Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – South Australia and the Australian State of Victoria learned the hard way that when power demand surges, you can’t turn up the solar panels.
Melbourne hospitals switch off lights as mercury rises
Grant McArthur and Aleks Devic, Herald Sun
January 19, 2018 7:36pm
PATIENTS were left in the dark after one of Melbourne’s biggest hospitals switched off its lights and non-essential equipment as temperatures soared on Friday.
The Alfred turned off the lights on wards, in corridors and cafeterias about midday in a bid to conserve power.
The dramatic move followed a Department of Health memo to hospital chiefs on Thursday night asking them to ensure back-up power supplies were effective, prompted by the increased risk of disruption in the heatwave.
“Hospitals within Alfred Health have taken the initiative to act as good corporate citizens and reduce the use of electricity that is not directly needed for patient care. This is consistent with the advice provided by Australian Energy Market Operator,” she said.
“Hospitals within Alfred Health have strong backup and emergency power supply capacity and in the event of a power outage expect clinical services to continue without interruption.”
Department of Health spokesman Tim Vainoras said no directive was issued for hospitals to switch off equipment or conserve energy, however hospitals were advised to prepare for the impact of extreme heat including preparations for possible energy disruptions.
A memo reiterating the state’s extreme weather protocols was sent to hospitals at 8pm on Thursday.
“With increased temperatures across the state, demands on Victoria’s electricity supplies are likely to increase. This may lead to electricity disruptions in some parts of Victoria,” the DHS memo states.
“It will be important to ensure your backup power is effective for the maintenance of critical services and that you have access to fuel supplies to support extended periods of power outages.”
…
JoNova provided a link to a site which at the time of her post showed Queensland feeding NSW, which was passing the power to Victoria – though this changes hour to hour (see the live feed here).
Intermittent renewables are sometimes contributing, for example at one point when I looked at the feed it showed net power coming from South Australia, as opposed to South Australia sucking power in JoNova’s screenshot. But as the Victorian hospital shutdown demonstrates, the renewable contribution simply isn’t reliable. Businesses and emergency facilities throughout the affected states were required to switch off lights and “unessential” systems, so the politicians who created this mess could avoid vote losing mass blackouts.
Greens were quick to blame coal for this terrifying brush with mass blackouts during the middle of a heatwave.
Loy Yang B failure sends prices soaring, triggers supply safeguards
JANUARY 19 2018 – 2:18PM
Cole Latimer
The Australian Energy Market Operator has kicked off emergency measures to protect power supply after Victoria’s Loy Yang B brown coal-fired power station failed on Thursday afternoon, sending electricity spot prices soaring.
As temperatures rose around southern Australia Loy Yang B’s generators failed at around 4pm, instantly taking around 528 megawatts of energy out of the state’s grid.
The outage ahead of a major heatwave on Friday came despite assurances by its owner Alinta Energy that the ageing power station had the capability to continue providing power in the heat.
“There are no issues expected ahead with the forecast hot weather,” Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery told Fairfax Media on Monday.
…
This greensplaining ignores the central issue – the shortage of reliable, dispatchable power capacity. Despite billions of dollars worth of investment in Aussie renewables, a shortfall of a few hundred megawatts was enough to trigger a multi-state emergency.
The system as it stands is not fit for purpose.
One new coal plant, or a decent size zero CO2 emission nuclear plant, maybe even one new generator at an existing plant, is all that would have been required to avert this dangerous shortfall, all it would have taken to provide a sufficient supply buffer so the failure of one decrepit old coal plant couldn’t bring the whole system to its knees.
But nobody wants to invest in new dispatchable capacity in Australia.
Renewable mandates supported by Australian Federal and State Governments have made dispatchable energy unprofitable. Worse, power companies have no grounds for hope that any investment in dispatchables will become economically viable in the foreseeable future. The deeper green Federal opposition party wants more aggressive renewable targets, 50% renewables across the board in Australia in the next decade.
The takeaway lesson for Australian politicians and people throughout the world should be that you can’t run hospitals and businesses on unreliable electricity. Next time turning off the cafeteria lights might not be enough; people will die if this renewable energy idiocy continues. Lets hope enough politicians learn this lesson quickly enough to avert a major disaster.
