Future of the Australian Electricity Market

Everything is impossible, until it isn't.

It can't be done, until it is.


I heard these repeatedly throughout the pandemic. As a society we shattered every preconception we had about how out economy worked, how we work, how people would/wouldn't behave, how systems were believed to fail catastrophically and didn't (I was a bit of an enthusiast on this one).

Same with the renewables arguments.... it all seems so HARD, until the stuff actually occurs... then we go on with life as normal and routinely accept the previously impossible.

I really do try to have the most ardent hope that people can be visionary on these issues. The issues feel so important.

Hydrogen will be a HUGE part of the storage solution.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Everything is impossible, until it isn't. It can't be done, until it is.
Hydrogen will be a HUGE part of the storage solution.

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Agreed. Whatever did we do until the Earth became spherical?

Re hydrogen: there's certainly enough of it available for a good long while. Just a matter of sorting out the green side of it. It will happen.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Hydrogen will be a HUGE part of the storage solution.

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It won't be until there is enough alternative energy to produce it and it definitely won't be used to power ICE's, that is a definite dead end and when Hydrogen is spoken of there needs to be some definition of how it is going to be used as a lot of people think of it powering ICE's.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

... a lot of people think of it powering ICE's.

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As I understand it, the hydrogen is used to generate electricity in an EV, so no ICE as such

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

As I understand it, the hydrogen is used to generate electricity in an EV, so no ICE as such

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I think that is the case with the Alstom train, but passenger cars may not have the same capability as you need roof space for the solar panels. That is until the whole car bodywork becomes a solar panel. Trouble there is that even a mild bingle may render your vehicle immobile.

Regards
Paul

Solar Panels are not required. That's why the future of H2 is so big (as long as it's green). It's pretty much go anywhere with a big enough tank. Now on container ships you can add a huge amount of panels as well – they hardly need to be aerodynamic.

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

As I understand it, the hydrogen is used to generate electricity in an EV, so no ICE as such

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In the linked instance you are correct but there is some activity led by Toyota and BMW to use it in ICE cars as well and in discussions about Hydrogen it can be confusing as to how the vehicle is powered either with an ICE or a fuel cell and it is the latter that is the future of Hydrogen. The UK are already in the process of rolling out Hydrogen networks to replace natural gas in homes

(1) hydrogen replace natural gas in uk - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uNK...l=SkillBuilder

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Solar Panels are not required. That's why the future of H2 is so big (as long as it's green). It's pretty much go anywhere with a big enough tank. Now on container ships you can add a huge amount of panels as well – they hardly need to be aerodynamic.

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I can't see a big use of panels on a container ship because they would have to removed for loading. A car carrier, tanker etc yes they might work.

I am hesitant to include too much regarding The Russo Ukrainian war but the threats to their large Nuclear power station, Zaporizhzhia, does emphasis the vulnerability of the Nukes in times of crisis. The following report describes the potential for catastrophe. There may still be one unit running (it was disconnected for a time) but once the last unit is shut down it is still essential to maintain cooling supplies to the core. However, if they are no longer generating power themselves, they have to import elecctricity from the grid. It would normally come from a nearby coal fired generator, but where there were once three lines coming in, there is now only one. The other two have been disconnected.

All power stations have emergency diesel generators to enable units to be safely run down and stored. This is mainly for cooling and other essential supplies. In a Nuke, these requirements are far more critical and while Zaporizhzhia has a diesel (maybe more than one) they need diesel fuel too. If that should fail.........

There is also some talk that Russia may install lines to Russia instead of Ukraine, but I don't know how likely or feasible that is: It may be media hype.

Shelling disconnects Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from Ukraine grid (msn.com)

Regards
Paul

Tripped over another Battery idea today.

Cheap, high capacity, and fast: New aluminum battery tech promises it all | Ars Technica

An interesting read.

Obviously this isn't for ones car, but it would be interesting for Big Batteries.


There is another I touched on earlier called a "flow" battery and an Iron-sulphide battery.

These giant mass storage units, being dirt cheap, might get us somewhere towards suburb or building-level solutions. They don't need to move, so weights not an issue, plus they can soak up all the locally generated excess power during the day and release it locally too, which is good.

If we can plonk these in the big cities to start, we can ween ourselves off coal bit-by-bit, then more-by-more.


