The Renewable Crash Test Dummies: Test in progress
A LaTrobe Valley Coal Plant
Day #3: Huge Yallourn coal plant in Victoria loses 2 of 4 turbines. The AEMO suspends the whole market. Blackout warnings continue. Australians are being asked to conserve electricity. It’s just another day in the forced transition we don’t have to have.
How much lower can we go? Half of the generators from the ultra cheap brown coal Yallourn plant went phht yesterday. This was “unplanned”. It normally makes 20% of Victoria’s electricity. It’s owned by EnergyAustralia (China Light and Power) which is keen to close it early in 2028 and has a special secret deal with the Victorian government to do so. Perhaps China Light and Power is scrimping on those maintenance costs?
Warnings about potential blackouts exist for all five states on the National grid during the next 48 hours. The Minister for Energy, and the head of the AEMO, and several state Ministers have asked Australians to turn off all the non-essential electrical items. The NSW Minister asked people not to use their dishwasher tonight. Go first world modern nation! Meanwhile Matt Canavan wonders why people can’t use their dishwashers but the glorious Vivid Light Festival is going ahead. Priorities Matt!
So far, there have been reports of blackouts in Sydney on Monday night and in Queanbeyan near Canberra today.
This afternoon the AEMO gave up on trying to run the wholesale generation market under normal rules and suspended it completely. It is likely to stay suspended for a week. The Soviet fixed pricing system of $300/MWh was too low and generators were avoiding bidding in because they don’t like running at a loss. Reserves were already wafer thin, so this just made it all impossible.
7 News: The suspension will mean the AEMO is in charge of directing supplies from energy generators to the power grid, until further notice, safeguarding households against the threat of blackouts. In a market notice issued on Wednesday afternoon, the AEMO declared the spot market in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria was suspended from trading after it was “impossible to operate the spot market in accordance with the rules”.
The move by the regulator marks the first time the entire national electricity market has been suspended since it was formed in 1998.
The AEMO chief said that suspending the market will mean generators will have to be transparent about their available generation and the prices will be figured out later based on the prices of the last month (which were exceedingly expensive). Lets not forget that the average price for June so far in NSW and Queensland was about $500/MWh. Utterly blistering. Two years ago the average price for June was $50 in NSW and $33 in Qld.
The Premier of super renewable South Australia was scathing about how embarrassing this was — but blames all the generators, which presumably are mostly not in his state, for being greedy because they don’t want to generate electricity for a loss. What are they thinking?
Through sheer luck South Australia is at this mostly powered nearly entirely by windpower. What luck!
SA blackouts warning as Premier slams national energy ‘embarrassment’
The Australian energy operator says South Australia faces potential rolling power cuts on Friday as there is no reserve left in the national electricity grid, with Premier Peter Malinauskas saying policymakers should be “deeply ashamed” of the crisis.
AEMO this afternoon issued further LOR3 warnings in SA for Wednesday 9pm to 9.30pm and Thursday 8am to 8.30am and 9am to 10am.
A forecasted shortfall warning is also in place from Thursday 3pm all the way through to 4am Friday.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said he received advice this morning that “there’s a degree of confidence there’s enough supply in the system” for South Australia to avoid an imminent blackout.
These people have no shame. He complains they are running the grid on “market ideology” when obviously it’s that other ideology that has got us in all this trouble:
But the Labor Premier took numerous swipes at the condition of the national electricity market due to “repeated policy failures that seem to be obsessed with market ideology rather than outcomes for users”.
“This remains a very precarious moment for the state’s energy system, as is the case throughout eastern Australia,” he told ABC’s RN Breakfast. “And to say that we’re disappointed by that prospect is I think a gross understatement.”
Malinauskas said the country was witnessing a “market failure on a grand scale across the National Electricity Market” that was occurring “in a way that I think a range of policymakers should be deeply ashamed of”.
