Thread: The great energy debate

There are some energy companies who have seen the writing on the wall and are now offering solar panels up for lease to consumers.

Lots of really good information, thanks to all.

About 10 years ago, I installed a small solar power system because of frequent power outages, particularly in the winter. Was not cheap but hindsight has shown me the wisdom of my decision. Cost-effectiveness may be an issue for you but freezing to death is a little higher up on my list of concerns. I need 500W to run the motors in my Harman pellet stove. My system will do that for 8 hours+. Maybe this October, I buy 2 more batteries = they really are the core of the system.

My oil-fired central heating system cost nearly 2X the pellet stove operating cost. Three winters and the capital cost of the stove ($3k) was recovered. In the next two winters, the solar panel and bits were paid for.
I have a plug in alarm in the bedroom which goes off when there's a power failure. In the summer (now), I don't care much except to run the coffee pot and the toaster. Winter night, high wind, blowing snow and -20C, I do care. Fortunately, all my neighbors know about the power system so they have all been invited to hang out at my place while their own homes freeze up. Water expands about 1/11 (approx 9%) when it freezes. Icebergs float. In copper water pipes, the copper will split = serious issues.

I realize that this story is nothing like your own. For my peace of mind, I could not afford NOT to do it.

A very civilised thread to what has been for sometime a divisive topic, perhaps there has been a shift in attitude over recent times. We put on solar a few years back and also expect an eight year payback. Our annual electricity bill is nil and will stay that way until we come off our very generous feed in tariff of 66C/Kw. Technology eventually makes everything redundant, how many still have video recorders? The big money is leaving coal because it is a sunset industry, early renewables will suffer the same fate. The future will be low cost renewables some yet to be invented some currently in development. The only question will be the pace of change and Australia by being slow to embrace technological change will possibly suffer a competitive disadvantage in the long term. Our biggest risk is loosing the technological and manufacturing skills to profit from change, we embrace gadgets but are slower to improve and modernise our industry which is why we have lost major industries in the past from wool processing through to cars.

I would expect to see an ETS to possibly return as a government policy but for my money I'd like to see more investment in next generation research and development and the continual rollout of wind turbines and solar farms of which the former seem to be dotted all over Europe and not be a big deal like they are here. The main worry is ensuring those on low incomes can afford power, generation power isn't the main problem it is distribution costs but as more go solar rooftop the more the cost burden falls on those who either rent or can't place a solar array on their roof tops.

An interesting thought on future technology and how we struggle to think what the future will be like.

The square kilometre array radio telescope being built in Aus and South Africa will be 50 times more sensitive than present and survey the sky 10,000 times faster.

There is no computer on earth remotely capable of dealing with it. But, the advance curve predicts we will have enough computer power by the time it comes online.

This is the type of thinking we need for the future.


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From recent posts here is a little information to put some aspects of power generation pricing into context.

The wholesale price of electricity varies greatly but probably averages around 5c per KW/Hr. This varies from state to state with SA being slightly above and QLD, as the cheapest, being slightly below. I stress that these are average prices only and the pool price is constantly fluctuating. For example, last Thursday in QLD for a single five minute segment the price reached it's maximum of 1380c for a KW/Hr! At other times, as SWK mentioned, particularly at night, I have seen negative prices. We have to pay them!!

We do this for short periods of time because it is cheaper than taking the units offline and then putting them back on again.

Retail cost to the consumer I think is getting towards 30c per Kw/Hr (I am not quite sure of the cost as I havn't seen a bill for a couple of years now.)

Pricing during the subsidised period of solar installation saw prices up to 66c depending which state you live in. In QLD it was 44c. While this was clearly a significant subsidy, as the price of electricity increases the relative advantage of the subsidy deceases, although it looks as though it will still be of benefit right until the end of the scheme (if governments continue to honour the agreement) for those that contributed.

It may be that the advent of solar pv will contribute to holding costs down as the maintenance of the distribution network is huge. Compare the difference in the whole sale cost to the cost that at the consumer end. At least five times as much.

It was mentioned in an earlier thread that industry consumes about two thirds of our power. I don't know the details of those figures, but it is quite likely when you consider than a single pot line in an aluminium smelter draws around 500MW. I think some smelters have three pot lines.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Surely that can be put down to rorting by the installers, just as there was with the doomed insulation fiasco.

It sounds like you went solar a few years ago? If that was the case then the time to recoup investment is still +- a similar time. Panels are apparently significantly cheaper in the last couple of years or so, but the return for putting lecky back into the system is rubbish now (in NSW anyway). I suppose the recent large increases in power cost would mean a shorter return time though.

Brett

Rorting? How dare you suggest such a thing?

Of course it was .

I put my solar system in within a few weeks of the subsidy shutting down. 5KW costing $16,900 if I remember right. After the subsidy had ceased I was talking to a colleague at work who was considering an identical system even down to the same inverter. He had realised that if you put your name down for the commitment you could still get the subsidy even though the scheme had technically ended. However without the subsidy, the market was in a spiral fall. He paid only $11,000 for his installation. When I first looked at a solar installation I was quoted about $24,000 for 5KW!

