By Jo Nova
It’s a 6pm bonfire on the Australian grid
Over at WattClarity on Monday when every state had prices over $3,000 per MWh simultaneously, Dan Lee noted that this was extremely rare. Since 2008, there have only been 32 intervals when prices were above $1,000 in all five states at once and nine of the 32 occurred on Monday.
Then Tuesday was so much worse:
Record high electricity prices across the NEM. July 2024
Naturally the Sydney Morning Herald is blaming “aging coal plants”
Because we can’t get rid of coal fast enough, right? Somehow it’s a “harbinger of the price hikes” we’re facing “if aging fossil fuel generators are forced to stay open longer”. So geniuses, if prices hit $17,000 a megawatt-hour when some coal power is down for a day, what happens when we get rid of coal entirely? Is that when Tinkerbell saves the day by turning Sydney Harbor into a giant battery, or when $17,000 prices become the “new norm”?
Somehow the unplanned outages of reliable coal plants create sky high prices, whereas the unplanned outages of wind and solar power create Utopia.
Not so coincidentally, the price spikes on July 31 2024 occurred when wind and solar generators were out:
The price spikes were also boosted by the cold weather we aren’t supposed to be getting in our warmer world.
The synoptic chart for July 31 shows that old familiar pattern. One high pressure cell can ruin wind turbine production everywhere:
…
Caitlin Fitzsimmons of the Sydney Morning Herald blames the slow-down in new wind farm approvals for the dire situation. But another 1,000 wind turbines won’t save the day when there is no wind. More useless wind power is still useless, it just costs more.
Blame the capitalists!
Poor Giles Parkinson at Reneweconomy blames the price spikes on evil profiteering but worries the public will think it’s renewable generators fault. He can see that these prices are bad news for the image of the “transition”:
Generators fill their pockets again, pushing grid prices to new highs and leaving renewables to cop the blame
What we see here is naked greed, around an essential service…
Geoff Eldridge, from GPE NEMLog, says the average wholesale price across all NEM regions hit a jaw-dropping $16,419/MWh in the early evening on Tuesday. That smashes the previous record of $12,491 /MWh reached on July 14, 2022, at the height of the international fossil fuel crisis sparked by the invasion of Ukraine.
With a perfectly straight face he complains about competition being reduced as reliable generators are forced out of the market:
Renewables are supposed to challenge this and lower the price on wholesale markets by introducing competition. But as the number of fully dispatchable generators declines, competition at critical times has actually been reduced – at least for the time – and like seagulls around a box of chips, the market players dive in.
This, of course, is exactly what the “renewable transition” was subsidized to do — to force out the cheaper competition. So the more we transition the more expensive it will get:
And the problem is that in a hotly partisan energy debate, and a lop-sided and populist media disinterested in actual facts, it will be renewables that get the blame.
But he seems to realize it isn’t a free market, and in that he is correct. The regulators allowed giant conglomerate groups to own competing generation units, which means they can play these off one another. When they drive out coal power they win big in the rest of their portfolio.
Battery storage is supposed to throw a bit more competition into the market. But the problem is that many of these assets are now owned or contracted to the very same energy giants that control the rest of the generation. If anything, it’s made it easier for them to control prices and profits.
Predatory capitalism worked well for AGL. They were given Liddell coal plant for nothing in 2014, but wouldn’t sell it for $250 million in 2018. It was worth more dead than alive. Banker analysts explained that they wouldn’t sell AGL either, because if someone else kept Liddell running it would keep wholesale electricity prices down (which is bad for all the other generators). Liddell coal power was shut down in April last year. If it was still running, we might not have had these price spikes. Where was Giles Parkinson when Liddell was being given away, run into the ground, and then driven out of the market? He was cheering the rigged market on. Now it is coming back to bite him.
The last few days were some of the lowest wind power for the month. There was high demand, but it was not a record:
….
Paul McArdle at WattClarity drills through a few bidding details and says it appears there were more cheap bids than usual and the cold weather demand was a primary driver. But we will have to wait for the longer analysis that always occurs after these market disruptions.
Daily prices are on fire this week — the average wholesale prices for the last three days were about $250/MWh in NSW and Queensland, in the order of $300 in Victoria and Tasmania, and a shocking $675 for South Australia (which has lots of wind and solar power and no “old coal plants” at all). That’s effectively 72 hours of wildly high prices. And even though the retail electricity providers will be hedged, the spot prices still feed through to the retail electricity bills sooner or later.
We wouldn’t have “ageing coal plants” if there had not been a concerted program to disincentivise or make illegal people from building new ones.
And unlike wind and solar plantations, which are disposable, short-lived, resource-consuming temporary structures whose only purpose is to harvest subsidies (in various forms, including directly from the consumer as happens in Australia) coal plants have service lives of 50, 60 years or even longer. And they are reliable producers of electricity unlike wind and solar which are random producers with low power density.
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In QLD, because we are hicks up here and not as cool or switched on as the big Southern states, were still building ‘on the nose’ coal plants, some of ours are now the most modern in Australia because they were built later.
