Future of the Australian Electricity Market

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

What I think should happen and I know this is dreamland stuff is that there should be a community battery which relies on local solar and only buys from the grid as needed. The local solar generation is kept "in house" at an agreed price until it becomes necessary to buy from the grid. My town would be a prime example of where this sort of scheme would work. How pricing would work I would have no idea but I suspect a smart meter could be utilised.

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Unfortunately, as I suggested in my earlier post about wind farms, the motivation for large scale solar, windfarms and almost every other "save the planet" scheme, is actually profit and has nothing to do with climate change, other than to gain support from eco warriors (who not infrequently have very little real knowledge and simply follow the hype), and financial incentives from the government. Domestic PV cuts into that profit, and so is the number 1 enemy for commercial generators. This is why they will never support such a scheme and will find all the reasons they can ("causes grid instability" etc.) to prevent it, unless of course it is owned and run by them. There was an effort a few years ago to impose extra charges on people who install rooftop solar, justified on the grounds that "such people still use the grid but don't contribute to it". In fact we contribute as much as everyone else, but that "poles and wires" daily charge doesn't benefit the energy retailers, so they see their profits threatened by rooftop PV.

We live in a world run and controlled by big business. If they ever tell you that something is good for you or the planet, it's almost certainly better for them!

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Originally Posted by Warb

To make things worse, domestic panels tend to be fixed, rather than on frames that "follow the sun". This means that they are either stuck on the roof at whatever angle and direction that happens to be facing, or adjusted to give a "best average throughout the year" result. They then gather dust, and often their output decays far quicker than the manufacturers would like us to believe.

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I have a fairly substantial 12 volt system in the back of the ute for camping, so this is not quite the same as a domestic system.

Reading Warb's post reminded me of some of the ways I manage the solar power we generate and preserve the battery power.

I have three x 120 amp hour AGM batteries and a solar panel array that attaches to my trailer, connected to the car by a solar panel extension lead. Adding up the wattage the solar panels were sold as, it comes to just over 1000 watts. I think in reality they woudl peak out at 700 watts on a good day.

The solar panels are mounted on the trailer with an adjustable bracket which I can adjust to maximise performance. I can tilt them up to nearly vertical to maximise the morning and evening sun, or lay them down at about 30 degrees for midday and anything in between in steps. Being mounted on the trailer I can also move the trailer through nominally 180 degrees to follow the sun from sunrise to sunset, while adjusting the angle accordingly.

I have a CTEK battery management system that directs the power to any appliances that are plugged in and any surplus goes into the batteries. If push comes to shove, I can run the ute engine for a while to charge the batteries from the alternator, not that this happens often with the size of the battery bank and solar panel array but it's nice to know it is there if needed.

We were camping at Easter this year for 24 days, in conditions where the sunlight was not all that reliable. During that time I was running an Engel 40 litre fridge and a 35 litre Kings Fridge as a freezer. THe power required to run a freezer is a lot more than running a similar sized fridge. There's a 2000 watt inverter in the back of the ute which we make use of for an electric kettle and a small oven, but only if we don't use gas or open fire. If the batteries are full in the evening and the chances of a sunny tomorrow are good we might just be lazy and use the electrical appliances.

I mentioned before about a freezer using a lot of power, so it's best for it to run through the day and not so much at night. The best way I have come up with to conserve power for nigh ttime is to run the freezer as cold as possible through the day so that at sunset, it should be at somewhere around -18 degrees. I normally have about six one-litre bottles full of salty water in the freezer as cooler bricks. In the late afternoon, when the indicator panel on the battery management system indicates that no more power is going into the batteries, I place two of the cooler bricks into the fridge and turn the freezer thermostat down to -8 degrees. Unless it is a very warm night it is rare after that for either the fridge or freezer to start up overnight. Even on a hot night, the freezer will maintain lower than -8 and the fridge will be below 1 degree. We run lights and a stereo off of the battery bank whenever we wish to, mostly in the evening.

Now of course, I don't always have to utilise all the ways I have available to maximise power usage. It is rare for me to adjust the angle on the solar panels through the day as the sun rises and sets. A nice average angle for the whole day is plenty most of the time, but the adjustment is there to be used when needed. Following the sun with the trailer is real easy and happens four to six times a day regardless. It's all about knowing the state of the batteries, the possible weather forecast and knowing when not to use big power consumers. I have a phone app that monitors the batteries and I don't even have to get out of bed to use it.