The State opposition energy spokesman pointed out that the SA government has a slow expensive solution:
“Instead, Tom Koutsantonis is spending $593 million on an experimental Hydrogen Power Plant – which isn’t expected to come online until the end of 2025 at the earliest, or even reduce residential electricity prices.”
For foreign readers wondering how Australians are coping in winter, bear in mind that we are talking of temperatures in Melbourne of 10 -15C and in Sydney of 10 -20C. Brisbane will be 11-24C tomorrow. Homes are not heated or insulated at all well compared to the Northern Hemisphere, but it’s not like a Texas winter where the pipes and fish-tanks freeze. In Hobart, Tasmania it will get down to 6 or 7C. In Canberra it will get down to 2 – 4 C this week. It’s no fun in a monocrete rental house. I remember breathing out fog indoors.
You have to love it when a plan comes together!
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You have to love it when a plan comes together!
But by Whom?
Boambee John says:
June 15, 2022 at 10:56 am
Can someone put together a list of the organisations and regulations governing the electricity system (it is clearly a lie to call it a “market”) in Australia.
In one post above, we had the Australian Energy Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Market Commission, the National Electricity Rules, the Cumulative Price Threshold, and the Australian Energy Operator.
There also is the LRET. What else is there?
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Dont forget the so called ‘Energy Security Board’.
Then you have the state energy regulators, eg IPART in NSW, Victorian Essential Service Commission, ESCOSA in SA, etc. Plus the associated schemes that most states have imposed on the system, eg Energy Savings Scheme in NSW, Energy Efficiency Scheme in Vic, etc, as well as running entire state based licencing schemes for generation, retailing, etc… and you might find it hard to believe but there remains the parallels to the different gauge rail systems even today….
Then theres the Aust. Clean Energy Regulator.
But wait, you also have the ACCC
What about the influence of the ETU – still significant in setting non market policies at least in Qld
State govt energy departments political arms (but I guess these days that is just repeating the previous inclusion of the State based Regulators)
Ok – heres another one – The ASX is now having significant impacts on market liquidity and participation through the insane margins they are now charging on electricity futures contracts, which is responsible for probably about 70% of bilateral trade in the market ordinarily.
Market ….. haaaaaaa
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Imagine if Qld just decided to disconnect from the national grid? State power prices would immediately decline to closer to $50/MWh, due to 90% of the grid being coal-fired.
The rest of the the States (excepting WA), however….welcome to the 18th century.
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“You have to love it when a plan comes together!”
“… welcome to the 18th century.”
Yes, grasshoppers.
It is time for you to carry the hot hibachi out into the snow.
Do you think dueling will make a comeback?
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You seriously think QLD powers the whole grid?
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Qld’s grid.
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Not all, but a large part of NSW to the extent that they’d go black without them. Likewise, without the Victorian and NSW interconnectors, SA would already be black.
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SA, is that not the state that recently claimed that it had renewable energy exceeding 100% of daily requirements?
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Last week was running 100% on fossil fuel , this week up to 94% wind /solar so very wild swings in supply and total reliance on the extension cords into Victoriastan.
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I see right now it’s back to 70%fossil fuel for SA , be a pity if the extension cord got pulled if Victoriastan was short of power .
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And now (2:20 SA Time) wind is only providing about 5%. The sun is still shining and providing about 30%. It will soon be dusk, then what?
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At 6.20 pm SA is 95% fossil fuel so huge swings .
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They pick rather large cherries in SA
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Nah they just pick from one side of the tree and then it’s the ones that have fallen into cow pats .
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I know the ACT did, but that’s just an accounting trick. The ACT doesn’t actually generate any electricity, they just bought windfarms in other states.
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Guess what else is happening this Friday? Wind generation is going to drop from a high of 5GW early tomorrow morning to under 1GW by the Friday evening peak. That’s over 4 GW that will be missing during the peak demand period on Friday! 4 GW is the entire Bayswater station (4 units) and Mt Piper station (2 units) going on outage. Yet nobody bats an eye when they do it. Four of the five coal stations in Australia are over 40 years old – way over their engineering lives. And to top it off, maintenance capex is axed. What do people expect?