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But didn’t your most modern one blow up mysteriously?
And fail to get fixed. Mysteriously?
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David,
just read the Comments in the Sydney Moaning Herald Article to see how Dumb Labor/Greens/TEAL Voters are!
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/nightmare-scenario-ageing-coal-power-is-driving-up-electricity-bills-20240731-p5jy2e.html
Australia is screwed given the IQ of these people.
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Thanks OO, but it’s paywalled.
I do understand how stupid these people are, however.
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David,
GitHub Anti Paywall for Chrome
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Thanks OO.
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David,
also works on Firefox and easier to set up
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome?tab=readme-ov-file
just scroll down to
Mozilla Firefox (Custom sites not supported)
Download and install the latest version
40
I am not paying to view that lying rag but I have discovered something interesting if one runs no script you can read it but not the comments turn no script off and it demands money
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If you pop archive.is/ after the https:// and before the www. bit of the address (presuming the address contains the www. bit, though think it works with whatever is there) it should take you to a site from which you may be able to read the article free of charge. This seems only to work after a certain time of initial publication, hence “archive” one may presume. Not sure about interaction with regard to comments but the article should be available. Hope this helps.
Nor would I contribute to their criminal holdings, like your energy!
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This is my greatest concern, there are so many of them making a lot of noise in favour of “unreliables” and demonizing coal and gas, same at “The Australian” and other big media. How anyone can read anything on Reneconomy.com and not realise Giles Parkinson and his cohort are the most extreme, hard left fanatical Climate Cultists is beyond me.
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Coal fired generators are essentially ageless if permitted to run normal, routine maintenance, with components that are finally beyond repair being replaced. They are also able to be updated (eg. to low emissions technology) if engineers and finance are permitted to plan those changes over time without government interference.
In fact, the only real limit to maintaining a coal fired grid is the extent of useful coal resources. Again, this can be (and until recently has been) managed through geological expertise.
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The Left love the Chicomms and don’t mind them building two coal fired power stations PER WEEK.
They have economic lifetimes of 50, 60 years, or as you say, ianl, indefinitely.
Now, that means the world’s largest CO2 producer, by far, more than twice that of the US and riding rapidly, will not be reducing its CO2 output any time soon, and probably never.
Could one or more of the resident Leftists remind me again why the West has to “decarbonise” (sic) to use your ridiculous term????
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Perhaps they see that the Chinese are willing to build tower apartment blocks where no one wants to live and will so “tear them” down under state directive in due time. Building and tearing down infrastructure in a authoritarian political climate is much easier than in a republic (parliamentary democracy).
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As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
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Or! As they sew, so shall we reap!
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Heard a story of do-gooder in Victorian England, visiting a gaol and recognising that the prisoner there darning his socks was Oscar Wilde:
“Sewing, Mr Wilde?”
“No madam, reaping.”
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Not that I was very good at spelling but I do sow a lot of seeds. I never sew my clothes.
Good quote though.
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I wish the writers at the SMH & The Age would go on strike again, for a few hundred years.
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Writers? Not at all. Propagandists. Pravda on the Yarra.
I gave up my subscription to the age after 42 1/2 years. It was drivel. Cant. Communist propaganda. No news at all. The Michelle Grattan school of propaganda.
Even the sports mad Sun Herald had great reporting with facts and objective analysis. And the Australian was even better. Everyone writes for the Australian. That’s what a newspaper should be, a forum for all, not an athiest version of the Watchtower.
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It was no surprise in June that The Age did not report the wind turbine that caught fire at the Portland Wind Farm. Not because it wasn’t newsworthy, but because it wasn’t ideologically compatible with their greenwashed brand of journalism.
A reader posted a great cartoon yesterday by Spooner from The Australian, I didn’t realise he is still working. He worked for The Age years ago. Either he has a low tolerance for BS or grew tired of editor’s telling him what types of cartoons he should create
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“So geniuses, if prices hit $17,000 a megawatt-hour when some coal power is down for a day, what happens when we get rid of coal entirely? Is that when Tinkerbell saves the day by turning Sydney Harbor into a giant battery, or when $17,000 prices become the “new norm”?”
I so want to rate this ->> 11/10
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Religions use logic when it suits them and only when it suits them. The green religion logic about the recent price spikes goes like this: When we had lots of coal-fired power stations, price spikes were modest and rare because the generators competed with each other and that kept the price down. Now there are only one or two coal stations left, there isn’t any competition so prices go sky-high. When the last coal station is closed, there won’t be any left to force the price up, so we won’t get the price spikes any more.
I wonder what the logic will be when the blackouts start in earnest. It will never ever be ‘we got it wrong’. Welcome to 1984.
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Thanks Jo for an outstanding posting,’
In recent weeks the news here had been painting a picture that one would think can’t last much longer. This story should boost the demise. If only enough people read it.
How can we kick it along?