It's not uncommon for us to have about 20 of other people's mobile phones and tablets plugged into our charging ports through the middle of the day when we have plenty of power. I did enough rough camping when I was in the Army. Now I'm older I enjoy the luxuries I have worked for.

I use a similar method to Doug to bank the surplus from our panels instead of exporting it and it seems to work. During the day I run the heating (heat pumps) no matter what the day temperature is and bring the house up to 24 degrees and by watching the data from the inverter generally manage to heat the house without drawing from the grid. After the panels start to lose output that heat now banked in the house structure keeps the need for heating to a minimum and about two hours before going to bed all the heating can be turned off and that works well.

This is the first year I have tried this because our winter power bills have been generally low and we get a huge discount from the invoiced figure but I could see the need to be more careful due to the increasing power costs. I have also changed my view of how to use the power from the panels and my aim is never to export power unless forced to for obvious reasons. I doubt many people are getting zero power bills these days due to the very low FIT and the export limits being imposed on PV panel owners. Houses that are not occupied because everyone is at work or school would require a somewhat different approach but it still could be done to some extent.

I hadn't looked in here for a couple of weeks, and there's been a flurry of activity!

A very interesting announcement from Toyota yesterday, re solid state batteries for cars, but no production for 3-4 years yet. Much more output, safer, and crazy short charging times.
Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars | Automotive industry | The Guardian

In 3-4 years I'd expect other significant developments in battery tech from other players.



There doesn't seem to have been any further movement in rolling out V2H in Australia that I can find. That will certainly improve Graeme's economics significantly, albeit at the cost of purchasing an EV.

Probably nearer to happening, the addition of niobium to anode/cathode offers massive advantages without changing too much else in lithium-chemistry batteries:

Niobium in Batteries - Battery Design

These batteries are already being manufactured in prototype quantities, and (significantly) would require minimal changes to existing battery production lines. Just imagine the benefits to our very limited charging infrastructure if cars could charge from empty to full in <10 mins??

Niobium is fairly scarce (already widely used to make high strength, low weight steels), but there has recently been a promising new niobium deposit discovered in Australia - check the chart for WA1 on ASX. Yes, I bought quite a few WA1 a while ago at $1.50/share.....it's been very good to me ! :D

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

... There doesn't seem to have been any further movement in rolling out V2H in Australia that I can find. That will certainly improve Graeme's economics significantly, albeit at the cost of purchasing an EV.

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Another way of stating that, FF.

According to Car Sales, a Tesla Model 3 has a 60 kWh battery capacity and a a drive away price of $62,505 - although I have seen prices as low as $57,400 advertised.

Tesla Powerwalls have an initial capacity of 13.1 kWh per unit and locally the installed cost is $13,000-13,500 for the first unit plus $9,500-10,000 for each additional unit. Five PW's would have a capacity of 65.5 kWH and would cost $51,000-53,500. (Sorry that I cannot be more precise with the costings.)

Thus the car would cost about $10,000 more than the batteries.

To this one would have to add the costs of a very smart energy management system.

An article on the current retail prices (and by default the wholesale prices too):

Questions raised about 'overly generous' power price rises amid tumbling wholesale costs (msn.com)

I would have said it was a very reasonable report until I read this:

"Following the closure of Liddell, which had a notional capacity of about 2000MW, big energy users have raised concerns about the security of the system as more coal plants retire."

That statement makes me question whether their other information is correct. True, Liddell once had four units capable of 500MW each. When it closed down there were only three units running and they had been derated to 300MW. You don't have to be Einstein to work out that is only 900MW maximum and is probably why the closure did not have as much impact on the market as would be expected from the design rated capacity. Added to that, Liddell was a bit of a dog going back nearly forty plus years when I was briefly there and the reliability was an issue even back then. When it closed, it was over fifty years old coupled with a hard life and at times insufficiently maintained.

Regards
Paul

Very interesting video on Nickel-Hydrogen batteries published by Matt Ferrell a couple of days ago. No good for small batteries, but excellent for scaled up storage where space is no real problem. Fifty year old tech too, so very well tried and tested, and with a huge temperature operational range. Safe too, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

... I would have said it was a very reasonable report until I read this:

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I share your frustration with inumerate journalists, Paul. Journalism schools do not teach their students to count. It is a favourite topic of conversation amongst economists, often reduced to - "How do we dumb this down so the journos can understand it?"

