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>On those days, excess solar power from households and businesses spilled uncontrolled on to the system, pushing the amount of power needed from the grid to inc

>On those days, excess solar power from households and businesses spilled uncontrolled on to the system, pushing the amount of power needed from the grid to increasingly low levels. >Ms Zibelman said WA's isolation amplified this trend because the relative concentration of its solar resources meant fluctuations in supply caused by the weather had an outsized effect. >The only way to manage the solar was to scale back or switch off the coal- and gas-fired power stations that were supposed to be the bedrock of the electricity system. >The problem was coal-fired plants were not designed to be quickly ramped up or down in such a way, meaning they were ill-equipped to respond to sudden fluctuations in solar production. Sounds like it's time rebalance the system with lower baseload assumptions for coal and gas plants. I'm quite sure the incumbents are loathe to suggest that since it means investment in buffers to soak up so-called excess power from solar panels and splitting the profit with solar panel owners.

jjeaff 7y ago
How does a lower baseline estimate factor in when you have a particularly cloudy day or week?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  That's a particularly easy fix in Australia - site your solar plants in the readily available 90% of the country that's largely desert.
  - buzzkillington 7y ago
    Slight problem that the dessert will get to around 50C on sunny days. No infrastructure on earth is designed to operate at those temperatures. That's on top of distances like those between Huston to New York between the main sun light areas and the population centers.
    - int_19h 7y ago
      What is the problem with operating the power delivery infrastructure at those temps, exactly? And as for distances - power grids have been built at similar scale, and even longer. When there's essentially free power for the taking, why wouldn't you invest into delivering it where it needs to go?
      - buzzkillington 7y ago
        >What is the problem with operating the power delivery infrastructure at those temps, exactly? It costs three or more times as much since you need to use uncommon materials and design from scratch. >And as for distances - power grids have been built at similar scale, and even longer. There is no country in the world as large and as sparsely populated as Australia. The distance between Perth and Brisbane is the same as that between NY and SF with no one living between them. When I worked in finance here it was always fun explaining to Americans why their algos will fail regardless of what we do, the speed of light matters. Hilariously enough, even the US doesn't have one grid continent wide, and it's ten times as densely populated as Australia.
        int_19h 7y ago
        Russia is an example of a country that is much larger, and also sparsely populated. And I'm still confused - what kind of "uncommon materials" are we talking about? What exactly is the problem with normal power delivery infrastructure that precludes it from operating at high temps?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114008/ampdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/1... > Elevated air temperatures can reduce the rated capacity of electric transmission lines, meaning that their ability to transmit power will be diminished during peak hours. That said, it looks like it's just a couple percent, so maybe you just overbuild a little.
        7y ago
    - paranoidrobot 7y ago
      > main sun light areas You say this like it doesn't get sunny in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (the top three largest cities) Plenty of room for solar on existing buildings and structures. No need to transport it long distances.
- technofiend 7y ago
  Exactly as I described above - by assuming fluctuations will first be buffered by battery or other storage and only addressed if required by gas peakers and increased coal-based energy production in extended periods of lower light.
  - buzzkillington 7y ago
    The largest installation in the world is in South Australia and it can run the state for 15 minutes. It cost $100 million to build. Batteries energy density puts them so far past green washing that in the current day and age they are Potemkin villages.
    - nicksantamaria 7y ago
      The purpose of the battery isn’t to power the entire state for 15 minutes. It can respond to market demand within milliseconds, and after coming online was responsible for dropping the average wholesale price of electricity by 90%.
      - buzzkillington 7y ago
        In the fcas market, the total electricity price has increased by over 30% in the last three years.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Traditional power plants are perfectly able to adapt to weather patterns. Weather forecasts on a time scale of 12 hours or a day are very accurate. For very shorts fluctuations you can always buffer into batteries. The real problem is that fossil fuel plants are designed to be profitable at high load factors. Building a coal plant and only running it at 50% load is not profitable.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Traditional power plants have never had to deal with weather patterns that can significantly increase or decrease output, no?

jjeaff 7y ago

How does a lower baseline estimate factor in when you have a particularly cloudy day or week?

ceejayoz 7y ago
That's a particularly easy fix in Australia - site your solar plants in the readily available 90% of the country that's largely desert.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  Slight problem that the dessert will get to around 50C on sunny days. No infrastructure on earth is designed to operate at those temperatures. That's on top of distances like those between Huston to New York between the main sun light areas and the population centers.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    What is the problem with operating the power delivery infrastructure at those temps, exactly? And as for distances - power grids have been built at similar scale, and even longer. When there's essentially free power for the taking, why wouldn't you invest into delivering it where it needs to go?
    - buzzkillington 7y ago
      >What is the problem with operating the power delivery infrastructure at those temps, exactly? It costs three or more times as much since you need to use uncommon materials and design from scratch. >And as for distances - power grids have been built at similar scale, and even longer. There is no country in the world as large and as sparsely populated as Australia. The distance between Perth and Brisbane is the same as that between NY and SF with no one living between them. When I worked in finance here it was always fun explaining to Americans why their algos will fail regardless of what we do, the speed of light matters. Hilariously enough, even the US doesn't have one grid continent wide, and it's ten times as densely populated as Australia.
      - int_19h 7y ago
        Russia is an example of a country that is much larger, and also sparsely populated. And I'm still confused - what kind of "uncommon materials" are we talking about? What exactly is the problem with normal power delivery infrastructure that precludes it from operating at high temps?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/114008/ampdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/1... > Elevated air temperatures can reduce the rated capacity of electric transmission lines, meaning that their ability to transmit power will be diminished during peak hours. That said, it looks like it's just a couple percent, so maybe you just overbuild a little.
        7y ago
  - paranoidrobot 7y ago
    > main sun light areas You say this like it doesn't get sunny in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (the top three largest cities) Plenty of room for solar on existing buildings and structures. No need to transport it long distances.
technofiend 7y ago
Exactly as I described above - by assuming fluctuations will first be buffered by battery or other storage and only addressed if required by gas peakers and increased coal-based energy production in extended periods of lower light.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  The largest installation in the world is in South Australia and it can run the state for 15 minutes. It cost $100 million to build. Batteries energy density puts them so far past green washing that in the current day and age they are Potemkin villages.
  - nicksantamaria 7y ago
    The purpose of the battery isn’t to power the entire state for 15 minutes. It can respond to market demand within milliseconds, and after coming online was responsible for dropping the average wholesale price of electricity by 90%.
    - buzzkillington 7y ago
      In the fcas market, the total electricity price has increased by over 30% in the last three years.
adrianN 7y ago
Traditional power plants are perfectly able to adapt to weather patterns. Weather forecasts on a time scale of 12 hours or a day are very accurate. For very shorts fluctuations you can always buffer into batteries. The real problem is that fossil fuel plants are designed to be profitable at high load factors. Building a coal plant and only running it at 50% load is not profitable.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Traditional power plants have never had to deal with weather patterns that can significantly increase or decrease output, no?