Wind Generation and the Electricity Grid

[donovan301]

Gosh! Really? Who would have guessed ! Is Amsterdam in Denmark? Who would have guessed.

Oppsy daisey, got my borders/ quotes crossed up

Fair sledge my friend

 

[TheRealTMA]

Oppsy daisey, got my borders/ quotes crossed up

Fair sledge my friend

"Awaitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin' that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line…"

Been there, done that...

 

[donovan301]

"Awaitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hopin' that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line…"

Been there, done that...

Thanks for adding a smile to my dial TMA

 

[Quickstatus]

Well spotted!!
Copenhagen same same for MJ
The electricity use is enormous - grow lights, heaters, fans

nwver would have thought: Carbon neutral organic marijuan_

 

[wandering_fred]

Well I suppose the economics of electricity will change when an UHVDC transmission line from WA to SA is cheaper than a new generation plant...

Just wandering

Fred

 

[Quickstatus]

Someone else can provide the dirty backup power.

renewables as a backup?. Unreliable.
If the sun don't shine, you cant just import it from where the sun is still shining - Sydney importing from Perth?. And what happens when both Sydney and Perth are in the dark?
Similarly for wind.
Battery backup?. Batteries just timeshifts the supply. It's not a reliable backup when it's capacity is only for a few minutes.

 

[RAM]

Did you know that Qld with virtually no wind nor large-scale solar had the most expensive wholesale power prices?

That over 90% as a minimum of its power comes from coal and gas generators owned by the state Govt? That the AEMO has outed them repeatedly for manipulating prices to gouge the state's power users?

AND that finally the Qld State Treasurer ordered them to stop manipulating the bidding system and subsequently wholesale power prices in Qld have fallen more than 30% (after allegedly one very large and important customer threatened to launch an ad campaign outing them until it stopped)?

Nothing to do with renewables and everything to do with no legal requirement against collusion in bidding to set the power price.

Someone else can provide the dirty backup power.

renewables as a backup?. Unreliable.

Actually, you are wrong about that.

Storage means (and has meant) much more than batteries but the current frenzy is adding 1 + 1 and getting oranges.

Australia has had electricity storage for decades, as well as renewable storage for decades. They are in use 365 days a year and 24 hours a day most days.

They are called hydro-electric dams. Some are run-of-river and others are not.

Some are referred to as Pumped Hydro - these are the truly "renewable storage" sites where when power prices are below a trigger level the facility buys power back from the grid and pumps the water back uphill from a lower level storage dam or lake etc. Rule of thumb - it takes 1.5x the power to pump it back up as it generates letting the water flow back down.

Pumped hydro has a 100% reliability rate and is able to be brought into production, as back-up power, in a fraction of the time required for either coal-fired or gas plants. In the summer 'panic' earlier this year numerous coal and gas-fired generators failed leading to them shutting down while the dams, wind and solar took the load. All detailed in the various reports, and even by Josh.

Back on Feb 10 - the day of feared blackouts due to the East Coast heat...

Qld was generating over 8,400 MW from their coal and gas plants and just 153MW from all of its hydro. Wivenhoe alone is 500MW

Battery backup?. Batteries just timeshifts the supply. It's not a reliable backup when it's capacity is only for a few minutes. If the sun don't shine, you cant just import it from where the sun is still shining - Sydney importing from Perth?. And what happens when both Sydney and Perth are in the dark?
Similarly for wind. Battery backup?. Batteries just timeshifts the supply. It's not a reliable backup when it's capacity is only for a few minutes.

The AEMO (and others) have pointed out that despite Qld having extensive hydro capacity and pumped storage. The state owned generator that controls the lion's share did not use it to produce even 1MW hour's worth on over 40 times the wholesale power price for Qld reached $14,000. Not even 1 KW hour even. Remember Wivenhoe is a 500MW plant operated by CS Energy. CS Energy also operates Caliide A & B, and Kogan Creek coal generators. Have a look at this:


Sure helped the profits on the coal fired plants though while Wivenhoe sat generating nothing. Odd how they bid to PAY $1,000 to be allowed to produce power for one five minute period and then bid to charge $14,000 for the very next period and at the same time Alinta increases its price from $45 to $13,400.

Then they each bid for the following period -$1,000.

So how did their profits do?

Well over that 15 minute period CS Energy earnt 226 x [(14,000-1000-1000)/3] x 0.25 (0.25 = 15 minutes out of 60 minute hour)
So the price they received averaged out at $4,000 per MW hour for 15 minutes and for Alinta at over $4,100.