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Just checked WA power @ 6:35PM. No Sun, little wind (0.8%).
And McGowan expects to run the grid on ‘renewables.’ He is also talking about retraining the Collie residents for the new energy age and manufacturing wind turbines. I think the Collie work force would be better to try for jobs on the NW Shelf.
SOURCE: MW, %;
COAL: 1184, 44.3;
GAS: 1458, 54.5;
OTHER: 11, 0.4;
WIND: 22, 0.8.
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McGowan is bringing all his decision making prowess developed during Covid firmly to bear on the energy sector.
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It was pointed out in an earlier post that to replace current domestic winter gas heating with grid powered heat pumps will shift SE Australia grid maximum loads from the summer months to the winter months. In the case of the ACT, it will more than double the winter month loads when compared to summer, right at the time when especially solar performance is restricted.
The ACT Govt routinely publishes performance data for its contracted renewable energy suppliers. Here is real-world published data showing the performance of Royalla Solar located to the south of the ACT. The numbers are capacity factors.
Oct-Dec 2019 = 27.1%
Jan-Mar 2020 = 22.0%
Apr-Jun 2020 = 16.9%
Jul-Sep 2020 = 19.2%
Oct-Dec 2020 = 23.9%
Jan-Mar 2021 = 20.5%
Apr-Jun 2021 = 15.4%
Jul-Sep 2021 = 17.8%
Oct-Dec 2021 = 21.2%
Jan-Mar 2022 = 19.1%
It is clear from the data that poorest solar performance happens in the Apr-Jun quarter, right where we are sitting now.
Best solar performance for this area is during the Oct-Dec quarter, with 2019 a standout. La Nina conditions have since dampened solar performance, or are the panels degrading?
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Looking at the top numbers, October to December, the capacity factor seems to decline over time: 27.1 (2019), 23.9 (2020), 21.2 (2021). Would that be an aging equipment?
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While I don’t really want to see people suffer, I think a massive grid collapse might be the necessary wake up call to a lot of dummies.
If there are huge long term blackouts, it will mainly affect people in highly populated southern states in the midst of very cold temperatures, and people may well die as a consequence. Maybe they’ll be praying for some short term actual global warming?
Luckily for South Australians, they have a great big insanely expensive battery that should keep the lights on for a few minutes before they are plunged into cold darkness.
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““Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”
― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger”
So we’ll need at least three big blackouts in a row to be convincing
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We have been managed into oblivion by these dummies, aided and abetted by large sections of the MSM.
Fancy, within three weeks of the Labor Government being sworn in they have Nationalised the Electricity Market Operator.
Remember this is all caused by the “transition” to Renewables, the cheapest form of electricity generation as claimed for the past two decades. Yes, cheap input ,nil output.
This National experiment has failed dismally and needs to be abandoned forthwith, however these people when they see failure, they just double down, claiming we need more renewables, the transition has not been fast enough.
Can you believe that this is happening in what is supposedly a first world Nation. Well was a First World Nation!
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Let’s put the blame where it belongs. It’s not the politicians or the government, they are just doing what the voters say they want. Any politician for the last 20 years who have tried to explain to the voters, where this is was heading. Has either not been voted in, or promptly voted out. THIS IS WHAT THE VOTERS WANT, and they have been consistent about this for 20+ years.
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I guess these clowns don’t understand the difference between an Energy-Only Market (EOM) and a capacity market for electricity. The eastern States plus SA have an EOM. WA, the UK, most of Europe, and many US states (excluding Texas) have capacity markets where operators are paid for guaranteeing capacity as well as for actual power supplied.
Changing to a capacity market should solve the supply issue. Or we can start bulk manufacturing briquettes again.
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And King Island just keeps trundling along on their Diesel Generator. Currently: Wind 14KW (1%), Solar 0KW, Battery -6KW, Diesel 2026KW (99%), Flywheel -63KW, Output 2034KW. I hope they don’t run out of Diesel fuel.