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Unfortunately Jo when we now have Leftists in control this warning will go unheeded, and we will have the completely deluded bureaucrats at AEMO etc echoing Peter Fitz and the others quoted here pushing ahead faster with the “transition” to renewables.
Only when we have a complete grid collapse will we finally be able to shove aside these economic saboteurs and start to move forward again.
The Left are completely incapable of logic and revert to childish emotional appeals – the bus has to go over the cliff before they realise their folly. A good friend of mine says the sooner the collapse comes the sooner we can start the rebuild. I now agree with him, although it will be a very nasty situation for some time.
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…. That might work…but unfortunately it will never happen.
The most that will occurr is “regeonal blackouts”, or “demand management” (shutting off big consumers temporarily)…..but never a full grid collapse because without some unforseen total catastrophy like Mega Earthquakes, Electric solar storm, etc…. there will always be some amount of coual, gas, or Hydro generation available to maintain minimum grid stability.
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A lot of power has been liberated by the shutdown of Australian industry so, unfortunately that will delay grid collapse or as Chad suggests as the worse scenario, regional blackouts.
And the scientifically illiterate Left, a tautology I know, will simply spin it as not having enough wind, solar and battery plantations or not building them fast enough – they will blame “resistance” from the conservatives due to their wrongthink.
To be honest, we have little hope. Australia has been too dumbed-down for too long and we have some very evil and very stupid people in politics and senior mismanagement levels of the public dis-service running the show.
And people are dreaming if they think Australia can have one, let alone six, nuclear reactors online within ten years of pretend conservative Liberals winning the next election. It took 50 years just to decide on a second Sydney international airport.
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The demand is not surprising – this winter has been perhaps the coldest and most miserable I have experienced in Sydney for several decades. Blue skies and sunshine this morning, but that has been the exception and even so, it is 11 degrees outside.
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Agree, and not just this winter. The past 3 years have been more English than Australian.
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Melbourne nas had clear blue skies after the fog has burned off each day for the past three days. Even just 10km from ocean water at 14C and on land 30m above sea level we have had frost the past three days. The afternoon temperature gets up into the mid teens but it takes a long time to go from zero to say 15C.
The sort of day where you can go out in the sun and warm up rather than starting the fire in the morning.
The cold air means low atmospheric moisture so it will be interesting to see if we get as much rain over land later this year as we have had since 2020.
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No evaporation; NO precipitation.
The Ice Ages were REALLY DRY times.
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Sigh. No more heaters next winter. But the heaters in public service buildings in Canberra will stay on because that’s how socialism works.
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The socialist AndyBarr gov here in the ACT are hell bent on shutting down our natural gas supplies. No more gas, not for anyone. I’m really keen to see how that works out on a minus 6 winter morning when all the buildings here click on for the day at around 6am. You know, right about the time there is NO solar and usually NO wind on those cold mornings. Yep, I can just imagine the outcome when the buildings no longer have gas-fired boilers and now have to crank their electric heat pumps instead. AndyBarr and the Rat probably think we’ll just start the day on batteries, you know, V2G and all that…
Darkness and cold are coming our way.
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Thanks again Jo Nova for trying to educate us about the toxic W & S disasters.
Just a pity that Labor the Greens and Teals are all clueless donkeys who will never wake up.
Again what happens when Aussies waste endless trillions of $ on more toxic W & S and we have many more W & S droughts to contend with in the coming decades.
The coal and gas plants will be closed down and the batteries will soon be flat, yet we’ll have no way of quickly charging them again?
And who cares about our destroyed environments and very weak economy and very weak armed forces.
But China, Russia, Iran, Nth Korea etc will be very interested and will quickly pay us a very nasty visit.
That’s unless we wake up and vote out the idiots we have in Canberra today and then insist we only install reliable base-load energy ASAP and save up to 28,000 klms of our eastern Australian environment..
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Absolutely.
And with Australian Government censors like the e safety Kommissar trying their best to suppress truth telling, we must do our best to protect her.
She is a national treasure!
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“ And the problem is that in a hotly partisan energy debate, and a lop-sided and populist media disinterested in actual facts, it will be renewables that get the blame.”
Uninterested, Giles. Disinterested is what you are supposed to be Giles, but you clearly barrack for renewables because you’re good at neither science nor writing.
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I noticed that too. A lot of people don’t know the difference.
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What is it with these ‘Giles’ characters who report on the economy – or ecomony as is often said. There’s two Giles reporting here on financial matters, both recent arrivals from England, both who speak as if they’re eating their [munch] lunch at the [swallow] same time they’re [slurp] talking… such an odd habit: I simply change stations whenever they’re introduced.
Are Australian Giles bred from the same batch?
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“Caitlin Fitzsimmons of the Sydney Morning Herald blames the slow-down in new wind farm approvals for the dire situation. But another 1,000 wind turbines won’t save the day when there is no wind. More useless wind power is still useless, it just costs more.’
It sure looks like the average Joe still doesn’t understand that a lot more zero is still zero.