But the main thrust of the article is still relevant.

The closure of Liddel has taken up to 900 MW from the network, but it is baseload supply which is particularly relevant when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. It is not a binary issue, it is simply reducing the available supply of a product with an inelastic demand and which will put substantial upward pressure on prices. This is Economics 101 stuff. Supply goes down, demand remains largely fixed, prices rise, costs remain fixed, profits soar. The next round of corporate reports will verify this.

This looks very much like a segment of a greater plan to manipulate prices under the guise of environmental responsibility and ecomomic competition. But competition in any oligopoly is illusionary. It is actually the ugly face of capitalism.

Déjà vu - California 2000 - all over again.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

... Very interesting video on Nickel-Hydrogen batteries published by Matt Ferrell ...

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You have done it again, FF, quoting Matt Ferrell.

He is very entertaining, he finds some very interesting source information, but as soon as he starts talking my snake oil detector shrieks. But I still enjoyed the video.

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

... as soon as he starts talking my snake oil detector shrieks.

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I haven't seen a whole bunch of his vids, but he seems pretty balanced, talking about pros and cons. Now if it was Elon Musk presenting, that would be somewhat different! (in snake oil credibility, leaving out Musks's absolute crap presentation, business, and humanity skills)

Perhaps any American accent these days makes us concerned? :C

That tech also has NASA credibility behind it, so apart from the fake moon landing :doh:, entirely believable.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I haven't seen a whole bunch of his vids, but he seems pretty balanced, talking about pros and cons. ...

That tech also has NASA credibility behind it, ...

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No arguements about that at all, FF. But NASA's concept of cost efficiency is a little different from mine and yours. Remember, they are the guys that spent $8 million 1960's dollars to develop a biro that worked in space. The Russians just used a pencil.

Matt seems to be mesmerised by the science of science - all good - but his grasp of economic reality and risk seems rather remote. That part of his presentations is in snake oil territory in my view.

But his stuff is very entertaining; jus google his name and you will get hundreds of hits.

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

...... but his grasp of economic reality and risk seems rather remote......

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Companies developing such technologies are, I suspect, doing so on the basis that the demand side of "supply and demand" has been skewed by the climate debate to the extent that governments (and some companies) will these days ignore all logic and common sense, and pay outrageous sums simply to be able to say "we're doing something".

As the new worldwide religion, "climate action" can be used to justify anything. It doesn't matter whether it's a massively expensive battery, or the replacement of loss-making free "single use" plastic bags with profitable $0.50 "re-usable" ones (they're exactly the same, but you can tell they're reusable because they have it printed on them!), companies will do it, and profit from it, because the faithful will lap it up.

I wouldn't mind betting that governments the world over start ordering these batteries. They don't need to work, or even be delivered, because (I've watched too much Utopia!) the _announcement_ is everything!

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Remember, they are the guys that spent $8 million 1960's dollars to develop a biro that worked in space. The Russians just used a pencil..

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I have little regard for NASA efficiency but before this urban myth is further propagated maybe read this
Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil - Scientific American

In short, using pencils is dangerous in space so the Russian now use the same US$4 "Space pen" as developed by an American private company (not NASA).

What now, Bob; that leftist rag the Scientific American is now peddling FAKE NEWS!

I much prefer my story, and if it is not true, then it should be.

Well, having just got our latest bill I'm so glad we've just installed a bunch more solar!

Our peak rate has just gone from 40.3c to 55.99c, which is a 39% increase. Shoulder has gone from 32.3c to 49.7c, a 54% increase. Off peak from 25.1c to 31.1c, a 24% rise.

The daily charge has gone from 166.2c to 177.1c, a 6.5% increase.

Interestingly our feed-in for the PV hasn't changed, still at 6.7c

You are gunna need some discipline, Warb.

First, do not switch the lights on when the sun ain't shining.

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

You are gunna need some discipline, Warb.

First, do not switch the lights on when the sun ain't shining.

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I've invested heavily in luminous paint............

My NASA story.
As a kid in the 1960's I was mesmerised by the space race, read all the space related books in the local public library, collect news items about space launches, listened to various rocket launches, collected and hung up space posters in my bedroom. Like many kids I dreamed of being an astronaut or astronomer or something associated with "space". My interest waned a little as pop and rock music gained precedence as a teenager but I was still interested enough to sign up for the closest uni degree possible in that area (physics) in WA.

