation and will be relevant if I do.

Big shed. "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong" is exactly the situation.

I assume you have been out of the workforce for a few years. There is one thing that has changed over the last decade + which gives me some cause for concern. Many decisions now are made by a group of people working together to come up with a consensus. Which on the face of it seems a good idea, and maybe is in most cases. Lots of people with diverse backgrounds must cover more experience than one individual. However, there are two problems with this. Increasing the number of people partaking in the decision means that the responsibility for the decision is also dispersed. And then the second problem is, do you know if all the people involved actually _do_ know enough about their area of expertise.

In real life, a couple of years ago, one of my colleagues, keen to be a mover and shaker, inserted himself into a number of these decision making processes (with the blessing of my then boss). Due to another similar project I was working on, I found out that the colleague in question had been on a review panel and completely missed a problem and gave the OK to a very dangerous situation. But it wasn't some esoteric problem, it was a simple high voltage clearance issue, clearly laid out in Australian standards. When I had "words" with the colleague, his excuse was "no one else picked it up either" which annoyed me no end, as his role in the group was as the "design expert". Needless to say, he didn't take part in any more of those design decisions.

So to get back to the design of the transmission system and last years SA event. Who are actually the "designers"?
The wind farms are designed by a group of people who are given a set of parameters to meet by the Network operator. Those parameters were put together by the network operator (most likely from an independent group with expertise that the network operator hired). The wind farms themselves are in the clear, they did what they were told. Now AEMO will stand up in court and say "we hired people who had the best credentials, we had processes in place, not our fault". And if the independent group fronts any inquiry, they can take a couple of paths, either "AEMO weren't clear enough in what they wanted" or " wow, this is a totally unprecedented event, no one could have foreseen the need for those particular parameters" (and as there are ultimately very few actual experts and they all work for the independent advisor, no one can/will disagree).

And this has come about, in part, due to the privatisation of the electrical industry. The old state organisations were "inefficient" because they carried people who spent their whole lives thinking about these sorts of out of the box problems. At privatisation all this type of non direct work was dumped with the thinking, "not our core business", if we need it "we will hire the expertise". But if no one is paid to think about the more esoteric stuff, then there will be no one who understands it and the outcomes of rare events become "unpredictable" and expensive.


SWK

And this has come about, in part, due to the privatisation of the electrical industry. The old state organisations were "inefficient" because they carried people who spent their whole lives thinking about these sorts of out of the box problems. At privatisation all this type of non direct work was dumped with the thinking, "not our core business", if we need it "we will hire the expertise". But if no one is paid to think about the more esoteric stuff, then there will be no one who understands it and the outcomes of rare events become "unpredictable" and expensive.

SPOT ON...

Once upon a time these core departments were focussed on supplying the service, water, power, telecoms, and so did all they could to support that. Most times they could return a modest amount to govt. Now they are money making enterprises the focus has moved from safety, reliability etc. to eeking out the last few cents... Look at poles and wired here in WA...

SWK & DE, exactly the same thing is happening in the water industry.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

SWK & DE, exactly the same thing is happening in the water industry.

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and the Telco industry as it has in the banking industry. Banks lend more capital than they actually have at times, the power generation industry supposedly is dimensioned to accommodate typical load demands. Supposedly! "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong."

The Telco and water assets are in the same boat - not every body can get the capacity that they are paying for at the same point in time!!!! Bean counters are dimensioning assets to give the illusion that a certain capacity exists for consumers when in fact it doesn't.

Privatisation is not the golden egg.

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Originally Posted by Mobyturns

Privatisation is not the golden egg.

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No it isn't, but then privatisation was to a large extent the result of public utilities becoming inefficient and carrying lots of deadwood.

Just because an organisation is publicly owned doesn't necessarily mean it will do a better job.
I was living in SA when the State Bank collapsed and it wasn't pretty and that collapse took SA and the people of SA a long time to recover from.

The biggest problem with all these privatisations is that to a large extent Governments have abandoned their supervisory and regulatory roles and they are keeping their fingers crossed that private companies will do the right thing. Trouble is that "doing the right thing" means different things to different people. Maximising profit for shareholders is doing the right thing for a private company, delivering the right outcomes is doing the right thing for Governments and the people at large.

I think I may have mentioned before that in the NSW system, where I spent some time before moving to QLD, the Electricty Commission of NSW was formed to provide continuity of supply. Once a competitive market was created the focus moved to money. This was exacerbated as more stations went private.