Just glad I’m not on wholesale prices.
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As mentioned previously, a new wind factory is proposed in the Strathbogie Ranges in my local shire. Now there already is a wind factory on the Cherry Tree range near Seymour and on the same line of range as the new proposed development.
The Cherry Tree range wind factory with 16 turbines, has a publicly posted efficiency of 38% i.e. this place produces electricity at a completely random 4 months out of every twelve.
Solution, build a bigger wind factory of 100 turbines on the same line of ridge. Problem is, it will still only produce electricity for a completely random 4 months out of every 12.
The production of electricity will of course coincide with the factory “down the road” delivering a whole new set of problems with a potential oversupply.
Where are the engineers? Even accountants can see that this arrangement is deeply flawed.
Now the developer of this proposed new wind factory has declared that they will :—
1/ Not receive any subsidies from any source for this project.
2/ Will enter into long term contracts with any impacted land owners for an annual rental / compensation payments.
3/ The facility will have a planned life of 40 years.
Now this all sounds lovely, but and its a big BUT there is no guarantee that that the developer will actually retain ownership of this facility, so if once developed the project is on sold the likelyhood of all the contracts, compensations, lack of subsidy etc will simply be invalidated as any new owner is not legaly bound to honour arrangements entred into by the former owner. Intersting times indeed!
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Yep – the guaranteed dispatchable output of a wind turbine or solar panel is zero. It appears few people get this fact. And no matter how many turbines you have, zero times any number is still zero.
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Flinders Island is at 93% diesel power, sometimes a good indicator of how things are going in the southern states.
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So who wants to copy the SA toxic W & S disaster in the other states?
Never forget that the toxic W & S mess and the toxic batteries will have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years and only have CFs of 30% and 15%.
To waste endless trillions of $ on these toxic unreliable disasters and repeat this lunacy every 15 to 20 years is a criminal waste of our resources, our precious time and money.
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These are natural capacity factors only possible when coupled with dispatchable generation. The CF for minimum cost system with just battery storage is under 10%. This is what very few people realise unless they are using an off-grid solar or wind powered system.
South Australia is now seeing prices that make going off the grid economic. It was always bound to happen because the mathematical pygmies in academia are incapable of working out where their stupidity leads them.
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“To waste endless trillions of $ on these toxic unreliable disasters and repeat this lunacy every 15 to 20 years is a criminal waste”
It is and only ever has been about the “spillage from all those dollars being sloshed around.
The prime rule?
“Follow the money”.
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I would not blame Dutton for enjoying this.
The crunch for Dutton occurs when he gets the gig and will need to decide what technology to go with. China already has an SMR in operation although the name is somewhat misleading – not particularly small or modular. Rolls Royce are at least 5 years away from have technology that can produce something.
It all seems crazy when Australia will send a humungous amount of coal and iron to China to make SMRs (no matter where they are developed) when the coal could just be burnt here with existing technology to make electricity.
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Rolls Royce appear to be plowing through an inordinate amount of green tape.
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Dutton will float SMR in the run up to the election, knowing full well individual states have to show some interest.
My guesstimate is that he’ll put forward the idea of gas fired power stations (government funded) as a short term measure.
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Rickwill,
The technology is already here . Lots of military “shipping” uses it without any issues that are being publicly aired . Years of service without refueling . The BS is so thick you could stir it with a stick…
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I want to know what we own, having been robbed blind by fake electricity prices for 23 years through Green Certificates. We want our money back, with interest.
If wind is free, it should be free by this time. We paid for the windmills and solar panels many times over. We should not have to pay again for free electricity.
Then perhaps we will have some sense in all this.
And how blind are people that they cannot see solar doesn’t work at night?
And wind doesn’t work without wind?
What’s the plan? There isn’t one.
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There are snake oil salesmen making fortunes with the complicity of useful idiots in government and in the press. And I reel at the stupidity and gullibility of those many who have fallen for the EVs, batteries, Snowy 2, and wind and solar confidence schemes.
How anyone can believe a word that comes out of Bowen’s mouth astonishes me. And there needs to be a public enquiry or Royal Commission into this MMCC (or whatever the latest acronym is) and associated renewables scams.
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Blame is a fiction while cost is real. At some point people want relief. Need to make this an election issue.
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Wind and solar plantations can never be paid off in a free market because 1) they are just about the most expensive form of electricity generation possible and wouldn’t exist in a free market 2) by the time they might be able to pay themselves off, due to their disposable and mostly non-repairable and non-upgradable nature, it’s time to put most of them in landfill (as they are not very recyclable) and plant new ones to harvest more subsidies.
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Again why are we changing to these toxic W & S + batteries disasters?
Please watch Lomborg trying to explain this to us in his talk at the ARC UK conference and it’s because Humans may suffer a penalty of their new fabulous wealth in 2100.
The terrible penalty would be a reduction of 4.5 times richer than today to just 4.34 times richer.SARC.