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I’d like to know the cost that diesel gen is bidding in at….? 🙂
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The description on the King Island dashboard is: The King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project (KIREIP) provides a glimpse of what’s achievable in renewable energy. My answer, based on watching the King island dashboard off and on for a while is the glimpse of what’s achievable in renewable energy is not very much.
It would be nice if you could download the data over a period of time so you really could get a glimpse of what’s achievable on the King Island setup.
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Jo is this you? The question is, are you being paid ENOUGH??? 😂
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My image didn’t work. Basically you are being paid by fossil fuel companies apparently.
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Facts can be confronting to some of the masses. If anybody dares have an opinion based on facts that the indoctrinated can’t handle they start with the derogatory labels such as…racist, misogynist, gerbil warming denier, antivaxxer and in this instance fossil fuel company champions.
It all gets quite tedious and boring after a while.
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Do you have any evidence to back up that “apparently”
… or is it just something your heard from another leftist twit !
Oh, and who do you think funds all the “renewables” shills !
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Oh dear. I was trying to link to a numpty tweet which said Jo was being paid by fossil fuel companies. Of course I know she is not, but my sarcasm didn’t get thru. My mistake. I have a great regard for Jo and what she does. Don’t kill me with redvotes!
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Not sure why all the downvotes, I know she is not.
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We are witnessing a concerted well planned effort here to topple Western nations by financial and social chaos. Read the writings of Cloward and Piven. When the suffering becomes unbearable the masses will cede their freedoms to the .1% who will form the new One World Government. President George Bush I alluded to this when he said “This is the start of the New World Order”!
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Well, that was the plan of the Deep State, but don’t forget about the counter-plan: the Great Awakening! The New One World Government is already stillborn 🙂
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With almost unchecked mail in voting here in the US removing the power of the establishment will be almost impossible.
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Qld Govt, CS Energy is absolutely running dodgy maintenance schedules, with planned closure of Callide an in 2028. This is a fact. So they ALL ARE. Which means coal outages will increase, and the crash is coming. Gold. I have popcorn.
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Here’s another take on the situation:
Green Fail: Australian Government Suspends the National Electricity Spot Market
Essay by Eric Worrall
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/15/green-fail-australian-government-suspends-the-electricity-spot-market/
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Energy market ‘became a bit of a farce’
‘Quite perverse incentives’ in NEM: ACT chief minister
ACT chief minister Andrew Barr expects the framework of the National Electricity Market to be looked at once the immediate east coast energy crisis has passed.
He thinks the market covering the eastern seaboard and South Australia functions very well most of the time, but says it’s clearly been tested.
“I would presume that any analysis of what has happened in this period, once we’ve got through the immediate challenges, would need to take into account circumstances such as these,” Barr told ABC RN Breakfast.
“It is a very complex system here, there’s no doubting that, and there were seemingly at least from face value, some quite perverse incentives and outcomes around how the last few days have transpired, but that led to the need to suspend the market.
“There will need to be some further work and analysis of how to avoid this sort of specific situation and potentially other how the market would respond in other extreme circumstances.”
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And there is something in the Water in WA
Australia paying for climate wars: Twiggy forrest
Billionaire Andrew Forrest says Australia is paying for its long-running climate wars and delayed investment in renewables.
“There’s been a real cost. There’s been a real cost to the Australia an economy to our ability just to put food on the table,” he told ABC RN Breakfast.
“That cost is brought to us from inaction, from not getting in fully behind an infinite source of cheap energy.”
“The more you use it (fossil fuel), the more expensive and the rarer it becomes, and the more you can be kidnapped by people like Putin when they need to invade another country and get you to pay for it.
“Trying to compete against such with fossil fuels is a complete waste of time. LNG for them as a waste. We need to get into a new product and that’s what Australia can produce, not Russia, and that’s renewable energy.”
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oops.. red thumb was for Forrest’s comments ! 🙂
Its all just so much nonsense.
