Wind Generation and the Electricity Grid

[whatmeworry]

Pope Cartoon.

 

[amaroo]

Remember the old saying - Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

Tesla "Beats" As It Burns A Record $1 Billion In Cash Flow, Delivers 10% Fewer Cars

Tesla "Beats" As It Burns A Record $1 Billion In Cash Flow, Delivers 10% Fewer Cars | Zero Hedge

 

[whatmeworry]

The Adani mine to shift profits to the Cayman Islands.

Up to $3 billion from Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine will be shifted to a subsidiary owned in the Cayman Islands if the controversial project goes ahead, an analysis of company filings shows.

Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine to shift millions to Cayman Islands controlled company - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[samh004]

The Adani mine to shift profits to the Cayman Islands.

Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine to shift millions to Cayman Islands controlled company - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

While interesting, what does this have to do with SA?

 

[whatmeworry]

SA to build gas power plant and tender for at least 100mw battery.

South Australia will build a new gas power plant as part of a six-point, $550 million plan to provide energy security and avoid a repeat of damaging blackouts that struck last year.
Premier Jay Weatherill told a news conference on Tuesday the private sector would also build Australia's largest battery storage plant, with a 100MW output.

South Australia to build battery, gas plant under $550 million energy plan

 

[coriander]

Last week while we were in LAS, a city powered 100% by renewables (and proud of it), a storm caused powerlines to fall over, knocking out power to 50,000 homes. Power took 12-24 hours to be restored. Not a single word about reliance on renewables.

cough happens.

Deal with it.

 

[RooFlyer]

The Adani mine to shift profits to the Cayman Islands.

Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine to shift millions to Cayman Islands controlled company - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I heard that story on the radio this morning. My mouth agape that the reported obviously didn't understand that mining royalties can be held by anyone (not just government) and the royalty stream is able to be sold from one entity to another; willing buyer at a price, willing seller at a price. Large companies such as Franco Nevada largely exist through buying royalty streams at a profit.

And GASP! they are holding it under a Cayman island company. OMG! Cayman islands - MUST be sinister, right? BOO! ..... reports the ABC BOOOOOOO!

Fools.

SA to build gas power plant and tender for at least 100mw battery.

South Australia to build battery, gas plant under $550 million energy plan

Oh no, not those wicket fossil fuels :shock: !!?? Why not built a bunch more wind farms, we might ask? Weatherill Government now complicit in destroying the atmosphere, surely.

... and again to the dear old ABC. Just heard a reported breathlessly reporting that the battery farm "will be able to supply energy competitively with other forms of energy". I got the impression that the chap didn't actually realise that you have to put energy IN to batteries before you get it OUT. Reminds me of Victorian Premier Joan Kirner some years ago proudly 'filling up' an electric car in Melbourne, espousing the benefits of clean electric engines. Poor old soul apparently oblivious that she was filling up the car with some of the dirtiest (brown coal) electricity going.

Still more fools.


(But seriously, think about WHY they haven't announced more wind farms ... it was such a good idea previously!!) Could there just be a teensy-weensy problem with relying on renewables?

 

[whatmeworry]

I guess some people can't differentiate between clean and dirty sources of energy but need to go unnecessary rants.

 

[RooFlyer]

I guess some people, like the Premier of Sth Australia (amongst others ...) can't see the difference on betting the farm on renewables and eschewing fossil fuels, then losing the bet and now having to crawl back to fossil fuels. Rather humiliating, I would think and a absolute submission to the common sense that intermittent renewables can't supply a large grid.

And the question remains ... why gas and not more wind energy? If you build enough of 'em the wind will be blowing somewhere!!

And then there's this:

* There will be extra funding of $24 million to bring on new gas reserves, both conventional and unconventional.

Unconventional gas eh? That would mean shale gas, which has been very successfully exploited in Nth America and in fact has resulted in the USA being net self sufficient in energy.

Shale gas requires ... fraccing!! OMG! Not only is Weatherill selling out to fossil fuels and contributing to cooking the planet, but now he's in bed with the fraccers!! He's gunna destroy the precious water supplies!

Fossil fuels AND fraccing announced on the same day by a Labor premier in the state which was the champion of wind and solar. It doesn't get much better than this.

 

[RAM]

But back on the topic of this thread, I note no one has addressed my comment about a large battery storage plant suffering the same problem that caused the major SA blackout, i.e. the power lines between the batteries and the people falling over in high winds. Thus, while batteries may solve issues on days with low wind and high power usage, they won't help the route cause of the blackout

SA has had a number of blackouts. I think (not assume) the major one you refer to was when the wind storm (had to describe it that way) took down a number of the major transmission towers.