And he uses both Dr Tols and Dr Nordhaus’s studies to show the miniscule difference. See after 8 minutes.
So Humans should be 4.5 times richer by 2100 but alas will only be 4.34 times richer instead, because of the fear of their dreaded CC.
But these are just guesstimates and yet we’re destroying our environments and using Toxic W & S because of that miniscule difference of just 0.16.
Does anyone not understand the absurdity of these very simple sums? Anyway what if they’re wrong? What if toxic W & S don’t save co2 emissions?
Are the toxic W & S and the waste of endless trillions of $ worth the pain? And all for just 0.16 less wealth by 2100?
https://www.arcforum.com/videos/v/abundant-energy-makes-the-world-better-bjorn-lomborg
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There’s just so much I can say here, but one thing sticks out.
Umm, if all of this is the fault of ‘aging’ coal plants, (as they are referred to as being) ….. why don’t they just shut them down?
Tony.
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Obvious Tony – their boondoggle would be totally exposed but unfortunately they will continue with the deception because the subsequent blackouts would be too dangerous.
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Umm, if all of this is the fault of aging coal plants, why don’t they just replace them with new ones.
30
Why don’t they just shut them down?
Queensland had the single luckiest break they could ever get to enhance their ….. we’ll get rid of coal, 50% renewables by 2030. That lucky break was when that Unit at Callide C ‘blew up’ on May24, 2021, more three years ago.
Rub hands with glee. Well there’s one we don’t have to close down.
The Minister said in the evening news bulletin that same day of the explosion ….. “it will be back on line soon!” Seriously, he actually said that as I watched him on the news, gobsmacked, that an adoring public hung onto, and believed every word he said. “All good here, just a minor glitch really.”
For an anti CO2 emissions Government, there was a huge drop in emissions for them. But no, they strove flat out to get it back into service. Umm, it’s still offline, has not delivered a watt of power since that ‘big bang!’ All this from the State Labor Government the owner of 80% of all coal fired power Nameplate in the State, hence the largest emitter in the State.
The major finding of their renewables (joke is all I can call it) is that coal plants will not be closing, because they are (quote) “The youngest in the Country!”
Old coal plants! Really??
Tony.
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Spot on Tony, Callide C4 has been pushed back again, and C3 was offline a few days ago because ‘technical problems’, nice way to bid up the price.
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Oh, and look at Joanne’s Aneroid graph there where it says ….. price spike
Look at that gap between wind and solar ….. with 2,000MW and the Peak at that time, 31,000MW.
That gap is 29,000MW. 29,000MW.
Now see at Midday, that absolute maximum of wind and both solar power. Well, that rooftop solar is being consumed by the homes with the panels, so that leaves 6,500MW. (green and red colours)
Pretend, just pretend they had Batteries to store ….. ALL of it, so it could be reused at that umm, price spike time.
That means TWO things really.
1 – They now have to find 6500MW at Midday to cover for the power being diverted to charge the batteries. (well, across the whole of that green red period)
2 – That’s still only 6,500MW at price spike when 29,000MW is required ….. ABSOLUTELY! (They’re just moving that same period sideways actually. Charging and then discharging)
It’s not that much better at the peak of Summer either.
Oh, and same day as that graph, same peak time.
29,000MW remaining after wind and all solar.
Ancient old coal plants delivered 17,600MW of that!
Oh, and the low point for wind power on that same day, an hour or two before that price spike, well wind was 448MW, from a Nameplate of 11409MW, at a Capacity Factor of 3.9%, right under that huge High Pressure System, or as Giles Parkinson might refer to it as ….. ‘curtailment!’
Tony.
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Tony,
The price spike is a signal . What you are pointing to is a crash for which the signal is warning . Buy a generator …..
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>The price spikes were also boosted by the cold weather we aren’t supposed to be getting in our warmer world.
As usual, my serious read interrupted by a knee-slap LOL.
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I use a couple of wind forecast apps/ websites for my work and also sport. Both are affected by wind conditions to a certain extent. These sites are “Windalert” and “Windy”. Both really good. Today it’s relatively windy in South West Victoria where a shipload of those wind turbines are situated and so expect wind powered electricity production to be up. But then we have at least 5 days of wind doldrums again. Next big wind day is Thursday. So, for the next 5 days coal and gas will be powering the state yet again. Which begs the question. If little ol me can accurately predict wind power at least 7 days out, why cant AEMO?
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Ross, it was very windy here in WA a couple of days ago. We’re just sending it over.
They can predict the wind generation (up to a point) days in advance, and the AEMO puts out requests for generators and even issues directives related to forecast lack of reserve between x and y pm a day or two in advance. Have a look at how many “Market Notices” there are now. There are busy people in that control room.
It didn’t used to be like this.
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Last night wasn’t. Nor this morning. Only 4% wind at 6:30pm yesterday, rising to 10% at dawn. Was only 9% at midday. Another winter day with glassy rivers in the morning.