Talking of money, in my earlier post I said that $14,000equated to $1.40/KWhr. That was not quite correct: It actually equates to $14/KWhr!!!!!!!! How would you like to pay that instead of 25c?

Regards
Paul

Hi swk,
The Camel is a Horse designed by comity.
:wink:

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

No it isn't, but then privatisation was to a large extent the result of public utilities becoming inefficient and carrying lots of deadwood.

Just because an organisation is publicly owned doesn't necessarily mean it will do a better job.
I was living in SA when the State Bank collapsed and it wasn't pretty and that collapse took SA and the people of SA a long time to recover from.

The biggest problem with all these privatisations is that to a large extent Governments have abandoned their supervisory and regulatory roles and they are keeping their fingers crossed that private companies will do the right thing. Trouble is that "doing the right thing" means different things to different people. Maximising profit for shareholders is doing the right thing for a private company, delivering the right outcomes is doing the right thing for Governments and the people at large.

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Unfortunately we need to define "better" in terms of the community at large and apply that to our planning processes. They were inefficiently carrying a lot of dead wood but delivering the goods, now efficiently making a profit at the expense of the customer and delivering the goods is secondary.

A perfect example of our myopic governments planning abilities.

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Originally Posted by Mobyturns

and the Telco industry as it has in the banking industry. Banks lend more capital than they actually have at times, the power generation industry supposedly is dimensioned to accommodate typical load demands. Supposedly! "The system worked within its' design parameters - it's just that we got the parameters wrong."

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I'm not sure that anyone will admit to getting the design parameters "wrong".

There is a world of difference between "typical load", "expected Maximum load", "anticipated extreme maximum load" and "an event outside the parameters".

for example there are 84,960 minutes in the months of January and February.
if you are prepared to accept that load shedding might be a necessary network response 1% of the time, then over those 2 months, you would anticipate that the "bunnies" who will have their load shedded, will be without power for around 14 hours.
If you increase the network "reliability" to 99.9%, in respect to the avoiding the need to load shed at the "expected maximum load", someone will be without power for 1-1/2 hours. (And 99.9% corresponds to 1 in 1000.)

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Originally Posted by swk

So to get back to the design of the transmission system and last years SA event. Who are actually the "designers"?

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In the case of South Australia it's the Engineers who work for SA Power Networks.

The root issue IMO is the antiquated networks we are working with. These networks are highly centralized so that if one part of the network gets out of balance it brings the whole network down...we should be moving towards smart decentralized networks. The current networks are also heavily reliant on continuous base load power generators for stability...ie they handle non base load generators with great difficulty. Again the solution is a move towards networks that can handle a wider range of generators.

As an aside the Japanese electricity network doesn't operate on a single frequency like the Australian national grid does.....roughly half the Japanese grid operates on 50Hz while the other half is running at 60Hz.

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

The root issue IMO is the antiquated networks we are working with. These networks are highly centralized so that if one part of the network gets out of balance it brings the whole network down...we should be moving towards smart decentralized networks. The current networks are also heavily reliant on continuous base load power generators for stability...ie they handle non base load generators with great difficulty. Again the solution is a move towards networks that can handle a wider range of generators.

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Which only confirms the lunacy of getting rid of most of your baseload power generators before you have implemented a network that can handle a wider range of generators, ie wind and solar.

It is not a good policy to rely on baseload power in other states as the imminent closure of Hazelwood will only reinforce.

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

Which only confirms the lunacy of getting rid of most of your baseload power generators before you have implemented a network that can handle a wider range of generators, ie wind and solar.

It is not a good policy to rely on baseload power in other states as the imminent closure of Hazelwood will only reinforce.

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Agreed......so when are the politicians going to stop waging their war against non thermal generated power and start pushing for upgrading of networks so they can handle same???

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Agreed......so when are the politicians going to stop waging their war against non thermal generated power and start pushing for upgrading of networks so they can handle same???

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To upgrade the networks costs money, no profit in that.

Electricity prices will go up, people will be unhappy and take it out on the pollies at election time so no possibility of the pollies pushing for anything.

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Originally Posted by Bohdan

To upgrade the networks costs money, no profit in that.

Electricity prices will go up, people will be unhappy and take it out on the pollies at election time so no possibility of the pollies pushing for anything.