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Energy crisis not expected to last all winter: Bowen
Energy Minister Chris Bowen does not expect the energy crisis gripping the eastern seaboard and forcing the suspension of National Electricity Market to last throughout the winter.
Bowen says the NEM is a “complicated beast” and the Australian Energy Market Operator’s takeover was necessary because generators kept pulling supply.
“The energy regulator wrote to the generators last week and reminded them of their legal obligations to bid in fair and accurate rates and reminded (them) the regulator was monitoring behaviour, he told ABC RN Breakfast.
“But yesterday the judgement was made that wasn’t enough.
“I’m not here to make accusations, but I say the regulator and operator has our full support in any action they deem necessary as they have done and will do.”
This suspension of the NEM will be reviewed daily.
“I don’t envisage (it continuing) that long but reviewed on a day-to-day basis in a very clear that the regulator and operator,” Bowen said when asked if this could go on for months.
He reiterated AEMO chief executive David Westerman had the government’s full support for actions deemed necessary to keep the lights on.
“The government will back the operator and regulators 100 per cent, and this intervention will not be lifted one day earlier than it needs to be in his judgement.”
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Welcome to greenouts
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And also this from WUWT:
Guardian: Sky News Australia is a global hub for climate misinformation
Essay by Eric Worrall
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/14/guardian-sky-news-australia-is-a-global-hub-for-climate-misinformation/
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So an obscure CAGW “think tank” in The Old Dart rates Sky News Australia’s work as mainstreamed, gaining high traction, with disproportionate reach and engagement…world wide.
Thank Heaven then for Sky News Australia.
And JoNova!
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I suppose that if you are determined to be a Crash Test Dummy you have to expect that sooner or later you are going to end up in a crash.
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I’m guessing Matt Kean wants people to wash their dishes by hand and turn off other appliances so he can still charge his Tesla when he gets home. Hypocrisy on roids !!!
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I can do the dishes OK if you allow me hot water, but don’t ask me to go back to doing the laundry without a washing machine.
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Like the joke has it –
We could suggest that Matt Kean has a dog named “Cold Water”
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I remember my mother using the hot copper tub for laundry.
The kiddies wouldn’t be able to handle it today.
And of course if we are reminiscing, how about the outside dunny with the odd blue tongued lizard lying in wait!
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Fear not, Wonder Boy is here to save us.
Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australia has itself to blame for the current energy crisis.
He said the cause is simple – not enough renewable energy in the grid, broken generators, and coal and gas are very expensive.
‘This is the largest decarbonisation project in the world,’ Mr Cannon-Brookes said.
A clear closure plan for AGL’s coal-fired power plants could allow other projects to attract capital and become viable.
So apparently they only become “viable” when better generating systems have been deliberately wiped out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10918415/Mike-Cannon-Brookes-says-broken-generators-coal-blame-Australias-energy-crisis.html
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He obviously eats Fruit Loops for breakfast.
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Maybe he should do what he says and decarbonise. Fool.
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I don’t understand why generators would not willingly offer all of their uncontracted capacity to the market even at VOLL (Value of Lost Load) which is the maximum price the market allows. Anyone…?
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Ahhhh….., I think that I can answer my own question, at least in part.
I remember back in 1998 or 1999 when, during a period of lack of reserves, I was offered a capacity contract for a generator that had been placed in mothballs. This was because the market operator then refused to place any value on reserve capacity and we withheld the mothballed capacity and refused to bid it into the market because there would be no payment for it. As it was, we received a contract to make it available. It was worth a tidy sum, yet the generator did not generate at all over the period of the contract. It may have been the first instance of anyone in the market receiving a capacity payment in the market’s history.
So, the problem since market inception has been that the market rules provide no value to the generators that make up the reserve pool that the market operator deems to be necessary at any time. So the AEMO has been getting its reserve capacity for free for all these years.
It has taken over 20 years to bring this into sharp focus now. So instead of suspending the NEM, as has happened, the AEMO should be focusing on the need to have capacity payments in the market, at least for any reserve that is required. There is your answer to it being “impossible to operate the market”. A case of the AEMO not knowing the shortcomings of the market he is supposed to be running!