As I progressed through my degree I became more interested in nuclear physics and ended up doing a doctorate in that area, and my first job after that was at the same uni studying pre-solar system nano-diamonds found in certain types of meteorites.

Then I went to work in the US (Scripps institution of Oceanography at UCSD in San Diego) where I researched pre-solar refractory fragments and more pre-solar nano-diamonds. Even though I worked at UCSD my position was funded by research grants from NASA. At UCSD our research group was loosely connected to a large group called "Cal-Space" and our supreme leader (who I only saw once for about 10 seconds) was Sally Ride (first US woman in space). Just across and up the road from the lab I worked in was the Cal-Space building. 11 floors full of manly astronomers. I only went once and was bitterly disappointed - rooms fully of people glued to computer screens. Being someone that liked to work with my hands I felt somewhat vindicated that I had chose a more hands on lab based career.

During my time in the USA I went to several space related conferences including 3 at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Got to see samples of those all big 1960's rockets and lunar landers etc - impressive but also sad because there were no manned launches going on while I was in the US due to the Challenger disaster. The rockets and lunar landers also all depressingly look more "thunderbirds" than the latest and greatest.

After returning to Perth I started uni teaching so my time for research was limited but I did study pre-solar mineral grains for a few years before switching to Environmental research.

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Originally Posted by Warb

Well, having just got our latest bill I'm so glad we've just installed a bunch more solar!

Our peak rate has just gone from 40.3c to 55.99c, which is a 39% increase. Shoulder has gone from 32.3c to 49.7c, a 54% increase. Off peak from 25.1c to 31.1c, a 24% rise.

The daily charge has gone from 166.2c to 177.1c, a 6.5% increase.

Interestingly our feed-in for the PV hasn't changed, still at 6.7c

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And here’s me complaining about paying 36cents peak. I’ve got a 13kW PV system but no battery. Negligible bill in Summer, but winter is a different story. If I had to pay the rates you’re being charged, a battery might make more economic sense. These price rises are going to hurt a lot of people.

cheers, ajw

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Originally Posted by ajw

And here’s me complaining about paying 36cents peak. I’ve got a 13kW PV system but no battery. Negligible bill in Summer, but winter is a different story. If I had to pay the rates you’re being charged, a battery might make more economic sense. These price rises are going to hurt a lot of people.

cheers, ajw

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Have you had a bill post July 1st? The price increases just sneaked on to the last 3 days of our new bill, they came in on 1st July.

I had a look on the government "compare power suppliers" website, and there are a couple of companies still offering prices in the thirty-something cents range. However, I'm not 100% convinced that it's not just because they haven't yet pushed their increases through. It strikes me that delaying their increases might cause many people to swap, and then get hit with the same increase next month ("prices may change")! The other interesting point is that my own supplier, on that government website, is quoting a slightly lower rate than they're actually charging us - only a cent or so, but nonetheless lower. I'm not sure why that is!

Having just upgraded my PV, and coincidentally got a bill with a massive price rise, I decided it was time to investigate options with my choice of power supplier. As often happens (at least to me!) I got sidetracked into reading about schemes where the suppliers can take control of your solar battery and discharge it to the grid at times of supply shortage. They pay you a potentially far higher rate for your export, because it reflects the high wholesale price at that time. I then realised the particular scheme I was looking at was not available to me, because I'm on the Essential network rather than Ausgrid....

So, a quick search for similar schemes on the Essential network. One of the hits on this search was this page:

Amber power

Then things got interesting. That page talks about the exporter (me!) paying THEM for power I export at certain times of the day. Whaaa? The time period in question is 10am to 3pm, which is half of the daytime "shoulder" TOU period. Now the charges aren't huge (they seem to be around 1.5c/kWh), but why?

Another link from that page:

Amber power


This contains a section on why FiT's turn negative. And I can understand that. Except, "renewable energy" isn't inherently identifiable as "renewable". It's not like a can of "organic" beans on a supermarket shelf, the customer doesn't know that it's "renewable energy" running his/her fridge at that time, it's just power. And we're being told that the 54% increase in the shoulder tariff is because power is in short supply and costs a lot to generate. Yet here is a scheme that is charging people to export power, because there's "too much of it". This doesn't seem to compute...

How can it be that the daily charge, and the poles and wires portion of each kWh, has risen massively over the last few years, justified as "gold plating" the network, yet we are having our exports limited because "the grid can't cope". And now, when the cost of power is increasing massively because of "shortages" and "cost of generation" we are also being charged to export power because "there's too much". Call me cynical....!

