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Forum Index : Other Stuff : Baseload vs. renewables-costs
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| domwild Guru  Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
Sorry Glenn, slightly off topic but very topical: A severe low over Germany with the name "Heini" produced far too much energy from wind, in fact enough to run Berlin for 20 days. The baseload of 42% (brown coal 28%, black coal 14%) remained the same during that time. That surge of energy entered the European grid and flowed East (Austria and Eastern Europe) and dropped prices there, which made those countries unhappy as that sudden and temporary cheaper supply made their renewable energy uncompetitive. After Fukujima Mother Merkel decided to slowly shut down the German nuclear reactors leading to fears Germany had to buy nuclear energy from France to make up for the shortfall, what an irony! Since then Germany went berserk with windmills and even churches have solar panels on roofs and in the mix renewable energy is now at 30%. That switch in German energy policy is now being challenged in some quarters. Shades of South Australia, where the exact opposite happened during a lull in the wind and energy had to be imported plus dearer gas had to be used causing a spike. This happened before the storm disaster. Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
The problem is energy networks design decades ago for coal/nuclear base load power supplies are struggling to work on renewable inconsistent supplies. The power companies dont, understandably, want to spend the money on changing the network to work better with renewables. If you look at the politics of the Australian power grid, its as ridiculous as the rail system, where different states have different rail gauges. States trade electricity between each other, all looking for the best profit, with little concern about how the grid will adopt change. Fact is the power grid should be a national concern and not left to individual state governments. We need a grid that can handle a mix of inconsistent renewable power supplies, base load supplies, and storage systems. Base load can be fossil ( gas preferred in my book ), hydro and geo-thermal ( hot rock ). Storage can be hydro, which is easy to do but under utilised, hot salts or battery. The grid should be able to supply power from one side of the country to the other. If its overcast in Vic, it will be sunny in Queensland. But the lack of a good grid is letting us down and giving renewables a ( mostly undeserved ) bad reputation. I remember when they were trialing hot rock power stations. They worked, it was reliable clean base load power, but because the sites were remote due to the rock strata requirements, there were no grid transmission lines available to supply the grid, and no one was willing to make the investment, so hot rock fizzled out. But, while politics is driven by extreme groups, both left and right, and political donations are accepted from fossil fuel companies, nothing will change. The answer is simple, go off grid, or partly off grid. Most of us have solar panels now, add a "Power Wall", and you have power when the grid goes down. While SA was in darkness, some people there comfortably using electricity from their own systems. In my rural neighborhood I get comments from my neighbours about how unreliable the power here is, and how during a blackout my house is the only one with lights on in the whole valley. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
how gas generators cashed in and exploited hot water load  it's like an episode of the bold and the beautiful here in SA. hopefully it will get as exciting as it did in Germany I am enjoying it immensely. The dirty tricks and scare-mongering has finally got up the nose of local business and they have started installing solar in a big way, admittedly several months behind my prediction but the change in attitude is breathtaking. It has gone from "Let us think about it for a year or so" to "When can you start, how about next week?" My opinion is that SA will come out of this pretty well. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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Clockmanfr Guru Joined: 23/10/2015 Location: FrancePosts: 429 |
Here in France lots and lots of Nuclear Power stations, mostly around the edges/borders of France. By Law I am allowed to self consume my generated electricity and its encouraged in the writings. However, France is a Republic and therefore the State is here to care for the Populace, well that's the idea. So EDF the government Power Company are not very active on Grid tied stuff. Infact some folk around me have taken years wading through the paper work and department functionaries/officials. Also the feed in Tariffs are very low and the approved installers of PV etc are very very expensive so most people see know reason to install renewables. Yes, you may look up France renewables and see all the French figures they put out .... please use a pinch of salt. At present I am arguing with EDF, who can not understand why my Bills are low and keep going down, and 2, every year send a engineers van out here to check that I am not feeding back or fiddling with the EDF meter. As regards UK Grid tie feed back tariffs are very low now. But at least the PV panels etc are at keen costing's. Everything is possible, just give me time. 3 HughP's 3.7m Wind T's (14 years). 5kW PV on 3 Trackers, (10 yrs). 