Provided the SA (& Eastern Australian) grid had been correctly (aka like the way most of the developed world structures their grids) then having a grid scale battery (or two) locations near the major demand centres (not near the wind farms or gas or inter-connnector on the border) should have been able to keep the power going at least long enough for some Govt ordered load shedding to occur (part of the changes announced today). The big "IF" is the 'properly structured bit - currently I doubt the NER would be able to arrange for boxes of candles and weather-proof matches to be stored safely.

The more recent blackouts +/or power shedding should be handled by a (modern) properly structured grid.

Now this is where things get very interesting. Since a utility scale battery is solely for use in 'emergencies' or extreme price events (which in 2015 where 1/10 or less as frequent Aust-wide) then the around 3,000 to 4,000 full charge cycles for lithium ion or salt replacement cycles for the salt batteries would last for decades or longer.

Unlike using a battery for a home/business, where the PV or wind generated power is given to the grid for around 1/3 to 1/10th what you pay for grid sourced power, using its battery daily and so getting around 10 years out of it before it drops away in capacity - the utility scale proposed for SA is for use as a last resort.

Currently the power price can be gamed by the generators to get up to $14,000 per MWh generated. If the SA Govt does add in a large battery then I suspect that SA will not be seeing many $14,000 events any more. Perhaps the maths might make things clearer.

Say a 100 MWh battery is used every time the price spikes above $10,000 in the bidding (can be fully automated to bid and then supply). Then that means it technically earns 100 x $10,000 = $1,000,000 if it goes for an hour. In one of my recent posts above, the gaming has gone on for extended periods within a day as there was nobody to spoil the fun (bonus making potential for the generator's senior execs).

The batteries would be set to take power from the grid in the early hours at around say $25 to $30 per MWh. So per event it does earn close to $500,000 per half hour. Using the price of the domestic Tesla Power Wall 2 (14 KWh) battery would require 7,140 odd and cost at the retail price around $57 million installed. The Tesla quote for the 'business' batteries is $33 mn.

So if the SA Govt could make (coming in at $10,000 trigger level) $0.5mn a time then it would pay for itself after just 70 half hour uses AND it would save customers ($14,000-10,000 per MWh) around $13 mn in the process by coming in $4,000 lower than the gamed market cap.

The Snowy Mountains, (one of Australia's top ten users of brown coal power btw), operates in just this fashion except they do not wait until the price hits $10,000 and they are pretty much limited to intervening in NSW as the other state's generators have a habit of maxing out the available transmission capacity (purely coincidentally of course) to ensure no out-of-state generators spoil their party.

To really be effective (not just a stick but a really big stick) the battery(ies) farm would be ideally around 250 to 300MWh. However, the 'listen you guys, thanks for the donations but the heat is too hot in the kitchen so stop it or else we'll add more batteries' will probably work.

BTW - also totally coincidental - the listed (generator) companies mentioned in various reports have seen their share prices rocket since the start of these 'once-were-rare price events' and the State owned ones have paid some lovely big dividends into consolidated revenue. Looking forward to the day when this makes the front pages/screens with the media.

Correct, I am not holding my breath.

 

[samh004]

Thank you for that informative post RAM.

So I assume they would build the battery storage close to or in the city to eliminate as many issues getting power to the densest area, but of course, some would still miss out in a wind storm.

(But seriously, think about WHY they haven't announced more wind farms ... it was such a good idea previously!!) Could there just be a teensy-weensy problem with relying on renewables?

Nothing wrong with having a backup source of power that isn't renewable, and isn't just cleaner than the current alternative to renewables, but also makes sure that when you need non-renewable backup power, you aren't being ripped off, like currently!

 

[moa999]

Why no wind? Well pretty obvious - an over reliance on that has been part of the issue

Surprised no solar - SA could have more of this.

Also to be honest SA is also perfect for nuclear, albeit the areas the British previously ruined aren't close enough to population centres

 

[RooFlyer]

Renewable or non renewable, personally I couldn't give much of a stuff (readers may have guessed ), as long as the lights are kept on. And I reckon the vast majority would have the same view.

The fact is that Sth Australia's policy of a high % of energy 'supply' (or, more accurately, potential supply) to come from wind and solar has failed utterly and the chickens have come home to roost with a thud. Wind and solar are expensive, intermittent generators, and it should have been obvious, had not people been blinded by green ideology and the global warming faith, that when they start shutting down the base load fossil fuel generators, the place will run short of power. Same thing looming in Victoria.

What a mess the (now independent??) SA grid will be. Wind and solar up and down like the Assyrian Empire (to coin a phrase), with the gas power station on, off, on, off whenever the wind drops. They'll have the cost of having a power station on or on stand by the whole time and the frequency balancing will be a treat to watch.