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Can we list all the things the NEM got for free when it was mostly coal: free spinning inertia, free FCAS, free reserve capacity…
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Yes, it’s the back-up that is the problem, nobody wants to factor in the cost of back-up when costing renewables.
Back-up is the cost that you should not speak of.
Factor in that cost and renewables are not even in the race, and even without back-up not being factored in, renewables still neee subsidisation and a legislated position in the market.
This was just a matter of time, and that time has arrived!
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Sky news this morning reporting on the issue had four main reasons for the problems the grid is experiencing, two stood out .
Yearly maintenance
Low solar and wind generation
Unusually cold winter
Price of gas and coal .
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The cost of backup could be easily quantified by making renewable generators guarantee a level of supply. Then we will see how reliable they really are and what the real cost is when they have to pay for any shortfall of their guaranteed supply.
As it is the guaranteed supply of renewables is ZERO. At any time with weather conditions against them they produce nothing. It is the fossil fuel generating sector that is called upon to guarantee supply. AEMO gives directions to that sector to supply when there is a shortfall. It is that sector that has to sit with idle plant while renewables get priority access to the grid. On top of that advantage the renewables get $85 a mwh from power retailers which is paid for by their customers.
These clowns call this a market when it is no such thing. The rules are completely skewed in favour of one sector at the expense of the other. Is it any wonder that coal fired generators are being closed and maintenance is curtailed?
I don’t know whether the grid can be salvaged. It is teetering on the edge. Bowen is doubling down on renewables but their guaranteed supply is ZERO. As more comes on stream under current rules more reliable energy generators will be crowded out.
This is a very pessimistic outlook.
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Even bidding in at VOLL, or the Market Price Cap as it is now termed, gens are still likely to get targets to start for 5 minute periods given the nature of the market volatility at the moment. In many cases they will neither have the fuel availability or the plant capability to respond to intermittent 5 minute spikes where there sold contract position does not require them to run and protect. Many times they will be saving the available fuel to cover their contract positions or portfolio later in the day/week should other gens in their portfolio fail, or the general market get even worse.
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This climate change hoax is going to claim another government. It’s already taken Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbot, Turnbull, Morrison, & it will bring Albanese down as well.
When are these TURKEYS going to learn & make decisions for Australia & rid us of unelected United Nations, World Economic Forum, Bilderbergers & other globalist hangers on!!
Not one Australian has voted for this cabal of globalists who are doing their best to destroy our country!!
The people demand an end to this climate change/ global warming nonsense.
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Well here in the US things are going from just fine to catastrophic in less than 2 years so people are starting to wake up. The entrenched establishment is VERY powerful has representatives in BOTH of our major parties. People are starting to realize that we really have a one party system and are tending to gravitate towards people supported by ex President Trump who is an outsider.
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Of course the smart people in the US have already gravitated to Trump years ago but now others less smart are realising that he was on the money on so many fronts…economics, trade,immigration, race education ….. Trump knows that there’s no democracy with a corrupt voting system and is prepared to make himself even more unpopular amongst Dems and RINOs for the sake democracy in the US.
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I know that I am running the risk of looking like some sort of cheerleader for President Trump but here goes……He is a modern day George Washington. He is risking his personal health, wealth and even his freedom fighting to save the US day after day!!! His Deep State enemies are VERY powerful and ruthless. They will stop at nothing to destroy him.
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Never feel ashamed of supporting the best President the USA has ever had.
Any one who supported & voted Democrat should be hanging their heads in shame & beg forgiveness for their moronic view of the USA political scene!
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1st world issues . . .
Could be worse. We could all be worrying about how to feed our children [next year beckons].
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Sure you can keep saying it could be worse right up until the Asteroid hits. All this is avoidable and truly man made. It doesnt have to be this way.
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Good. It’s going to have to get worse before it gets better. I only hope that the bottom is not too bad.
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The Labor government’s solution: more renewables.