21kW PV AC coupled SH GTI's. OzInverter created Grid. 1300ah 48v. |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Yeah I think your right Yahoo. SA will do well, and hopefully the SA government stays in long enough to make it impractical for a change in government to undo their work. Qld is heading in the same direction, with some big solar and wind farm approvals recently. While the politicians are using the power outage as a political anti-renewbles pro coal football, the people are smarter than that, doing their own research, and heading faster towards renewables, not away. And they are doing it in their own back yard ( or roof ). The change to renewables is bound to have a few hiccups, and initially be more expensive, but long term, the prices will fall and the grid will be more reliable. Anyone who lives off grid can relate to that, the initial investment was a lot of money, but after a few years its paid off, and then your power is dirt cheap, and, more reliable. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
The article about some German councils buying back the grid is very interesting. Thanks Yahoo. SA is linked to the ES grid, so what is the problem there? Is that link big enough? Probably not. As Glenn said, if it is raining in SA, it is sunny in Qld and vice versa. Assuming the storm had not blown the towers down, SA would have fed into the grid and made some money from it. That surplus money would have paid for the days in SA, when gas had to be used during a wind drought and that lull caused a spike in prices. With global warming droughts, storms and floods will intensify. As engineers would have constructed the towers in SA to known wind maxima, it proves an intensification. Unless they rusted away due to lack of funds. Whether we like it or not and I know Glenn does not like nuclear but we probably must go nuclear for the base load with all its possible disadvantages. A start will be the acceptance of high-level nuclear waste into SA. Queenslanders needn't worry, that coal can be made into dearer hydrocarbons once the oil runs out. Germany had to do it during WWII. Gough Whitlam had the correct idea to stop us going nuclear so as not to start a nuclear arms race in SE Asia but Indonesia has just built a reactor and the Greens tell us they built it on a fault line! Not hard to do in Indonesia. Now I have started something! Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| domwild Guru Joined: 16/12/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 873 |
Yes, around the borders! The first nuclear power station in Austria was ready to be switched on when a citizen's referendum stopped the cut-in. Then the Czech Republic built one right on the border with Austria. Should it blow, we want it to be as far away from our own country! Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up. Winston Churchill |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Yes I hate nuclear. The pro nuclear people call it a clean fuel. But it has a waste product that is toxic for hundreds of years and must be stored for generations, long after it was useful. Someone explain to me how that is a "clean" fuel? Anyone? And its dangerous. The two major meltdowns ( and there have been dozens of near meltdowns ) have rendered the surrounding areas inhabitable for decades. Populations of two cities have been displaced by "safe" nuclear power. The only safe way to run a nuclear power station is to locate it well away from communities and farmland, so if things do go bad, the damage is minimized. But then we get back to the problem of transmission lines. So may as well use hot rock instead of nuclear. Cost less and is safer and cleaner. Thorium reactors I would accept, much much safer, the waste is less toxic and the fuel more abundant. But again, politics get in the way. Thorium is like hot rocks, it works too well and solves a lot of problems, so governments dont like it. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| joebog1 Senior Member  Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
It is a pretty sad state of affairs in australia as far as energy goes!! The one 15 amp extension cord that connects SA to VIC is sadly in need of upgrade. SA will be the winners in the end, they just need slow down with power plants and build a spider web grid. That is, lots of small "fingers" that connect the various wind and solar together. Even our Pri ninny cha  said it was the aggressive electrons that broke the towers SHEESH.We dont need atomicks ( with apologies to Spike Milligan) The mount Emerald wind gen site is about five cliks from here, and Im not too keen on it ( sorry  ) The generators give pollution free power, but the millions of tons of concrete required to hold them in place is not. AND we do get some decent blows every now and then The distant hill is Mount Emerald, (taken from my back yard for this topic, right now) Its also touted as 800 jobs!! Rauch Aust has all its own workers !!! the only work we will get is at the concrete batching plants. If you look closely you can see the grid on the nearer hill. So apart from the b###sh%t politics that grid doesnt even feed this way !! it goes west. There is a site on the way to town for the new switch station though, so that might change. Im on grid so I will be interested to see what happens to power prices as me n the missis pay about $500 a quarter now  .We are very modest users !!!! but I do have electric hotwater. I also have at LEAST one blackout per week, which might last anywhere from 2 seconds to 5 or 6 hours!! Sorry mods, this is kinda off topic, BUT relevant to me and quite a few others around here. Joe |
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