Thread: Future of the Australian Electricity Market

We have the staggering capacity to build epic solutions, but sit on our hands.... happy to dig up rocks for yet another hole in the ground.

Meanwhile in China....

China to break its own record: World’s new largest wind farm could power 13 million homes


This one is 43.3 GW (~13 million homes)

Jiuquan Wind Power already generates 20 GW.

Fujian Province is building one of 50 GW.


This is epic. Imagine what will happen to industry when this super-cheap power comes online.... it will absolutely explode. China is placing itself firmly as an absolute world leader in renewables. Yes, they have a horrible past and pollute like crazy - BUT that is OUR pollution exported to them by us outsourcing our production.

While we point the finger an accuse China of environmental heresies (which is complete hypocrisy) they are building project like this. Epic, giant, amazing, awesome projects.

Food for thought!

Imagine what we could do with 45GW of energy offshore of Sydney... or Melbourne.... or Brisbane..... or Perth....

Monster desal, monster inland freshwater projects, green mining, monster smelting operations, hydrogen up the wazooo.....

Such a vision.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

We have the staggering capacity to build epic solutions, but sit on our hands.... happy to dig up rocks for yet another hole in the ground.

Meanwhile in China....

China to break its own record: World’s new largest wind farm could power 13 million homes


This one is 43.3 GW (~13 million homes)

Jiuquan Wind Power already generates 20 GW.

Fujian Province is building one of 50 GW.


This is epic. Imagine what will happen to industry when this super-cheap power comes online.... it will absolutely explode. China is placing itself firmly as an absolute world leader in renewables. Yes, they have a horrible past and pollute like crazy - BUT that is OUR pollution exported to them by us outsourcing our production.

While we point the finger an accuse China of environmental heresies (which is complete hypocrisy) they are building project like this. Epic, giant, amazing, awesome projects.

Food for thought!

Imagine what we could do with 45GW of energy offshore of Sydney... or Melbourne.... or Brisbane..... or Perth....

Monster desal, monster inland freshwater projects, green mining, monster smelting operations, hydrogen up the wazooo.....

Such a vision.

Sounds impressive but the key words that stood out to me

“And because of the region's distinctive topographical features and windy location, these turbines will be able to run between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time,”

Is this achieving any more than what our current solar systems are doing ? I would imagine that the cost per watt would be substantially more than what our solar does as well.
My overall general understanding ( and happy to stand corrected) is that we have basically already hit saturation levels with intermittent renewables and we are looking for a replacement base load solution to be able to move forward

Originally Posted by havabeer69

Thats fine until the government says that by 2032 no more combustion engines will be sold in the act, i hope in less then 10 years the state (sorry territory) has worked out all the kinks of owning elec vehicles to promote the start of 100% uptake

Is that no more ICE cars period or no more NEW ICE cars?

Originally Posted by Beardy

Sounds impressive but the key words that stood out to me

“And because of the region's distinctive topographical features and windy location, these turbines will be able to run between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time,”

Is this achieving any more than what our current solar systems are doing ? I would imagine that the cost per watt would be substantially more than what our solar does as well.
My overall general understanding ( and happy to stand corrected) is that we have basically already hit saturation levels with intermittent renewables and we are looking for a replacement base load solution to be able to move forward

Bob

Solar has two limitations in sunshine and night time (I suppose that is the same thing really) and it can never work, by itself, at night. Wind on the other hand can work at any time of the day or indeed at no time of the day: I know this all sounds obvious, but it has to be windy and the wind strength varies. That percentage is an average and consequently is an unreliable figure. You cannot rely on approximately half your capacity all of the time. You may have 100% when there is no market for power and conversely close to 0% when the market is desperate.

It is true to say that most forms of power have some restrictions: For example coal fired power plants, to achieve full load rely on drawing a certain amount of backpressure in the turbine, which is developed in the condenser. In hot conditions, when arguably demand is greatest, the backpressure will rise above optimum design and the only solution is to reduce load. It may mean that a thermal station is now operating at 90% of rated capacity.

You are correct regarding the renewable status. Storage is now the issue: Arguably bigger than the orginal shift towards renewables.