Despite the emotion in all this, I don't think the real plan, right now, is for 100% coal eradication. Obviously we can't do that this year, or next, or maybe in 5 or 10, but each step is a lowering. Imagine if we could lower coal use by 90% over 5 or 10 years. Everyone would think this is a "win".

Nobody would say that's a bad thing.

Next we need to plant 100 trillion trees and fix the ocean plastic problem :)

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

Nobody would say that's a bad thing.

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His Enormousness might.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

I don't think the real plan, right now, is for 100% coal eradication. Obviously we can't do that this year, or next, or maybe in 5 or 10, but each step is a lowering. Imagine if we could lower coal use by 90% over 5 or 10 years. Everyone would think this is a "win".

Nobody would say that's a bad thing.

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careful what you wish for WP.

coal fired power stations take around a full day to ramp up to full output or ramp down to zero.
the grid frequency is principally maintained by what is known as spinning reserve -- historically spinning reserve would be around 25% of a station's nominated output.
In more more recent times the spinning reserve has been redefined to be around 10% of rated output.
However, recent breakdowns in the coal power stations have demonstrated the risk of reducing spinning reserve to such a low level.


At the point where coal generated electricity represents less than about 60% of total electricity output -- electricity output defined so as to include the spinning reserve -- the economics of operating ANY coal fired generation will become problematic.
I envision a future where coal generation is only viable for that portion of the average day where wind power is not available.

The alternative to coal will be fast starting natural gas (another fossil fuel) turbines -- but with the east coast's gas reserves being largely exported, we all know that the cost of gas, if it is even available, has become.


Given all that it will take more than the battery in a BEV connected to a smart meter to provide grid balance.


As I've previously said in this thread, on a national basis, Australia needs the ability to generate 3 days worth of electricity for the sun's not shining and the wind is not blowing.
Given that the demand for electricity is expected to double (or is it more?) over the near future, the need to include the charging of a fleet of BEVs would increase the storage requirement (measured in thousands of TWh) to around 6 days worth at current consumption, perhaps more.


To be economic, any really large battery will need to be made of dirt.
The best battery technology I've seen so far is a carbon heat storage battery that produces electricity by allowing the emitted "heat" photons to pass through a reflecting solar collector. I believe the electrical efficiency of such a heat battery is around 50%

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Originally Posted by ian

careful what you wish for WP.

coal fired power stations take around a full day to ramp up to full output or ramp down to zero.
the grid frequency is principally maintained by what is known as spinning reserve -- historically spinning reserve would be around 25% of a station's nominated output.
In more more recent times the spinning reserve has been redefined to be around 10% of rated output.

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couple of things about these statements.

the ramp up ramp down is not a full day. its dependant on the generator, so i'll go with ours... our default is 6MW a minute. we've also gone through trials and can go down as low at 180Mw but the normal low is 200MW with the upper cap being 660MW. so the basic math is:
660 MW - 200MW = 460MW
460MW / 6MW min = 76 minutes

so it takes us a bit over an hour to go from max out put to our lowest rated output. it does play havoc with metal rates of change and other things but it's pretty much the norm. 1MW a minute or 3MW a minute is the preferred rate but we have to play to AEMO's rules and its what we're rated for. Getting down to zero takes all of about 1 second with the press of the red button. Starting back up is its own kettle of fish as it depends on the temperature of the boiler/drum/turbine.


spinning reserve is a station specific thing and is set to what % you'd like. its actually a terrible thing for efficiency and so the lower the better. its also not based on the station's out put but a sliding figured based on the steam pressure needed for a certain amount of MW. So if we're at 18MPa of steam we'll have 1.8MPa of steam in reserve (this is based on the volume in the throttle valve steam chest) and will give a certain MW figure. So a 660MW unit does not always keep a 10% value in reserve, we're not going to have 66MW (10% of 660) up our sleeve if we're running at 300MW as it would be a huge inefficiency loss


I'm really looking forward to the governments renewable gas they keep spruiking with Ad's on youtube.

Illuminating discussions!

I sent this to my kids. It's a wake up call... Energy bills to soar for millions as price cap hiked to £3,549

Some of the horror stories of truly hideous gas bills and cost blowouts in households.... Reddit Discussion on article

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Originally Posted by Ian

... The alternative to coal will be fast starting natural gas (another fossil fuel) turbines -- but with the east coast's gas reserves being largely exported, we all know that the cost of gas, if it is even available, has become. ...

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Would an alternative alternative be to revert to coal gas, rather than natural gas, Ian?