5 ms·

Did I read right that a $66m investment netted $40m this year?

bmon 8y ago
South Australia's energy grid is a very exceptional case, due to a very jarring transition to renewables. I would not expect the same level of returns in other areas.
- photojosh 8y ago
  It's worth noting that the major recent failures of the grid across south-eastern Australia have been due to 1) tornados taking down the interconnector between Victoria and SA (a failure which the conservative government blamed on renewables), and 2) regular failures from the decrepit old coal power plants. While the transition to renewables has indeed been rapid and jarring, that's not what has caused problems.
  - brownbat 8y ago
    I think bmon just meant that renewables have more daily peaks than coal or nuclear, so they create more opportunities for battery savings relative to traditional fast start generation. More peaks doesn't mean worse all things considered, it isn't a critique, it's just saying that battery viability is highly contingent on local power mix.
  - ldp01 8y ago
    The renewables were definitely a factor in the SA blackout. https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Market_Notices_and_Events/Power_System_Incident_Reports/2017/Integrated-Final-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Market... Failure of a meshed power system cannot be attributed to the failure of any single sub-system. Rather it must be a combination of factors including those you just mentioned. The dependence of the power system on renewables (specifically wind farms)contributed in two ways to the blackout: 1. The majority of wind turbines provide little or no system inertia. By displacing synchronous generation with wind generation, system inertia is reduced which results in greater ROCOF during an event where there is a change in active power demand/supply. In the SA blackout, fast ROCOF overwhelmed the system's last line of defence- under frequency load shedding. 2. Some wind turbines contained a fault ride-through setting which AEMO was apparently not aware of prior to the blackout. Specifically, the setting caused the turbines to disconnect after experiencing a sequence of voltage excursions within a set time period. The disconnection caused a loss of active power supply to the grid which contributed to the drop in frequency and eventual collapse.
- manicdee 8y ago
  None of the problems in the SA grid have been due to renewables. The problems have been interconnects failing, poorly maintained transmission lines failing, the market operator placing restrictions on renewables which meant that renewables were not allowed to try to keep the lights on, and reliance of SA on electricity imported from unreliable interstate supply (aka coal thermal plants that break down or simply fail due to high ambient temperatures). All of SA’s energy problems are due to poor regulation, poor market operation, poor maintenance, Federal interference, market gaming by fossil fuel operators, and unreliable coal plants. There will be similar returns possible for other batteries in NSW (a net importer, thus highly vulnerable to gaming of the market) and QLD with a large installed base of unreliable coal which means increasing need for ancillary services. Coal is not reliable to start with, and the plant currently in use is old and getting to the point of being no longer economically viable. NSW and QLD grids will need significant support services as they transition from unreliable coal to dependable (but intermittent) renewables.
tobtoh 8y ago
With my limited understanding of the Australian energy market, the system 'saved' $40M across the Australian energy market, it didn't generate $40M in income for the system operators. ie by being a fast peaker supply, it stopped spikes in energy prices across the Aust Energy market which is where the savings of $40M come from.
- BeeOnRope 8y ago
  If you consider Australia as a whole, did it save anything? That is, did it simply save the Australian state of South Australia $40 million they would have spent on the spot market, but entirely at the expense of other entities in the Australian market that would have otherwise sold it the electricity? Not that there is anything wrong with that - it still makes total sense for SA to deploy such a system in that case, but it's very different than say saving $40 million in fuel costs due to not spinning up short-term natgas generators or something.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    Short version: the Australian energy market is a mess and was being gamed by a small (2 or 3) number of operators of gas peaking plants who were driving the spot price up to several orders of magnitude higher than normal wholesale prices. The battery by simply existing cut the ability of these operators to game the market as heavily, because they could only bid up to the floor price the state government had set for the battery to bid in at. This is direct state interference in a competitive market so the “floor” is still quite high. With more private operators entering the market the ability to game the system will be eroded further since everyone wants to get the easy money. The savings were mostly due to cutting the fat out of the market gouging practices. No/little change to actual supply occurred.
    - thucydidesofusa 8y ago
      If the 'competitors' had price-fixing power, it wasn't a competitive market.
  - tgtweak 8y ago

bmon 8y ago

South Australia's energy grid is a very exceptional case, due to a very jarring transition to renewables. I would not expect the same level of returns in other areas.