A five minute anomaly saw profits of over $350,000 greater than normal. Amazing how in one 5 month period adding up all these 'anomalies' resulted in excess profits of $173m (I made a typo in a post above and had it $273m ).

The issue about the Lithium ion batteries has nothing to do with them being built for use as 'back-up' power for the entire state for an extended period. That is not what the tender documents outline btw.

The 129MW hour, 100MW battery is to act as an emergency back-up when say Pelican Point stops generating without any apparent reason and the power price spikes to $14,000 per MW hour for that next 5 minute power bid. Strangely enough, these unexplainable (despite 3 different investigations) events cost SA power consumers dearly but see the generators (including wind and solar BTW) make a few extra million as their profit margins increase 150 to over 5,000 times.

The battery can deliver the power to the grid before any human has even noticed that a generator has stop working - in thousandths of a second. It is so rapid that sitting in your office or home you do not see the lights dim. The outcome of this battery stepping in, if it had been in existence in 2016 would have saved the state's consumers north of $50m if set to intervene only when the power price rose above $12,499.99 per MW hour.

It is not intended to be in use providing power day-in-day out - it is there to stop the generators gaming the market. Please read the AEMO report into what the Qld State generators were doing and then you will see that the SA State Govt has called the generators bluff. The SA State Govt gave them plenty of time to allow the wholesale power prices to fall in SA - but the generators did not blink. They've killed the fatted calf now.

In Qld all it took was the State Treasurer to tell the State-owned generators to stop and the price fell over 30% recently and has stayed there. They're still using hardly any hydro though. Hope Brisbane doesn't get flooded out again...

Nem Watch : RenewEconomy

 

[Quickstatus]

Gaming the system?. Best way to game the system is to create generators that can jump in and jump out almost at will. Build enough base load generators running 24/7 - excess capacity essentially rather than battery

 

[drron]

So RAM you are in effect saying the QLD ALP Government games the system more than those terrible Private Enterprise companies in South Australia.
Amazing isn't it.The QLD Treasury gets a $1.5 billion windfall from gaming electricity prices.And the Treasurer knew nothing of it until that nasty News Corp blew the whistle.

 

[Moody]

So RAM you are in effect saying the QLD ALP Government games the system more than those terrible Private Enterprise companies in South Australia.
Amazing isn't it.The QLD Treasury gets a $1.5 billion windfall from gaming electricity prices.And the Treasurer knew nothing of it until that nasty News Corp blew the whistle.

Greed is greed, drron. And never defensible by state or individuals .... unless your morals are bankrupt, I suppose.

 

[RAM]

So RAM you are in effect saying the QLD ALP Government games the system more than those terrible Private Enterprise companies in South Australia.
Amazing isn't it.The QLD Treasury gets a $1.5 billion windfall from gaming electricity prices.And the Treasurer knew nothing of it until that nasty News Corp blew the whistle.

Does not matter what colour the pollies are green, blue or red:

• Their snouts are firmly stuck in the trough
• Their decisions mostly suit their major donors not the community
• Having "Sovereign Immunity" guarantees nothing will change until it gets enough publicity.
• If they were on the Titanic - every one would have survived!

It is becoming more an more as if an honest politician is an oxyMORON.


They all know exactly what is going on. The commonality of the major donors and the 'job after politics' only serves to see Australia continuously sold down the river.The gullibility of the electorate (and acceptance of the media line unfortunately) sees us get the pollies we deserve.

Concrete example - CSELR in Sydney.

Before contract signed I proved (using State Govt docs) that it would end up cutting public transport capacity between Central/Circular Quay and Kingsford/Randwick by over 60% vs the 20 bus routes to be eliminated by it.
That it would be slower (than existing buses and times claimed), would see total transport capacity for the Eastern Suburbs cut by over 40% (cutting major arterial road by 4 lanes etc etc).

Sat down with all newspapers, took them through the docs and asked them if they could not find any mistakes (they did not) then expose this fraud.

Met with ALP & Greens MPs/Upper House people about it - "Yes we'll run with this.'

Never did.

After two years finally got some traction with State Auditor General & team who confirmed every one of my findings, along with Gladys misleading the community & parliament.

Still the project rolls on and cascading gridlock worsens even before the LRVs reduce the traffic light phase times.

Fake news - sure is alive and well in Australia. Send me a pm if you want a copy of the one pagers about the CSELR...

All being done as excuse to rezone over 1,100 hectares of Randwick for 20+ storey high rise stretching from Moore & Centennial Parks through to Anzac Parade. Dept of Housing transferred title to all property, owned in the area, to Dept of Finance in 2013. I even received photos of the 'flatly denied' rezoning area and did manage to get that published.