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According to their ABC It’s all go for solar in WA.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-02/demand-for-sunlight-storage-surges-amid-transition-to-solar/104170720
No wonder investors don’t want SMRs they are investing in BIG BATTERIES that attract BIG SUBSIDIES! No mention of cost and what affect batteries have on retail prices. The only person with solar and batteries cited talks about a household size battery (10kw) costing $12500 plus solar panels and the only apparent benefit is that he can use more of his own power and reduces the risk of being shut out of the export to grid ability vis “curtailment”. If $20000 plus installation makes it more like $25000 is a realistic the cost nationally would be 500 billion $$$ at least. Not to mention replacement every 20-30 years.
This is a massive cost shifting exercise by governments!
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Actually I would settle for a (very cheap) battery with only a couple of kWH capacity. Enough to get me through the regular testing/switching outages and possibly through the night in summer. I think the Chinese have them available, but no one is interested in certifying them to Australian standards since the cost of doing so would require they no longer be cheap.
How about letting me add another kw of vertically mounted panels (it is within the 50% excess limit of the inverters) which would help out a lot in winter and likely produce almost nothing in summer
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Something like the incendiary devices which are subject to more and more strident ads on TV regarding their recall?
To be fair, most newer caravans are fitted with solar panels and at least 1 100Ah (approx 1 kWh) LiFePO4 battery. These are much less incendiary, but not especially cheap.
00
Caravan systems typically work at 12 or 24 v. And the average Oz resident can legally work on them.
The batteries attached to roof top solar systems seem to require much higher voltages (400v? if grid connected) and legally need a licensed electrician.
00
I haven’t looked into home solar systems and batteries, but that seems a bit odd. Are you sure that 415V isn’t the output of a 3-phase inverter?
Solar cells are around 20V open circuit, and individual cells in batteries are around 2V. 6 cells in series give a 12V battery. 2 12V batteries in series give 24V. It would take 20 solar panels in series for 400V, and 34 12V batteries.
That’s still DC, so it would need something to convert it to AC in any case.
A lot of caravans now also have a single phase 240V inverter for all the mod cons while camping off grid – can’t go without the coffee machine, air conditioner and induction cooktop 🙂 Those need to be worked on by a licensed electrician, like the home solar systems.
00
And while I am here.
Is the SWIS system part of Australia?
Something about the headline “irritates” me
30
Ozfred,
The SWIS (South West Integrated System) is the stand alone grid for Western Australia, it covers from Kalbarrie in the north, east to Kalgoorlie and the entire South west corner including Perth. see map in the AEMO propaganda leaflet. https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/wem/wholesale-electricity-market-fact-sheet.pdf?la=en&hash=ED1512DAF6230ABBA3008B1954AB46A5
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Fair point Ozfred. Even though I live in the SWIS I’m so used to reading about our “National Energy Market” and so used to WA and the NT being ignored, the NEM became the wallpaper in my mind.
I’ve adjusted the headline. Both the AEMO and especially the AER constantly refer to “Australia” as if there is nothing west of Olympic Dam. See https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/registers/charts?
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Australia’s largest renewable energy developers have sought permits to build large-scale projects in a sparsely populated part of NSW as they seek to overcome prohibitive planning laws.
Governments trying to subsidise their way out of responsibility for the population
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AU Govt is about to “manage” their grid back to the stone age.
If it weren’t so tragic, it might be amusing. In this age of information and known past experience, destroying a decent economy and people for the sake of political delusions.
The Pollies are “managing” their way into fleecing the populace until they can’t do so any longer. Grifters, one and all.
The suffering will continue until the People rise up against this illusory farce, or the nation collapses. Whichever comes first.
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I’m betting on the latter. We are already well on the way.
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In reality Lance I fear China and their axis of evil mates would pay us a nasty visit a long time before we fall over.
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I know this is tedious but I want everyone to understand what the religious cult con artists really believe. Here’s the quote from “The Conversation” using the Royal Society’s question 20 and answer about the problems of reducing co2 levels after a ” total shutdown of all Human co2 emissions.”.
Their answer is it would take thousands of years for co2 levels to start to drop. Here’s their quote, called “slam on the brakes” and the link. BTW has anyone got any comments, because this is their so called peer reviewed Science?
At least our blog donkeys and religious cult extremists should be very happy.
https://theconversation.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-right-now-would-we-stop-climate-change-78882
“Slam on the climate brakes”
“What would happen to the climate if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide today, right now? Would we return to the climate of our elders”?
“The simple answer is no. Once we release the carbon dioxide stored in the fossil fuels we burn, it accumulates in and moves among the atmosphere, the oceans, the land and the plants and animals of the biosphere. The released carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Only after many millennia will it return to rocks, for example, through the formation of calcium carbonate – limestone – as marine organisms’ shells settle to the bottom of the ocean. But on time spans relevant to humans, once released the carbon dioxide is in our environment essentially forever. It does not go away, unless we, ourselves, remove it”.
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Here’s the Royal Society source of the Conversation data about co2 levels in our atmosphere after a total shut down of Human co2 emissions. They call this their Question 20 and answer.