Regards
Paul

We have spoken at length regarding the price structure of the wholesale electricity market, but it seems there was an aspect of which I was certainly unaware. It seems as well as contracts and the spot market there is another form of contract, which in the article below is referred to as hedging (I had thought that was effectively the nature of the contracts too), but it is negotiated by an intermediary. I have to say I am not quite clear as to exactly how this all evolves as the intermediary seems to have a degree of liability. If that is the case it is not as if the intermediary acts as a broker.

A key part of Australia's electricity market is in meltdown and it's bad news for your power bill (msn.com)

My previous understanding was that electricity retailers and large industrial consumers dealt directly with the trading arms of the power generators. This aspect in the article is new to me: I must get out more!

I did take this extract from the article and I believe it is why some retaillers, who did not have contracts and relied on spot prices have gone to the wall.

"If you don't hedge then you're exposed to the spot price, which can go from minus $1000 a megawatt hour to plus $15,000 a megawatt hour.
"And that can change every five minutes.
"So, some extreme ranges in pricing.

Regards
Paul

This news has some interesting factors.

Imagine a big tank of hydrogen, generated from renewables and stored for the down periods...

Could this be scaled into a mass household/suburb/town scale?

Very curious!

Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2,000 kilometers on one tank - Ruetir



I just learned that hydrogen is stored and transported as ammonia! How excellent!

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Imagine a big tank of hydrogen, generated from renewables and stored for the down periods...

this is the hardest part I believe, is generating enough power to make bulk hydrogen as well as the large energy cost to make the ammonia.

better off just using the electricity from renewables in your house then trying to burn hydrogen

Originally Posted by woodPixel

... When cars were first created, one bought their fuel in tin cans that were opened with (what looked like) a can-punch.

I can remember buying VB like that, in the days before rip-top cans, and you needed a can opener to access your VB.

... If there is doubt, I look at China, which I sort of love (not the goddam CCP though). Over there the city electric infrastructure is positively space-aged compared to here. Electrification is EVERYTHING.... electric "city cars" sell like CRAZY... electric scooters are 100% of sales and they can't make them fast enough. ....

We were in China a little before they locked down, and I can confirm that WP is not exagerating. There are a lot of electric cars including Teslas and Chinese brands. The vast majority of motor scooters and motor bikes are electric, including Vespa, BMW and Harley-Davidson lookalikes. It is truly weird seeing a "Harley" that is silent! As everyone knows, Harley's are famous for converting petrol into noise without the side effect of horsepower, but not in China. The "Harleys" are truly silent and the logo on the fuel tank is in Chinese.
哈雷戴维森 = Hāléi Dàiwéisēn = Harley-Davidson

For those who agree with Toyota & BMW concerning ICE motors fuelled by Hydrogen this is an interesting watch. I have seen a video showing electric vehicle only cities in China but the most interesting thing about China is the massive production effort they are putting in to monopolise the majority of the BEV market world wide.

An interesting pilot development at Kogan Creek for hydrogen production:

Kogan renewable hydrogen project given the green light

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by havabeer69

...by 2032 no more combustion engines will be sold in the ACT ...

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

"Sold" as opposed to "be able to be registered" could be different. The devil is always in the detail.

FF - You mean that people in Canberra will travel all the way to Queanbeyan to buy their cars?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

FF - You mean that people in Canberra will travel all the way to Queanbeyan to buy their cars?

One will buy it online and it will DRIVE ITSELF to your home

This video opens up some very interesting facets to this whole topic of electrical generation/distribution and the consequence of EV vehicles and taxes which is something that I had not thought about
The reality of living with an EV that nobody talks about !! - YouTube

I only scanned through that vid (he takes 17 minutes to say what can be said in 2 or maybe less). One part that I saw was talking about a potential cost of 30 pounds to charge up (from absolutely dead flat). With petrol approaching 2 pounds a litre now, that makes a 65 litre tank about 120 pounds to fill, so about 4x the cost of a charge.
We were discussing that (charging difficulties) within this very thread a little over a week ago, and the conclusion is that the electrical infrastructure is a WIP, just as a petrol infrastructure was 100 years ago. Every new tech has to develop, but that doesn't mean there is a reason to not develop it.