It is my intention to continue to tune my lifestyle and PV to be self-supplying, rather than to export power, so it doesn't directly impact me. But still, are we all just being taken for a ride?

This post exploded on Reddit ¹ overnight: The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On | IFLScience

These big kahunas have blades that are 123 metres each.... and generate 16-megawatts

Nice!

Imagine having a few thousand of these pumping power 24x7

I was also reading up on General Electric (GE). They can't keep up, I believe they've just shipped their 40,000th turbine: GE Wind Energy - Wikipedia



1 -https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/15csjqh/the_worlds_largest_wind_turbine_has_been_switched/

Imagine, during the costs of supporting the epidemic, rather than spending 300 billion dollars (?) we had put a bit of that towards something like this: The World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm - Dogger Bank Wind Farm

Dogger Banks cost GBP 3 billion and feeds power enough for 6 million homes.


Lets call that AUD 6 billion.... and build 3 such things.

Thats ~ $1000 per person for a system that can pump endless power for everyone.

Seems cheap.

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Originally Posted by Warb

Then things got interesting. That page talks about the exporter (me!) paying THEM for power I export at certain times of the day. Whaaa? The time period in question is 10am to 3pm, which is half of the daytime "shoulder" TOU period. Now the charges aren't huge (they seem to be around 1.5c/kWh), but why?

Another link from that page:

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Warb

Welcome to the wholesale market pricing structure. The pricing structure in the whole sale market is the first step (of at least four) that controls the stability of the grid (frequency to be exact) and is the basic supply and demand model.

My understanding of Amber is that it is there for those who already have a battery storage system (only some batteries are compatible, but they are listed) and become linked to the smart technology (two different products available) supplied by Amber. Amber itself is a collaboration and at least partially experimental as far as the retail market is concerned.

This is their reasoning behind the feed in tarrif during the 10-3 period.


"The reality is that the wholesale price of energy dipping below zero on occasion is a curious symptom of the success Australia has had in adopting rooftop solar. While in most of the world, the energy transition is at a point where the market will take as much renewable power as you can give it, we are reaching the next stage of the transition - where the problem is often not the supply of renewables, but demand at the times when they’re being generated. "

The charge is to encourage solar owners to use their power at low periods and conserve power during the high periods. The customer receives a bonus price during the periods of high demand. If a rooftop/battery supplier can use all the energy generated during that off peak period, either by consuming in the house or charging batteries including an EV, no FIT charge would be incurred. The Amber software is designed to facilitate that apparently.

It is an interesting option, but you would have to examine it closely to see if it suits your particular setup. I envy the multitude of choices you have.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

This post exploded on Reddit ¹ overnight: The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On | IFLScience

These big kahunas have blades that are 123 metres each.... and generate 16-megawatts

/

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Evan

I think it is rather appropriate that the world's largest generating station (potentially as opposed to in reality) should also have the largest wind turbine. Quite a renewable installation!

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Warb

How can it be that the daily charge, and the poles and wires portion of each kWh, has risen massively over the last few years, justified as "gold plating" the network, yet we are having our exports limited because "the grid can't cope". And now, when the cost of power is increasing massively because of "shortages" and "cost of generation" we are also being charged to export power because "there's too much". Call me cynical....!

It is my intention to continue to tune my lifestyle and PV to be self-supplying, rather than to export power, so it doesn't directly impact me. But still, are we all just being taken for a ride?

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Warb

I meant to comment on this too, but I got distracted.

In regard to the service charge, it does appear there is an anomaly, a bit like bank fees. Unfortunately, the distributors, who look after the transmission lines, have been creaming off the top for years and are now whingeing like a stuck pig when they have to part with some maintenance money.

Are we being taken for a ride? Highly likely.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

The charge is to encourage solar owners to use their power at low periods and conserve power during the high periods. The customer receives a bonus price during the periods of high demand. If a rooftop/battery supplier can use all the energy generated during that off peak period, either by consuming in the house or charging batteries including an EV, no FIT charge would be incurred. The Amber software is designed to facilitate that apparently.

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I understand the logic, what I don't understand is why, if there is too much power available between10am and 3pm, the shoulder TOU tariff has just gone up by 54% because "there's not enough power available"...

