Wind Generation and the Electricity Grid

[whatmeworry]

Jay Weatherill shirtfronts Josh Frydenberg.

[video=youtube;eoRxAqMBhY0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoRxAqMBhY0[/video]

 

[RooFlyer]

Strange Weatherill was there - was a Commonwealth funded thing he was at, nothing from the SA Govt. I guess he had nothing better to do and decided to make a spectacle of himself. As an aside, how's that new hospital going again?

Humiliated once when his renewables strategy blew up in his face, then humiliated again when he went off in a huff and took South Australia onto a separate course from the rest of the country (grid) then listened as the PM announced a few billion for new generation for the east coast grid.

Who does this remind you of, right now:

 

[RAM]

The "Official" report was released last week on the latest SA incident (detailed above - now how exactly do you put a link in for a specific post?) makes for interesting reading. The part about having no idea why Pelican point joined the 'outage party' particularly memorable. See below:

Baseload gas failure nearly pushed S.A. into another system black : Renew Economy

The Australian Energy Market Operator has confirmed that the explosion and fire at the Torrens Island gas plant near Adelaide in early March, and the failure of the two biggest base-load gas generators nearly sent the South Australia grid into another “system black.”

The loss of the two principal baseload generators – Torrens and Pelican Point – to as yet unexplained reasons – made the system unstable for a period of 40 minutes. It appears to have been held together only by the states’s wind farms, and the inter-connector to Victoria.

AEMO, in a report published a week ago, says there are striking similarities between the “system black” event in September 28, and the events of March 3, when no blackouts actually occurred.

On March 3, the sudden loss of gas-fired generation (410MW in 1.5 seconds and a further 200MW within five minutes), was more dramatic than on September 28, and the Heywood interconnector carried a much higher load for a longer period of time without collapsing.

AEMO said the loss of one 130MW unit after the explosion and fire was understandable, but says it is at a loss to explain why another two units at Torrens tripped and why the 250MW Pelican Point power plant also tripped within 1.5 seconds.

But one thing it does know that adjustments to the “ride through” settings on the state’s wind farm fleet means that they were unaffected by the failures and the dramatic voltage swings that appeared to have taken the state’s “baseload” gas fleet out of action.

“All wind farms in SA successfully rode through a series of three transmission faults in short succession on 3 March, indicating the changes made to their protection system since 28 September 2016 have been successful,” AEMO noted.

It said that AEMO has not identified any sustained reduction in output from the wind farms as a consequence of the faults on the transmission system. It appears to confirm SEMO’s previous assessment that the changes would avoid a similar system black if the September 28 events were repeated.

Premier Jay Weatherill had no doubt what kept the lights on: “Wind farms kept the lights on in South Australia that day,” he told the ABC.

 

[Pushka]

Weatherill wasn't invited.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Strange Weatherill was there - was a Commonwealth funded thing he was at, nothing from the SA Govt. I guess he had nothing better to do and decided to make a spectacle of himself. As an aside, how's that new hospital going again?

Humiliated once when his renewables strategy blew up in his face, then humiliated again when he went off in a huff and took South Australia onto a separate course from the rest of the country (grid) then listened as the PM announced a few billion for new generation for the east coast grid.

Actually no, not at all. The sheer hypocrisy of Frydenberg and the federal coalition ostriches is breathtaking. Some of the worst policy for base politics I've ever seen. After screaming about SA using 'public' money to provide a solution to problems of the federally controlled national energy market, then to announce a public funded long winded scheme to enhance the Snowy scheme ( not necessarily a bad plan but won't address the issues facing the east coast next Xmas ) combined with some raving looney coalition members calling for nuclear power stations is hilarious.

 

[RAM]

Finally a coherent explanation of the Federal Energy Policies

[video=youtube_share;ELaBzj7cn14]https://youtu.be/ELaBzj7cn14[/video]

 

[RooFlyer]

The "Official" report was released last week on the latest SA incident (detailed above - now how exactly do you put a link in for a specific post?) makes for interesting reading. <snip>.

Click the post # on the top RH of the post you want to reference. It will shoot to the top of the screen.

Copy the URL

Highlight the place you want the referenced URL to appear and past the URL into the URL link thing normally used from the tool bar.

 

[RooFlyer]

Actually no, not at all. The sheer hypocrisy of Frydenberg and the federal coalition ostriches is breathtaking. Some of the worst policy for base politics I've ever seen. After screaming about SA using 'public' money to provide a solution to problems of the federally controlled national energy market, then to announce a public funded long winded scheme to enhance the Snowy scheme ( not necessarily a bad plan but won't address the issues facing the east coast next Xmas ) combined with some raving looney coalition members calling for nuclear power stations is hilarious.

National Energy Market = National money ... seems Ok to me (with the other 2 owners, NSW and Vic still in the dark as to how much, if any, they will be contributing).

I agree re the disgrace of national government inertia over energy supply .. . that's what you get when green feel good politics over-rides the national good.

No, doesn't fix short term energy shortages ... but neither does Weatherill's scheme. The best fix of short term energy supply on the National grid is to NOT have Hazelwood shut down. Yeah, I know the cost, but either you want the power to be available, or not. On the other hand, Tasmania was substantially powered by diesel generators last year when our hydro dams were going dry and there was no interconnector. Maybe SA can go diesel?