Geothermal energy exploration was big in the late 2000's, and SA was a leader (and their Mines/Energy dept was THE leading one in the country); some good resources discovered. However it fell away as the cost couldn't be brought down. He, he, he ... sounds like the cost of power in SA is going to rise a lot ... might have to dust off those geothermal tenements

Here is Geoscience Australia's page on geothermal and inferred geothermal resources reported to the ASX under the Geothermal Reporting Code. And here's an interpretive map of rock temperatures at 5km:



There are some quite toasty spots close to Adelaide ...

 

[travelislife]

Essential services should never be privatised, it always costs the consumer and taxpayer more. Power, public transport, communications, water, etc. We all lose. And we have massively reduced security from it as well and can be held to ransom by private business.

 

[TheRealTMA]

I'm highly amused at the federal environment minister and the coalition whinging about SA recent announcements causing higher power prices and disavowing the national energy regulator when they have behaved like ostriches for years in a completely biased partisan political manner in absence of a sensible national energy policy which allows long term investment in the industry and security of supply. Privatisation of energy for faux competition policy has been a complete farce.

 

[whatmeworry]

I'm highly amused at the federal environment minister and the coalition whinging about SA recent announcements causing higher power prices and disavowing the national energy regulator when they have behaved like ostriches for years in a completely biased partisan political manner in absence of a sensible national energy policy which allows long term investment in the industry and security of supply. Privatisation of energy for faux competition policy has been a complete farce.

It was quite funny to see Josh Frydenberg rant and rave over the South Australians coming up with some good practical solutions to secure their energy needs.

 

[samh004]

Why no wind? Well pretty obvious - an over reliance on that has been part of the issue

Surprised no solar - SA could have more of this.

Also to be honest SA is also perfect for nuclear, albeit the areas the British previously ruined aren't close enough to population centres

Can they not use geo-thermal power? The Great Artesian Basin is under part of SA is it not?

 

[JessicaTam]

Can they not use geo-thermal power? The Great Artesian Basin is under part of SA is it not?

Have a look at post 133

 

[samh004]

Have a look at post 133

Apologies.

 

[RooFlyer]

Can they not use geo-thermal power? The Great Artesian Basin is under part of SA is it not?

The water in the Gt Artesian basin as a whole isn't hot enough. There are three basic types of geothermal:

* Over hot magma areas, where ground water near the surface is >>100 deg C. This is a doddle - simply drill down into the steam zone (hopefully supercritical) and bung it through turbines. Iceland, USA, Italy, NZ, Japan.

* Buried hot rocks. Basically you need the rocks to be >200 deg C and as shallow as possible. Absent shallow magma, this only occurs in special areas where you have radiometric rocks, such as granites which like all granites produce some heat through radiometric decay AND they need to be covered by insulating rock cover to keep the heat in - sort of like a doona over an electric blanket. Exploration in Australia in the 2000s found some of the world's best examples - notably the Cooper Basin in Qld, but also a number of other places (such as NE Tasmania ). The best cases had rocks of abt 240 deg C at about 4km down, from memory. Yep, that's a long way down and extraordinarily expensive to drill the many, large diameter holes needed, then to frac between them (don't panic - its 4-5km down ... !) and then you pump water down one, it goes into the fractures between holes, heats up, then comes up the adjoining hole as steam +200 deg C and you put it through a turbine. Geodynamics got a couple of successful holes down, and a 1MW pilot plant. But then the cost got too much, the technical issues kept coming and the money basically ran out.

The amount of energy contained in hot rocks is truly eye watering, even heavily discounted for recovery and other factors. The Geodynamics project, even with just a couple of early holes (out of hundreds ultimately needed) reported to the ASX a Measured and Indicated resource (discounted for recovery) of 9,400 petajoules, in situ. Now 1 PJ is 277,777 megawatt hours. So that's 2.6 billion MWh; base load, renewable and "carbon" free from the start of just one project.

Australia's total energy supply in 2014-15 was about 6,000 PJ

* Hot sedimentary aquifers (like the Gt Artesian Basin). Again, plenty of them, but need special case of porosity, temperature and (relative) shallowness. A couple of plays in Sth Australia got drilled but again, didn't quite get there.

When I say 'ran out of money' - it was a case of the GFC hitting, so investors fled (it was mainly stock exchange investor funds) coupled with RET funds being corned by wind and solar, as they were off and running, and geothermal still at proof of concept.

Google Foundation put a hellavalot of money into geothermal, including Australia (I had the pleasure of visiting them in San Francisco once, looking for cash <<didn't get any >>) but they did fund some hot rocks projects in Nevada. Interestingly, their big initiative called RE<C (Renewable Energy less than, or cheaper than Carbon) couldn't be search on Google at the time .