Actually I do understand it, but I'm surprised they don't have a better solution. If we continue down the path of renewable energy, this situation will only get worse (more solar at lunchtime than people can use). If they punish us for exporting power, it leaves us with the option of buying more batteries or wasting potential power (limiting exports). Surely neither is great for the environment or the power companies? If I buy another battery, and at present that's what I'm planning, I entirely remove my need to buy power, except on the worst days. I may choose to let them use some of that in an "Amber" style system, but whilst that satisfies my desire for "community" it doesn't really help the major power generators stay in business - if everyone did it would we still need all of them?

It seems to me that a better option would be to either have an additional new TOU tariff, or even another controlled load system, where water heaters etc. would be run in the middle of the day. The rollout of either system could be staged, perhaps giving those claiming support for their power bills first go, such that new customers would only be taken on board as excess power became available (i.e. more solar installations came online). This would shunt the load from overnight, where most water heating etc. is currently done, to peak solar hours to match the changing supply arrangements.

The logic behind off-peak and controlled loads was, as far as I understand it, to encourage people to use the nighttime generation of base load generators that couldn't be switched off, at a time when the demand for power was otherwise low due to everybody sleeping. If that model of generation is changing, surely the model of charging must also change to encourage usage in the new peak generation periods?

The software controlling my inverters and batteries has the ability to allow secure access to an API from which I, or anyone I choose to allow, can see and control what the system is doing. I believe that is how Amber's software can control people's batteries, but I don't know for certain.

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Originally Posted by Warb

The logic behind off-peak and controlled loads was, as far as I understand it, to encourage people to use the nighttime generation of base load generators that couldn't be switched off, at a time when the demand for power was otherwise low due to everybody sleeping. If that model of generation is changing, surely the model of charging must also change to encourage usage in the new peak generation periods?

The software controlling my inverters and batteries has the ability to allow secure access to an API from which I, or anyone I choose to allow, can see and control what the system is doing. I believe that is how Amber's software can control people's batteries, but I don't know for certain.

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Warb

Much of what you say is true and logical. Unfortunately the electricity market is dynamic for the moment and it is struggling desperately to find it's feet. In fact, it is stumbling most of the way. We have something of a paradox and the "off peak" system has not yet caught up.

There is this anomaly: The period of low demand is still nighttime and the two morning and evening peaks, but in today's environment it is also, paradoxically, the period of highest prices. Until renewables can supply 100% of the market on a reliable basis, this situation will continue. What has not happened is for the off peak segment to move to those hours between 10am and 3pm. This will come, but is being hampered by the commercial market that by necessity needs to make a profit (the electricity market is a utility that should never have been privatised, but we are well and truly stuck with that). So, for the moment the pricing structure has to ensure viability for the fossil fueled generators (coal and gas) so they can economically survive: It is true to say that if the fossil fired generators pulled the plug (sorry about that one) and said "We're outa here. Can't make money," the country would be in dire straits and life as we know it would change dramatically.

As it is the old traditional stations are being phased out with timelines being brought forward all the time. As that occurs, it will alter how renewables function with an increasing emphasis on storage. The variable rates, including negative pricing, are very likely to find a firm place in the price structure. However, like the station I work at now the positive pricing outweighs the negative and it will always be that way.

I think that you and probably many of the rest of us are a little aggrieved to find that we committed to rooftop solar and in so doing kickstarted the renewable trend and now find that at times they want to charge us! It goes against the grain. However, in the smart system, I would think there must be a function that simply turns off feeding back to the grid and that would remove the problem. During that time you would charge your water heater, run your pool pump, charge your storage battery and run the air conditioning flat out on any additional surplus of power. Oh to be in such a position! :)

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I think that you and probably many of the rest of us are a little aggrieved to find that we committed to rooftop solar and in so doing kickstarted the renewable trend and now find that at times they want to charge us! It goes against the grain. However, in the smart system, I would think there must be a function that simply turns off feeding back to the grid and that would remove the problem. During that time you would charge your water heater, run your pool pump, charge your storage battery and run the air conditioning flat out on any additional surplus of power. Oh to be in such a position! :)

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I'm not really aggrieved, frankly since the ending of the ludicrous 60c FiT my PV systems have only made trivial dollars over and above paying the bills. The negative FiT isn't really an issue either, I haven't signed up for such a scheme and, as you say, I have the ability to limit my export to whatever I want - though I'm not sure I can do that by time-of-day without writing some code!