So here’s the Royal Society Q & A for question 20.
BTW it seems that they really want to return us to the chilly enjoyment and wonders of the LIA, S..C.
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-20/
“20. If emissions of greenhouse gases were stopped, would the climate return to the conditions of 200 years ago?
“No. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases were to suddenly stop, Earth’s surface temperature would require thousands of years to cool and return to the level in the pre-industrial era”.
“If emissions of CO2 stopped altogether, it would take many thousands of years for atmospheric CO2 to return to “pre-industrial” levels due to its very slow transfer to the deep ocean and ultimate burial in ocean sediments. Surface temperatures would stay elevated for at least a thousand years, implying a long-term commitment to a warmer planet due to past and current emissions. Sea level would likely continue to rise for many centuries even after temperature stopped increasing [Figure 9]. Significant cooling would be required to reverse melting of glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet”
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*Return To The Climate Of Our Elders*
Please no! Anything but that! Nooooooo…
NZ First leader, Winston Peters, was harangued recently by *experts* claiming as dis/mal/mis info his statement re human CO2 being 4% of 0.04% in the atmosphere. Some doctor of philosophy or a social scientist [sic] type professor believed / preached it was “now 33%” and growing dangerously…
Education RIP.
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Thanks Greg and our climate extremist Tania Plibersek couldn’t or wouldn’t even attempt an answer when asked about atmospheric co2 levels on Sky News.
And a panel of USA donkeys couldn’t get it correct after they were asked about our current co2 levels.
The Oklahoma Rep looked amused as they tried 3 times and guessed 3% and then 8% and then 5%.
And these US donkeys were supposed to be experts about climate etc.
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If we totally stop emitting CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall very quickly to around pre-industrial levels. The half-life of excess atmospheric CO2 is about 12 years. To give an idea of just how fast it would be, the oceans have regularly been absorbing about half of our annual emissions.
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Mike, there’s a lot of ocean out there, as you know.
What if the increase in CO2 is mostly – or totally – due to outgassing as ocean water temperature rises a bit?
Especially if that rise is, possibly, linked to astronomical phenomena [not coal!].
Auto, asking for a friend
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I would have thought that sea creatures would be producing shells all day, every day, including today and yesterday. Dunno why they would wait a thousand years to get started.
As for how quickly they produce Calcium Carbonate … would like someone to cite a genuine measurement on that, and explain how it was measured.
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Frankly, the engineering facts are plain: you cannot operate a 21st century nation and economy on intermittent, unreliable, expensive electricity.
The demand simply cannot practically and economically/affordably be met.
That the uni-party (labor/liberals/nationals/greens) persists in pursuing the unattainable fantasy of relying solely on wind, solar, big batteries and a bit of (net energy consuming) pumped hydro in the face of all engineering reality says they do in fact mean to beggar and ruin this nation and its people.
The engineering is relatively simply, and the end result is a simple equation with costs applied.
That they are ignorant of the reality is simply not possible. Ergo, they do actually mean to ruin the country and impoverish and harm the citizens of this nation. They are outright lying to us.
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Frankly, I look upon it as wilful.
Politicians have advisors.
There just MUST be people telling them ….. hang on, you just cannot do that.
So, my background is this ….. Back when I started all this in March of 2008, and even coming from a background in all things electrical, I (without knowledge) just assumed these people knew what they were doing, hence (without knowledge) my thinking was that wind could replace coal fired power. After all, it was just power generation using a different source.
I discussed it (via a number of emails) with the site owner where I write. (I live here and he lives in Pennsylvania) He’s not got any background in electricity, other than it comes out of the hole in the wall.
After a number of emails, with me telling him all I knew to write about was electrical ‘stuff’, so he said ….. “Go ahead.”
So, the sole purpose I started was to comply with Kyoto, hence reduce CO2 emissions, hence stop coal fired power, hence replace it with another source, hence wind. Okay, see that without knowledge above. They knew about, and I didn’t, so I decided to replace (U.S.) coal fired power with enough wind to end up complying with Kyoto.
Crash course in research.
After the first five days at eight hours a day, all I knew was this ….. Umm, hang on a minute, Wind power generation is totally and utterly unreliable. Well, I knew I was wrong, because everyone else was saying it was in fact a good thing. I knew then that I would be found out if I went ahead and wrote what I had found out.
Oh well, c’est la vie.
At least my writing career would ease back.
However the more I looked, the more I found I was right.
And that actually puzzled me, because again, these people have advisors who should be saying ….. hang on, you just can’t do that.
If they proceed and get found out, that’s the end for them.
And yet, on they went, seemingly without a care.
And ….. THAT’S why my thinking is that all of this is ACTUALLY wilful.
Like I said, I’m a nobody. Who’s ever going to listen to me.
Huh, even Senator Matt Canavan agreed with me. He said ‘you’re right. I know you’re right. But no one will listen.
It’s wilful all right.
Tony.
