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The article says: 'Australia’s attempt to put renewable electricity on the grid has sent electricity prices skyrocketing and resulted in increased blackouts. I

The article says: 'Australia’s attempt to put renewable electricity on the grid has sent electricity prices skyrocketing and resulted in increased blackouts. It has been said that intermittent electricity has “wrecked the grid” in Australia.' whereas reality is somewhat more nuanced: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/24/south-australias-clean-energy-shift-brings-lowest-power-prices-on-national-grid-audit-finds https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/24/south... 'Hugh Saddler, the author of the monthly audit and an associate professor at the Australian National University, said wind and solar power supplied more than 50% of the electricity generated in South Australia for most months over the past two years. “That’s made electricity in SA the cheapest in the national electricity market and dramatically increased reliability.”' To give an idea of the quality of the analysis from "Our Finite World", consider this post from 2017: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/01/10/2017-the-year-when-the-world-economy-starts-coming-apart/ https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/01/10/2017-the-year-when-the... "Things could start falling apart badly in 2017, or alternatively, major problems may be delayed until 2018 or 2019." or this post from 2015: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/08/26/deflationary-collapse-ahead/ https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/08/26/deflationary-collapse-... "The big thing that is happening is that the world financial system is likely to collapse."

buzzkillington 7y ago
>'Hugh Saddler, the author of the monthly audit and an associate professor at the Australian National University, said wind and solar power supplied more than 50% of the electricity generated in South Australia for most months over the past two years. “That’s made electricity in SA the cheapest in the national electricity market and dramatically increased reliability.”' [...] the combination of significant network investment over the past decade, recent increases to gas prices, more concentrated wholesale markets, and the transition from large scale synchronous generation to variable and intermittent renewable energy resources has had a more pronounced effect on retail prices and number of offers in South Australia than any other state in the National Electricity Market. http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-south-australias-high-electricity-prices-the-consequence-of-renewable-energy-policy-93594 http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-south-austral...
manicdee 7y ago
There’s no nuance about it, the rising prices are the result of reduced supply capacity and a well established triopoly gaming the market bidding and pricing rules. The 100MW capacity Hornsdale Power Reserve effectively capped the market to a trifling $14/kW, saving the state tens of millions of dollars a year in contingency and ancillary services costs. In addition the AEMO is taking advice from the coal burners about how to regulate renewables, with the unsurprising outcome that we end up with oscillations in frequency due to poorly tuned controllers. Then the AEMO wants to throw good money after bad by installing more synchronous condensers rather than seeking advice from the battery suppliers about how to best tune the batteries to prevent over-compensation for frequency drift.

buzzkillington 7y ago

>'Hugh Saddler, the author of the monthly audit and an associate professor at the Australian National University, said wind and solar power supplied more than 50% of the electricity generated in South Australia for most months over the past two years. “That’s made electricity in SA the cheapest in the national electricity market and dramatically increased reliability.”' [...] the combination of significant network investment over the past decade, recent increases to gas prices, more concentrated wholesale markets, and the transition from large scale synchronous generation to variable and intermittent renewable energy resources has had a more pronounced effect on retail prices and number of offers in South Australia than any other state in the National Electricity Market. http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-south-australias-high-electricity-prices-the-consequence-of-renewable-energy-policy-93594 http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-south-austral...

manicdee 7y ago

There’s no nuance about it, the rising prices are the result of reduced supply capacity and a well established triopoly gaming the market bidding and pricing rules. The 100MW capacity Hornsdale Power Reserve effectively capped the market to a trifling $14/kW, saving the state tens of millions of dollars a year in contingency and ancillary services costs. In addition the AEMO is taking advice from the coal burners about how to regulate renewables, with the unsurprising outcome that we end up with oscillations in frequency due to poorly tuned controllers. Then the AEMO wants to throw good money after bad by installing more synchronous condensers rather than seeking advice from the battery suppliers about how to best tune the batteries to prevent over-compensation for frequency drift.