I think what annoys me most is that "green" is being used as an excuse to make more money without actually doing any work. This isn't limited to the electricity market, in almost every case any measures purporting to be green are in fact thinly disguised profit grabs, and what's worse is that so many of the "climate action now" brigade are fooled every time. This negative FiT is just another example. It is clear that we need to change our consumption patterns to match the availability of power from renewable generation. it is also clear, as you say, that we need to artificially keep the old stations alive (aka profitable) until we no longer need them. But instead of approaching this in a pro-active and future friendly manner, we instead use it as an excuse to do nothing and grab more cash. Worse still, as you say, we are taking the opportunity to build things like the negative tariff into the system, and in the future such things will be justified on the basis that "they've always been there".

I suspect the real cause of this is not the requirement to make a profit, it is the requirement to always make more profit. Until we, as a society, realise that constant growth is neither a requirement or even a possibility, we don't stand an ice-cream's chance in hell!

Edit: I've just ordered another battery!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warb

... Our peak rate has just gone from 40.3c to 55.99c, which is a 39% increase. ...

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Just got the latest power bill. Our all inclusive rate (Tariff 31) has just gone from 27.6310c to 29.9470 cents per kWh - an increase of 8.4%. Feed in rate is 10.869c kWh.

But they did increase the daily service fee from 98.9320 cents to $1.137720 per day - a 15% increase.

Yes, they do quote all those decimal numbers.

[QUOTEwoodPixel] ... These big kahunas have blades that are 123 metres each.... and generate 16-megawatts

Nice!

Imagine having a few thousand of these pumping power 24x7 ... [/QUOTE]

WOW, those numbers are impressive, Evan.

Here is a chance for Albo to lead from the front. If he is smart then he could give the contract to a coallition contributor. Wonder how many of them would fit in the ACT?

We could start with one on the flag pole at Parliament House. But should it be orientated to catch the breeze or the hot air?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Just got the latest power bill. Our all inclusive rate (Tariff 31) has just gone from 27.6310c to 29.9470 cents per kWh - an increase of 8.4%. Feed in rate is 10.869c kWh.

But they did increase the daily service fee from 98.9320 cents to $1.137720 per day - a 15% increase.

Yes, they do quote all those decimal numbers.

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Tasmania. Your single rate is lower than our off-peak, and so is your daily charge. And what a nice place to live...... But cold!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warb

Tasmania. Your single rate is lower than our off-peak, and so is your daily charge. And what a nice place to live...... But cold!

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No; we can afford to turn the heat pump on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GraemeCook

No; we can afford to turn the heat pump on.

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If you really want to taunt us, tell us you heat your house by burning Huon Pine.........

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajw

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

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When we bought our new property, it had an old PV installation on the house roof, with an equally old "dumb" 4kW inverter. I built a new workshop, then installed 20kW of PV (2 inverters) on the new workshop, and replaced the inverter (keeping the old panels) that was on the house. On my previous farm I had used SMA inverters, but over the years I noticed that each time I installed a new system (we converted all the irrigation pumps etc. to grid-interactive PV, and put solar on several buildings) the new SMA inverters seemed more troublesome, had issues and generally didn't seem as bomb-proof as the earlier ones. Their support also fell apart, the last inverter we installed there was a 3phase 20kW unit that died after a week or so, took ages to replace under warranty, the replacement was clearly a repaired unit and (although we never found any limit in the settings) would peak at 18kW output - the monitoring showed a flat topped output graph, the output "stuck" at exactly 18kW for 6 or more hours in the middle of the day. SMA didn't care! I also looked at replacing my "home built" backup power system and discovered that SMA were unable to help as they were changing their range and could give me no idea when their new solution might be available. And then there was the "SolarCoin" debacle, don't get me started!

So, being disillusioned with SMA, I went with SolarEdge for the system at the new property. There were a couple of minor issues during the installation, mostly down to comms between the inverters, but it seems to be working fine now. The initial install had a single 10kW SolarEdge battery, but we have realised that 10kW isn't enough to isolate us from the grid. At present (winter, PV is gone by 5.30pm), if we heat the water through the day and use no power for heating or cooking, the battery is at 4% (plus 10% reserved for backup, see below) in the morning - not enough to start the coffee machine without importing from the grid. As we are just about to replace our cooktop with an induction unit, the single battery isn't enough.