Just as the saying goes; "He who pays the piper calls the tune."

Think very prominent common donors to both major parties.

Lucky I have multiple copies covering years of 'items' in safekeeping with a number of people. Too many people worry about my safety and come up to me on the street to warn me to watch out for the chance a car may lose control and veer on the footpath.

 

[RAM]

Normal transmission now resumes...

The news of the day - Fed Minister calling for investigation into Qld State Govt owned generators..

This excerpt sums it up as well as any - there is no law/rule forbidding market manipulation in the electricity generation market.

Funny that!

"Queensland is not alone on this charge. In fact, as networks, retailers and politicians have observed, the gaming is rampant right across the country, but Queensland has its pulled its pants down around its ankles because it instructed its generators to stop, and since then the state’s prices have fallen like a stone. Frydenberg’s intervention has one advantage. It does highlight that the bulk of the price increases are the results market manipulation, and dealing with market rules, and giving the regulators more power, are essential to reducing prices.
The AER will undoubtedly say of the Queensland generators that it looks bad, smells bed and feels bad, but it is within the market rules. As South Australia’s government has been saying for a while, it’s proof that the market is broken."

 

[whatmeworry]

Yesterday we were told the people in Denmark are questioning the value of the Monarchy. Not surprising given their taxation rate and extreme cost of living.

Ohio gave their companies tax cuts but now can't fund their schools, libraries, drug treatments etc because the expected bounce in increased employment didn't happen. Instead Ohio is going broke.

Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and give millionaires a cut tax will forever ruin the USA.

 

[drron]

You do know that the title the affordable care act is a misnomer.Sure the cost of health to government has gone down but to the individual deductibles have soared.
As well the Republican bill isn't for the repeal of Obamacare which is why some Republican Senators are opposing the republican bill.
Then of course Chicago and Detroit have high taxes,are broke,loosing population and the future is not looking great.

 

[wandering_fred]

Perhaps one of our local participants has found a willing reporter?

Just wandering

Fred

Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[RAM]

Perhaps one of our local participants has found a willing reporter?

Just wandering

Fred

Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I have researched much about way our system works but stupidly forgot the 'market value' comparison.

From the ABC article:

The international comparisons are staggering.

The total value of the entire electricity network in the US, a country of 320 million people, is $US100 billion, while the value of Australia's network is not far short — $100 billion or $US75 billion.


and now for NSW's turn for an 'investigation'.

Mr Sims said one area he was examining was whether there was spot price manipulation in NSW as a result of only a few generators operating.“In NSW, the ACCC opposed the NSW Government selling Macquarie Generation in Liddell to AGL,” he said.
“Unfortunately, that went ahead and that made the market more concentrated and more vertically integrated, and so that does mean some of the players have market power, and that does increase electricity prices. So we’re certainly going to look at that and see what can be done.”

and the result is...

Nothing unless all sides of politics turn a blind eye to those vested interests funding their next election campaign.

 

[wandering_fred]

Not the greatest source but I will assume the numbers are accurate.

Just wandering

Fred

Scotland sets renewable energy record as wind power provides equivalent of 118% of nation's electricity | The Independent

 

[Quickstatus]

Interestingly it also says in the 6 month period it generated enough electricity for all of Scotland for 6 days. What happened to the other 176 days?

 

[RAM]

Interestingly it also says in the 6 month period it generated enough electricity for all of Scotland for 6 days. What happened to the other 176 days?

They got it from the rest of the UK from their wind power. Coal fired power stations production fell 66% in 2016 and in 2017 is 96 % below the level of 2016 production. For the first 6 months of 2017 coal-fired electricity production has been just 2% of the total. Companies owning the remaining coal-fired plants have been sold off with a vengeance.

Coal provided just 2% of UK power in the first 6 months of 2017 : RenewEconomy

However, the U.K.’s capacity market is still worth hundreds of millions of pounds for coal providers, who are paid subsidies to provide backup power, especially during the winter months.

Domestic coal production is now almost at zero, the report added, with the U.K. most reliant of coal from Colombia and Russia.

Something I have not seen (has anyone) written about is whether the UK's air quality has improved in the last few years?

Three UK coal-fired stations shut down in 2016 and wholesale power prices did not rise - THAT'S UN-AUSTRALIAN!

 

[whatmeworry]

Some people conveniently forget the brown coal in the Latrobe Valley is not as good the black coal in the Hunter Valley.

Melbourne and Victoria's air quality has improved with less coal generation. The west coast of the North America has air quality problems coming in from China. Yes the pollution comes across the sea.