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They should appoint Canon Brookes as the special envoy to see their solution through. I’m sure the stunning effects of their plan can be pushed through in less than 3 years so the can bask in ots glory for the next lection cycle.
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When I read “The Premier of super renewable South Australia … blames all the generators … for being greedy because they don’t want to generate electricity for a loss.” from Australia and “President Biden may resort to using emergency powers if American oil companies don’t increase output at their refineries” from the US, this line from Atlas Shrugged came to mind:
“There was the goal of all those con men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their “instincts” as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable—the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmers’ omnipotent whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: “Now grow a harvest and feed us!”
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Sounds like Zimbabwe
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Arrogant people with little aptitude for figuring out that they reasoned wrong, but bucket loads of talent for never being wrong.
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On the international energy stage Australia must be the laughing stock of the world . .
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But do you have a head clown saying it’s Putin’s fault?
America is still No. 1.
(Maybe you do have your own clown, but ours is better.)
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Another Clown
And there is something in the Water in WA
Australia paying for climate wars: Twiggy forrest
Billionaire Andrew Forrest says Australia is paying for its long-running climate wars and delayed investment in renewables.
“The more you use it (fossil fuel), the more expensive and the rarer it becomes, and the more you can be kidnapped by people like Putin when they need to invade another country and get you to pay for it.
“Trying to compete against such with fossil fuels is a complete waste of time. LNG for them as a waste. We need to get into a new product and that’s what Australia can produce, not Russia, and that’s renewable energy.”
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On the other hand, Joe Biden is doing a good job of keeping the US in the running for the title of laughing stock of the world.
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Ric what is amazing is I have family on both US coasts that still don’t see what a useless clown Brandon is … they may never wake up.
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Ah yes, the US is the only country in the world with two left coasts.
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Just a member of the big stupid energy party the western world is having.
I dont see anything unique happening here. Maybe apart from us learning nothing from overseas failures.
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Quick, resurrect the Port Augusta power station – now, yesterday, oh, I dunno, just do it. I demand.
🤣
I mean, it disappeared in a puff of dust – can’t we just rub the oil lamp again? No? Oh.
😫
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Meanwhile in the Cuckoo Land of Australia, Important Nothings are earnestly debated
The AFR View
ESG must find its purpose in funding energy transition
By blowing up the AGL demerger, Mike Cannon-Brookes has shown that instead of divestment to avoid exposure to fossil fuels, the ESG strategy should be to invest in supporting the energy transition.
The full house at Wednesday’s first Australian Financial Review ESG Summit shows how important environmental, social, and governance principles have become to the allocation of global and domestic capital and the operation of Australia’s largest businesses in recent years.
Yet as far back as 1966, the Financial Review editorialised on “why companies exist”. While many companies had begun to accept the idea of “corporate social responsibility”, our editorial writer maintained that their primary purpose was to maximise long-run returns to capital risk-takers. Paying employees well and looking after customers in the short term would, of course, help maximise sustainable profits in the longer term.
Yet, as the Summit heard, some of the more ambitious claims that ESG investments will generate higher returns are now being tested by the global sharemarket retreat, the global energy crunch and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Matt Pasky of Trillium Asset Management told the Summit that fund managers have met the growing ESG demands of financial markets, especially around climate change, by ridding their portfolios of “dirty” assets such as traditional energy, mining and metals, and defence.
In a more challenging economic environment, will ESG be exposed as a post-material phenomenon destined to wither?
They have also piled into cleaner and greener technology stocks, which delivered a strong upside during the tech boom of the past decade. Now, the tech wreck on Wall Street and other national bourses, and the exclusion of soaring fossil fuels stocks, means that ESG funds will underperform.
The war in Europe has also put the spotlight on the blurring of the purpose of business behind an ESG screen. Investing in arms to send to Ukraine, or in new gas projects that might have prevented Europe’s energy dependence on Russia from continuing to fund Vladimir Putin’s war machine, now look like investments in global peace.