I guess what we really need at this point is a Carbon Tax. That'll fix things by pushing the economy more into renewable energy.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Two Good contributions to the debate from this article

Phoney energy crisis merely a ploy to access off-limits gas

How the big three robbed us of our own gas


Ps: Clarke & Dawe above explained it brilliantly. National Living Treasures. Long way from "farnakling", although this could be a good game for the current federal (and state) policies.

 

[RAM]

Click the post # on the top RH of the post you want to reference. It will shoot to the top of the screen.

Copy the URL

Highlight the place you want the referenced URL to appear and past the URL into the URL link thing normally used from the tool bar.

All kneel before the guru!

Thank you!

 

[Cossie]

Finally a coherent explanation of the Federal Energy Policies

[video=youtube_share;ELaBzj7cn14]https://youtu.be/ELaBzj7cn14[/video]

Brilliant, after watching it, I thought this is too close to the truth to be funny, unfortunately. How dumb are we in selling off essential assets, regardless of which political party is doing it.

Now off for my chai latte and paleo banana bread....

 

[travelislife]

Brilliant, after watching it, I thought this is too close to the truth to be funny, unfortunately. How dumb are we in selling off essential assets, regardless of which political party is doing it.

Now off for my chai latte and paleo banana bread....

Definition of insanity...doing the same thing again and again (privatisation) and expecting a different result (cheaper more efficient service for the public)!

 

[whatmeworry]

Waleed Aly on the energy crisis.

"It's a neat trick, really. Take a country with enough gas to supply itself "indefinitely", send the vast majority of it overseas, refuse to sell locally at a fair price, create a domestic shortage, then demand access to some of our most environmentally sensitive resources as though it's an emergency measure."

Snowy Hydro 2.0 almost like something out of Utopia.

 

[drron]

Of course the Curtis Island LNG plants were approved by a Federal ALP Government and A QLD ALP Government.

 

[whatmeworry]

Of course the Curtis Island LNG plants were approved by a Federal ALP Government and A QLD ALP Government.

Funny how you can't acknowledge both sides stuffed up. Yet you keep peddling the same old story, Labor bad, Liberal/Nationals good.

 

[drron]

Funny how you can't acknowledge both sides stuffed up. Yet you keep peddling the same old story, Labor bad, Liberal/Nationals good.

It's only to counter your Coalition bad,ALP good.Besides I don't regard cartoons and comedians a reliable source of news.

 

[RAM]

Of course the Curtis Island LNG plants were approved by a Federal ALP Government and A QLD ALP Government.

If you dig through the "declared" donations you will find that both major parties receive large (and frequent) donations from many of the same donors.

The original sell out of Australian gas was done under Howard/Costello and one well known fund manager spent over $200,000 of his own money taking out adverts in newspapers Australia-wide pointing out the fact that the NW shelf gas was to be sold for a 30yr period at a fraction of the price then currently paid domestically by all but the Aluminum smelters.

Result - photo opportunity for then PM and Australian businesses put at a cost disadvantage to equivalent Japanese and Korean ones.

Snouts-in-trough brigade feather their nests and Australian competitiveness further reduced.

Political self-interest trumps the good of the country every time. Remember the $30m advertising campaign by the resource major's lobby against the proposed mining super profits tax? Cost to Consolidated revenue (from Treasury estimates) in the billions to the point that despite BHP announcing a single year profit (at the peak) of $22.5bn - it paid less than 0.01% of the so called super profits tax due to the changes made following the ad campaign.

Colour does not matter - blue, red or green - the outcomes are the same once the donors get in the equation. Australia loses.

 

[RooFlyer]

I think that analysis of the mining tax is a bit coloured by 'Treasury' analysis under the government of the day. I think its fair to say that when the govt actually discussed it with the miners (as they initially promised to do, but didn't), the miners negotiated the pants off the govt - another sign of the govt's incompetence. The mining tax wasn't going to raise much at all as legislated - I think it was the capital depreciation allowance that did it?

Was the money-flashing fund manager you refer to, the "Elephant"? I used to enjoy hearing him at lunches and observing his tactics in the odd gold takeover at the time.

And I reckon to imply that NW shelf gas should have been 'reserved' for domestic use or priced anywhere near the then domestic price is a bit off - the resource simply wouldn't have been developed (very high capital and risk, low domestic demand) and that would not have been tenable either politically or economically at the time. One day we'll be short of iron ore - and will there then be hand-wringing that we sold it too cheap overseas in the early 21st Century?

Fair comment re donors and their impositions on govt policy for their own ends. Here in Tas the money and influence of greenie millionaires from 'offshore' resulted in the eventual closure of our forest industry - to the point that a new low rise hotel in Hobart recently had to source timber cladding from Victoria, as they couldn't source it within the state. Boat builders can't get sufficient specialty supply for the odd wooden dinghy. Pathetic.

 

[wandering_fred]

Mr Grylls mistake in the WA election was not continuously pointing out that the extra $5/ton rent payment on iron ore was going to be subsidized by a $1.50/ton rebate on the miner's federal income tax. If they didn't get the full $1.50 then they were "fiddling" with the P&L statement.

It would have gone a long way in recovering the GST "under recovery"

I think that wind farms should have to publicly declare their daily generation and thus "efficiency". I suspect some are a great deal more "well placed" than others. I have never seen the Albany farm not rotating. Which is more than I can say for others.

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[whatmeworry]

Mark Knight on the energy crisis.