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Tony I watch Andrew Bolt and other comperes on Sky News and I’m sure Matt Canavan knows their so called CC mitigation is total BS and will waste trillions of our $ for a guaranteed zero return.
The NON OECD and OECD co2 emissions data since 1990 is very easy to find and understand, but apparently the so called scientists and pollies + most of the world’s media are too dumb to understand very simple sums? Or not?
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Follow the money Tony, it’s the rule I use for everything these days. The “Green Revolution” was simply an opportunity for the finance sector to make a lot of money and create jobs in an emerging/ growing sector. Just a whole heap of people making money from dodgy carbon credits, green investments (whatever, the hell they are) and sucking up government funded subsidies. Rent seekers the lot of them. All you have to do is green wash the whole scam by saying ” but.. we’re saving the planet from climate change”. Then scare the general populace witless because then the politicians will say there’s votes in it.
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“… the spot prices still feed through to the retail electricity bills sooner or later.”
Unanswered is how and when an AU resident will be impacted. This variable pricing is a totally foreign concept to me. My residential rate is set once each year and changes slowly year upon year.
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It’s difficult to see a viable exit strategy for the mess the Uniparty has put Australia in.
No politicians, public serpents or morally corrupt and/or cowardly and/or incompetent “scientists” or “engineers” are prepared to admit mistakes or state the madness of our current situation and most tragically, none of them are likely to do jail time or suffer civil penalties for their (at best) gross incompetence or (at worst) malfeasance.
It’s just like how no one was or will be punished for covid mismanagement and the covid vaccine disaster.
The whole system is rotten to the core and Australia doesn’t have a Donald Trump, at least not one who will be leading a government.
We do however have some conservative-oriented although minor parties who we can hope to get into the balance of power.
-United Australia Party
-Libertarian Party
-One Nation
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Argentina was once a country much like Australia with great wealth, a productive economy, and was looking forward to a great future.
There were then many decades of incompetent and corrupt governments.
It’s only recently they have managed to elect the libertarian / conservative government of Javier Milei which will hopefully turn things around.
Why are so many Australians in denial that the same thing that happened to Argentina couldn’t happen here? Many would argue that it’s already started.
We already have one of the most potent destroyers of economies in place; wind, solar and Big Battery plantations and are getting far more. That alone will guarantee economic ruin but the Uniparty is doing so much more to destroy the country in addition to that.
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They are banking on “the new norm”, Jo. Just like we’ll have to get used to the current inflation numbers because they are caused by the underlying factors forced into the system by the “command economy” steering us to Net Zero. The only way any of these numbers can come down, is by fudging them.
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Command Economy
That is clever, in relation to renewables, but in fact Oz has a mixed economy.
Its a misguided energy revolution because of a slight increase in a harmless trace gas. Of course the only way to stop the madness is to articulate to the wind farmers that they have a white elephant, high pressure blocking is not going away.
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Don’t forget all the additional costs of redundant transmission and control systems that must be distributed across the network to cope with all that intermittent generation.
The Victorian Essential Services Commission sets default offers for retail electricity.
For 2024/25 that shows the average wholesale cost for households to be $492, down from $636, but network costs up from $549 to $593, total retail annual cost $1,655, down from $1,755.
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How can they set a future average cost?
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Warning: Cognitive Dissonance at work.
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The graph for July looks a bit like a Ventricular Tachycardia ECG. Hope it doesn’t portend a similar fate for Australia’s electricity supply coming soon!
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AUSTRALIA THE LUCKY COUNTRY!……Only for inner city elitist Green and Teals, bwahaha.
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[…] Wind Drought 20240731 – First Published JoNova Intermittent Wind and Solar […]
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[…] From JoNova […]
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Without the coal fired power the cost per megawatt hour would have been reduced from $17,000 to $0.00. Of course , blackouts have some costs of their own but, apparently they must be trivial as the “experts” just ignore them.
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[…] In every country and under any government.https://joannenova.com.au/2024/08/wholesale-electricity-prices-hit-17000-in-every-state-in-australia… […]
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[…] you thought last week was bad. While the single spike at $17,000 a megawatt hour in five states simultaneously was a record, just a week later we have the double spike bonfire — peaking at breakfast and […]
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[…] Sie dachten, die letzte Woche sei schon schlimm gewesen. Während der einmalige Preisanstieg von 17.000 Dollar pro Megawattstunde in fünf Staaten gleichzeitig ein Rekord war, haben wir nur eine Woche später ein weiteres Preisfeuer – mit Höhepunkten beim […]
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[…] Daily prices are on fire this week — the average wholesale prices for the last three days were about $250/MWh in NSW and Queensland, in the order of $300 in Victoria and Tasmania, and a shocking $675 for South Australia (which has lots of wind and solar power and no “old coal plants” at all). That’s effectively 72 hours of wildly high prices. And even though the retail electricity providers will be hedged, the spot prices still feed through to the retail electricity bills sooner or later.Jo Nova Blog […]
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