photojosh 8y ago
It's worth noting that the major recent failures of the grid across south-eastern Australia have been due to 1) tornados taking down the interconnector between Victoria and SA (a failure which the conservative government blamed on renewables), and 2) regular failures from the decrepit old coal power plants. While the transition to renewables has indeed been rapid and jarring, that's not what has caused problems.
- brownbat 8y ago
  I think bmon just meant that renewables have more daily peaks than coal or nuclear, so they create more opportunities for battery savings relative to traditional fast start generation. More peaks doesn't mean worse all things considered, it isn't a critique, it's just saying that battery viability is highly contingent on local power mix.
- ldp01 8y ago
  The renewables were definitely a factor in the SA blackout. https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Market_Notices_and_Events/Power_System_Incident_Reports/2017/Integrated-Final-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Market... Failure of a meshed power system cannot be attributed to the failure of any single sub-system. Rather it must be a combination of factors including those you just mentioned. The dependence of the power system on renewables (specifically wind farms)contributed in two ways to the blackout: 1. The majority of wind turbines provide little or no system inertia. By displacing synchronous generation with wind generation, system inertia is reduced which results in greater ROCOF during an event where there is a change in active power demand/supply. In the SA blackout, fast ROCOF overwhelmed the system's last line of defence- under frequency load shedding. 2. Some wind turbines contained a fault ride-through setting which AEMO was apparently not aware of prior to the blackout. Specifically, the setting caused the turbines to disconnect after experiencing a sequence of voltage excursions within a set time period. The disconnection caused a loss of active power supply to the grid which contributed to the drop in frequency and eventual collapse.
manicdee 8y ago
None of the problems in the SA grid have been due to renewables. The problems have been interconnects failing, poorly maintained transmission lines failing, the market operator placing restrictions on renewables which meant that renewables were not allowed to try to keep the lights on, and reliance of SA on electricity imported from unreliable interstate supply (aka coal thermal plants that break down or simply fail due to high ambient temperatures). All of SA’s energy problems are due to poor regulation, poor market operation, poor maintenance, Federal interference, market gaming by fossil fuel operators, and unreliable coal plants. There will be similar returns possible for other batteries in NSW (a net importer, thus highly vulnerable to gaming of the market) and QLD with a large installed base of unreliable coal which means increasing need for ancillary services. Coal is not reliable to start with, and the plant currently in use is old and getting to the point of being no longer economically viable. NSW and QLD grids will need significant support services as they transition from unreliable coal to dependable (but intermittent) renewables.

tobtoh 8y ago

With my limited understanding of the Australian energy market, the system 'saved' $40M across the Australian energy market, it didn't generate $40M in income for the system operators. ie by being a fast peaker supply, it stopped spikes in energy prices across the Aust Energy market which is where the savings of $40M come from.

BeeOnRope 8y ago
If you consider Australia as a whole, did it save anything? That is, did it simply save the Australian state of South Australia $40 million they would have spent on the spot market, but entirely at the expense of other entities in the Australian market that would have otherwise sold it the electricity? Not that there is anything wrong with that - it still makes total sense for SA to deploy such a system in that case, but it's very different than say saving $40 million in fuel costs due to not spinning up short-term natgas generators or something.
- manicdee 8y ago
  Short version: the Australian energy market is a mess and was being gamed by a small (2 or 3) number of operators of gas peaking plants who were driving the spot price up to several orders of magnitude higher than normal wholesale prices. The battery by simply existing cut the ability of these operators to game the market as heavily, because they could only bid up to the floor price the state government had set for the battery to bid in at. This is direct state interference in a competitive market so the “floor” is still quite high. With more private operators entering the market the ability to game the system will be eroded further since everyone wants to get the easy money. The savings were mostly due to cutting the fat out of the market gouging practices. No/little change to actual supply occurred.
  - thucydidesofusa 8y ago
    If the 'competitors' had price-fixing power, it wasn't a competitive market.
- tgtweak 8y ago