Today, without that subsidy, I think such a system would cost about $7,000 or even less (possibly somebody with recent experience of the market could verify that.)

So rorting, absolutely!

Regards
Paul

Little did I expect when I began this thread that it would develop the way bit has.

The responses have been to the point, informative and extremely civilized. For that we should all be very thankful.

The responses also demonstrate the diversity of the membership of these fora. It never fails to amaze me that people
from such diverse backgrounds are interested in woodwork and so many other topics.

On the subject of subsidies I know there are many who have missed the subsidies offered by various governments and many
who are implacably opposed to subsidies. I know that in Spain there is a legal requirement for people to install PV cells on
new buildings and there is NO subsidy. My view is that the market would soon adopt to a subsidy free environment if any
government had the political will to make solar installation obligatory.

The information supplied here with regard to nuclear is, I find, a total revelation. A pity the information is not so readily known
to the general public!

Keep the information coming fellas!! Every little morsel is grist for the mill.

Arthur

I can see a time when every new dwelling will have to have a solar array on the roof. We already have it with water tanks (admittedly they don't go on the roof .)

The big advantage with something like PV is that you don't have to go around buying up land and getting permission to stick your power station in the ground. Solar PV represents an instant mini power station utilising existing line infrastructure with out the need for an EIS and the like.

There are some issues with using the existing structures and antagonists continue to trot these out, but to my mind they are fairly easily overcome if the desire is there.

Regards
Paul

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback. I would imagine the new Tesla battery concept puts paid to that problem as it stores excess power for later use. I would think once we come off our contracted feed in tariff the Tesla storage system is something we will consider very seriously. Certainly at end of transmission runs solar PV has proven useful in keeping sufficient load in the network.

Originally Posted by johnc

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback. I would imagine the new Tesla battery concept puts paid to that problem as it stores excess power for later use. I would think once we come off our contracted feed in tariff the Tesla storage system is something we will consider very seriously. Certainly at end of transmission runs solar PV has proven useful in keeping sufficient load in the network.

Battery storage systems present the same problem to the power suppliers that PV systems do......unless you are able to monitor how much everyone is using and how much they are pumping back into the grid...managing the grid becomes an impossible task.

Originally Posted by johnc

One of the issues trotted out with solar PV on roof tops is that if everyone does it you end up with to much load on the grid on sunny days as a result of feedback.

John,
at the local level solar does something like this

The blue line is the load of a local part of the electric system. The brown line is the power generated by PV in that area. The black line shows what has to be supplied to the area from the grid.
If you can imagine the brown line getting higher (more PV systems bought), the black line comes down to nothing. If the whole grid behaves like this, some power stations will have to come off. Which might be OK for some peakers but very difficult for base load. This is one of the reasons that big power stations with slow response may be in trouble sooner than expected (depending on how different parts of the grid develop).


Regards
SWK

given the slow ramp up and ramp down of thermal, I think that thermal coal might stabilise around the overnight plateau, with the "peak units" cutting in big time on cloudy days

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Battery storage systems present the same problem to the power suppliers that PV systems do......unless you are able to monitor how much everyone is using and how much they are pumping back into the grid...managing the grid becomes an impossible task.

Managing the grid is difficult, but not impossible.
I was talking to some folks today about a development in Vic. After the bushfires there, one of the distributors wanted a system which they could use to shutdown the power in an overhead line on fire danger days, but still have power to customers at the far end. Some sort of remote generation or storage. After they thought about this for a while they realised that a system like that could also be used to manage peaks throughout the day in suburban areas.

In fact a system like this does more than just shift the peaks, it actually has 7 functions, the easier explained ones are;
In the very short term (less than seconds) it can stabilise frequency and control power quality (ie the timing and shape of the ac waves).
At slightly longer time periods (some seconds) it can act as spinning reserve, that is, for outages caused by loss of a big generator it can quickly pick up load and help the remaining generators which are trying to share that extra load.
At the minutes to hours level it can detect if the power requirements have gone over a defined maximum level and "shave off" short term peaks and for longer time periods it can shift the loading level around (ie flatten out that squiggly blue line in my previous post) and remove the issue with solar PV driving the local load low/to zero in the middle of the day. Think the Tesla battery idea, but not for your house, for your suburb.

Pie in the sky? Here it is, its been running since January

And before you jump to the conclusion that it is simply a diesel generator charging batteries. It isn't. The batteries charge and discharge into the grid, the diesel is a back up only for the rare times when the batteries go completely flat like a total grid power failure. Under normal operation the diesel is meant to run hardly at all.
This one is of course only comparatively small (about 1MW for an hour), but it is a trial in Australia based on equipment already in use overseas. 20MW systems will be available based on the battery technology available now and probably bigger systems with some improved battery chemistries.

Like the duck swimming, calm on the surface but paddling madly underneath, there is a lot happening in the electrical industry caused by renewables. Not just in Australia. Those buzz words again, disruptive technology.

Regards
SWK