I suspect that during the summer, the single battery would be OK if no air-con was used at night, but I'm setting this place up for my retirement so I'm trying to get it right now and have minimum maintenance (and bills) later.

The SolarEdge system seems OK. It auto-switches to battery backup mode in the event of a grid failure, and that backup will auto-restart from PV in the morning if the battery runs out at night, which pretty much gives us an ad hoc off-grid system. The amount of battery reserved for backup (i.e. not normally discharged) can be set by the user, and it can also take a generator input if required. SolarEdge also supply load control units, that are programmed from a web interface but driven from the inverters (so work even if the internet is unavailable) that allow loads like water heating, underfloor heating etc. to be switched using both a timer control and "excess solar" - the advantage over a time clock being that on a cloudy day the load doesn't burn grid power at midday, but heats on the normal cheap rate overnight power.

The one problem that I have so far found is that their monitoring system doesn't, bizarrely, allow the setting of a FiT. This means their revenue calculations are incorrect, and worse they can't/won't tell me whether exported power is discarded by their calculations or priced 1:1 with imported power. This seems a fairly significant omission/error for a PV company, but perhaps the rest of the world doesn't have FiT's the same way that we do?

I don't know if the SolarEdge battery can be used standalone, like a Tesla Powerwall, and I'm guessing probably not because it is DC coupled rather than AC. But so far (early days) I'm quite impressed with SolarEdge.

I have no affiliation with SolarEdge, this is simply my experience of owning a SolarEdge system (for 2 weeks!).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajw

Warn, what battery did you buy? I’m starting to think more seriously about adding one to my system.

cheers,

ajw

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Attachment 529288

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I suspect(ed) that the batteries will never pay off their financial investment. However.....

When I did my rough calculations, I recall allowing for a sensible increase in the cost of grid power. At no point did I allow for the 50% price increases that I've just experienced. Such price hikes, if they are a sign of things to come, may significantly change the equation. Averaging the choices on the government "Energy Made Easy" website suggests that current power offerings would cost a house of 4 to 5 people (with electric heating, electric water heating) around $6170k/year in electricity. That's a lot of coin and looks likely to increase into the future.

Grid stability in my area has been OK at best. In the 6 months that I've lived here we've had maybe 5 outages, from minutes to several hours each. Given the transition from fossil fuel to renewables and given that the grid doesn't as yet seem to have been prepared for this, will this instability get worse? Who knows, but my panels and batteries isolate me from this, at least to some degree.

I'm retired. At present I have the cash to allow me to buy PV and batteries. In the future, given a stock market crash or a few months/years of low returns from investments, I may not only struggle to buy panels, but I may struggle to pay the power bill. My PV and battery investments, to some degree, isolates me from this too.

The price of PV and batteries seems to be increasing. The research that I did on batteries suggests that the quoted installed price today is higher than that quoted (internet references only!) a couple of years ago. Batteries are expensive, and the components to make them are shipped several times around the planet before they end up here. As transport and raw material costs increase, they seem likely to get more expensive. Today I can afford them, but if I wait....?

Having said all that, an acquaintance has just this afternoon told me that after the AI and UFO hearings in the US at present, the entire world will be shaken up and unrecognizable, so who knows? (I'm guessing he doesn't!)

The only thing that we can say for certain about the future, Warb, is that it will be different from what we predict.

All the industry promotional stuff that I have seen on batteries has been filtered through extremely rosy glasses. Media "analyses" tend to be done by innumerate journalists - little more than rewriting PR hype. You have to do a thorough cost:benefit analysis of you own situation. In my view you cannot rely on any advice from the industry:

• Zealots have very rosy glasses, and
• Snake oil salesmen are snake oil salesmen.

In my view, the current exhorbitant electricity prices are artificial should be regarded as a temporary aberration. Remember that most electricity is still generated from fosil fuels.

The market prices of thermal coal spiked during the lockdown, but has been in decline and has dropped by 68% in the past 10 months.

Attachment 529290

The wholesale price of electricity as reported by the Australian Energy regulator has also been declining; the contract price declined by about 60% over the same time frame.

Attachment 529291

The wholesale spot prices for electricity, although much more volatile, have also declined in the same period as reported by the AER.

Attachment 529292

So we have a situation where coal prices have declined substantially, wholesale electricity prices have declined substantially, yet the retail price has risen drammatically - about 50% in your case, less in mine.

Why?

The only logical explanation is market exploitation. Because they can.