– Conflicting demands
– Resilience and regeneration
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Neil Oliver on ‘The State is no longer working to serve us and to protect our shared heritage’. (~9 minute video)
The most important comment he makes is that ‘the state’ is not just the government or parliament; it is ‘the whole edifice of those in positions of power, elected and not’.
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For players at home, how are the demands for power decided?
Commandant X tells power station A to supply electricity in the amount B at time C? Commandant X then tells wind turbine D to make the wind blow and solar panel E to make the sun shine?
Is this the first occasion on which wind turbines cannot just dump power onto the grid when they feel like it?
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No.
If you follow the NEM log charts, http://nemlog.com.au/gen/region/sa/ You will see that it is not uncommon for SA to have some of their Wind output. “Curtailed” (restricted) to ensure that there is enough gas generation operating ready to fill the gap when/if the wind suddenly stops.
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Thanks Chad. So apart from keeping gas generators on idle the wind turbines can dump power onto the grid any time they feel like it?
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Not exactly. There is a limit to how much generation can be accepted onto the grid.
In SA that limit is thr sum of the SA load demand, and the max limit of the interconnectors to VIC.
Once that limit is reached, including the gas “back up” generation, ..then the Wind generation will be curtailed
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“then the Wind generation will be curtailed”
I think you will find that they have to keep some sort of baseload signal to synchonise to.
So the wind will be curtailed below the 100% level.
At the moment it is being “curtailed” (lol) to just 134MW in SA.. Gas doing the heavy lifting yet again.!
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If one owns an air source Heat Pump, there might be some ways to save money and reduce grid loads.
When such HP goes into heating mode, the defrost cycle engages at about 31F/-0.5 C . If it is a Demand Defrost system, no worries. If it is a Timed Defrost cycle, read on.
At about 31F/-0.5C, in heat mode, a HP begins a timer cycle that is controlled by a jumper on a circuit board in the control section of the outdoor compressor unit. The timer has settings of 30/60/90 minutes, dictated by the position of a jumper clip on a circuit board, explicitly showing “30 60 90 Test” on the jumper board. If the unit is in the defrost mode for the selected period, the system goes into Defrost Mode, reverses cycle, engages electric heat strips, and enters a 10 minute defrost cycle. A timed defrost cycle has no idea if any actual frost exists. It simply follows the program.
Unless you have high humidity at 31F/-0.5C, it is unlikely that frost will form. Resetting the jumper clip to a 60 minute window can lower the number of defrost cycles from about 400 per month to about 150/month. The 10 kW heat strips engage every time the defrost cycle engages, for about 10 – 15 minutes. Changing the cycle rate can save about $50/mo in mains charges and extend the life of the system. Also relieves some 10KW/unit from the grid, which helps, in the large.
HP condensing units usually come from the factory set at 30 min cycles for defrost as an initial setting. If you are not in a high humidity situation at some 0C ambient, this is costly and not helpful. Changing the jumper clip to 60 mins helps the grid and your costs (about $AUD 50/month) . If the area is rather arid, a 90 min cycle might be worthwhile.
One other consideration is that true HP split systems (not mini split systems) have an active expansion valve in the outdoor compressor section. Ordinarily, that valve is properly adjusted at the factory (if the valve is adjustable). Sometimes it isn’t proper. Like mine. I was getting some 35C discharge temperatures from the unit at 4C ambient. That’s just wrong. Turns out the expansion valve was improperly set at the factory. A 1/2 CW turn of the stem gave a 55C discharge temperature. This reduced greatly the amount of time auxiliary electric heat was engaged. Just a thought.
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The situation energy was perfectly explained by Clarke & Dawe in 2017..
..(this is a 2 min “must watch” )
https://youtu.be/ELaBzj7cn14
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Yes, Prime Minister: Global Warming
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hooray!!
so happy self schadenfraude
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When’s the next JoNova meetup?
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You reap what you sow. The result of indoctrination of the AGW lie by non-scientists (ie: politicians). As far as I’m concerned, if there are blackouts, I couldn’t care less.
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