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Long term there is profit in operating Smart decentralised networks. There is less maintenance and such networks don't collapse when one part of the network goes down......the suppliers spend less time paying out compensation to consumers who've lost their power for days. Long term there are huge savings for the network operators.

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Originally Posted by kiwigeo

In the case of South Australia it's the Engineers who work for SA Power Networks.

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Nope.

SA Power Networks is the distribution provider. They got rid of their last engineer with transmission knowledge a couple of years ago (non core business, you know).

Electranet is the Transmission provider. However, they are one of those companies which largely outsource any design work. They do have people who can analyse the system behavior and they do provide advice to AEMO in that area (I believe) and can in a limited way act on behalf of AEMO.

SWK

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Originally Posted by swk

Nope.

SA Power Networks is the distribution provider. They got rid of their last engineer with transmission knowledge a couple of years ago (non core business, you know).

Electranet is the Transmission provider. However, they are one of those companies which largely outsource any design work. They do have people who can analyse the system behavior and they do provide advice to AEMO in that area (I believe) and can in a limited way act on behalf of AEMO.

SWK

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I stand corrected....so many companies involved I get them mixed up. My late neighbour was an Engineer who worked at Electranet....over the years I had some very interesting conversations with him about electricity networks

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Originally Posted by Bohdan

To upgrade the networks costs money, no profit in that.

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Well, actually...

You maybe have heard the term "gold plating" in the papers a couple of years ago. (How quickly we forget)

Both the transmission companies and the distribution companies in Australia get a payment, called TUOS (for transmission) or DUOS for distribution. The payment was negotiated originally with their individual state governments but subsequently taken over by AER (the Australian Energy Regulator). Part of that payment is based on the capital value of the network.

Consequently if a network provider increases the capital value of their network, they get paid more, so upgrading the network _can_ make a profit.

SWK

Sounds to me that all that the so-called "privatisation" has done is added a couple of extra layers of bureaucracy, adding to costs and infinitely adding to the number of possibilities for "passing the buck".

After WWII the whole electricity industry was nationalised because it was very fragmented and didn't deliver positive outcomes for the consumer.

It seems that it has taken us 75 years to come full circle.

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

... privatisation was to a large extent the result of public utilities becoming inefficient and carrying lots of deadwood.

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"Inefficiency" and "deadwood". Good terms to chuck around by pollies. Much as they are chucking around stuff about "supply security" now.

Was the old ETSA inefficient, did it have heaps of people sitting around doing nothing?
(the answer to this question is probably true for other state electricity bodies too)

Well, the old ETSA had about 6000 people (from memory, might have been a bit less). I cant recall if that was before or after the "right sizing" before the privatisation. But in any case prior to that privatisation the numbers in ETSA were reduced. In the years following the sale _all_ of the individual businesses that I was aware of in generation, transmission and distribution put people back on. The state government obviously cut hard and too far as part of the sales process. They could have done this any time, they didn't have to do it because of a sale.

But how do we compare today. You can find most of the data for employee numbers in the annual reports.
So SA Power network, about 2500 employees
Electranet about 300,
Torrens Island about 150
Northern Power Station (till it was shut down) about 120
Pelican Point about 40

I dont know figures for other businesses, but that's about 3000. So are we at half levels of what we were 15+ years ago?

Well, with the exception of SA Power Networks (and Electranet?), the power stations (and wind farms) all have some corporate governance wrapped up in Engie, AGL, etc. How do we count them and add their numbers in?
All of the electrical sales are done by providers (AGL, Lumo, Origin etc) who run multiple sales staffs, management, corporate functions etc
ETSA used to look after the licensing and electrical work in SA. That's done by the State government through OTR (technical) and Consumer affairs, for licenses, now.
Planning and regulation is now done by AEMO (500+ employees for the whole national grid) at a federal level and ESCOSA at a state level.
That's just some of the stuff needed by the electrical industry but not immediately obvious at first glance.

But that's not all (as they say on the telly)
Those employees shown in the annual reports, _dont count contractors_.
As I wrote in an earlier post Electranet dont have any designers. _All_ their design work (and construction) is done by contractors (Downer ABB etc). Significant amounts of extra electrical industry related work in South Australia is done by contractors.

Seriously, I have been involved in the electrical industry for 35+ years now, and I am not convinced that the actual "efficiency" is any better. "Dead wood" is a topic for another time.

SWK