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How many people will die or suffer unnecessarily because they will not use air conditioners because of the high price of electricity. For the first time in human history we need not suffer from extreme heat or cold because we have electricity to cool or keep us warm – at least we did have until this green obsession with climate change put energy prices out of the reach of working people and the elderly.
Sacrifices to Gaia. For the greater good. They will jump through hoops in an culture of irrational mental gym to justify the suffering and death for the greed good.
It very well may be that ignorance is a curable affliction but it is for certain that stupidity is a terminal condition. But why is the terminal condition so prevalent in the halls of governments? Could that be the explanation for why all governments die by self-destruction and usually die a miserable death after a relatively short life? R. I. P., UNCLE SIMPLE.
“Nature abhors a moron.”
H.L. Mencken
Their goal is now, and has always been population control, unreliable energy, high food and energy costs, and lack of preparedness for a cold climate are just some of the tactics. They mean business, and 90% of us have got to go.
While this sounds extreme, there are indeed some in government that think like this, and in many instances they have powerful supporters. No doubt the majority of supporters of the Green movement are genuinely concerned about the environment, however the core has been infiltrated by Gaia worshiping, human haters.
How much more will it take to get the people ( sheeple ?) to stop this nonsense ?
They voted to lose their guns, and reliable electricity. Back to being a penal colony?
“penal colony” aka sh*t hole.
I always find these types of ‘press releases’ funny. Turning off a few highly efficient lights in the middle of the day somehow is contributing to the ‘fix’. At no point can they admit the problem is not with a few lights, it’s the fact the electrical supply could fail at anytime. They are scrambling to ensure (fuel) back-up power is available and how this would that look on the 6pm news if peoples life saving procedures needed to be canceled?
I wonder what fuel they use for their back up generation? Might it be diesel by any chance?
Or a fuel cell
http://californiahydrogen.org/sites/default/files/ftco_early_mkts_fc_backup_power_fact_sheet.pdf
AFAIK, hospitals do have diesel backup power.
1) A press release, really?
2) Where exactly does the hydrogen come from O great and powerful wizard?
3) Hydrogen can’t be stored for long periods, so it can only be available for emergencies that are scheduled ahead of time.
The funny thing is that this is trivial… one company turning off some lights as a precaution for their backup capacity…. What would be more interesting is a list of the companies that were paid (by the electricity supplier) to shut down or not even start up during this period…. the grid simply does not have the capacity to cope with our needs and something has to give.
Isn’t “pull the plug” hospital jargon?
Australia is one of the worlds largest exporter of gas coal and uranium. Australia has some of the largest deposits of these energy supplies.
The energy policy has been to build a grid based on IMPORTED intermittent “renewable” windmills and solar panels.
The rest of the world is laughing at Australian stupidity.
Laughing,yes. But cautiously. America is still trying to bring wind and solar on line to the point they can say, “See. It works”. And new battery technology will be their savior. When that happens sometime in the future.
It is close. Just ask the experts.
it not close. I am an expert.
The next great battery breakthrough is only a couple of years away. (And so on, and so on…..)
The “experts” you are listening to are actually not what you wish they were.
https://youtu.be/LI_Oe-jtgdI
“IMPORTED intermittent “renewable” windmills and solar panels”
Our current problem is intermittent coal-fired generators.
Very old intermittent coal generators Nick. The government has broken the energy market, made it uneconomical to build new coal plants or maintain existing coal plants.
No. It is a lack of coal-fired generators because others were closed to ‘save the planet’ and enrich the renewable energy industry, and the ‘researchers’ and financiers who enable them.
If there were more coal-fired or nuclear or hydro or other reliable energy sources instead of the inherently unreliable renewables there would be NO problem.
Don’t make stupid comments Nick. I thought you were above that. Look at the screen shots showing the wind contribution – less than 1000MW and well below the 4300MW nameplate rating. The shortages were in Victoria and South Australia where they have been replacing coal with wind..
Most of the coal plant in Australia has over 200k running hours. That means they are past their design life. That means they are high maintenance and less reliable than newer plant. And other than the very short trip at Loy Yang B (it was off for less than an hour wasn’t it?), how many other coal units weren’t running? And of the coal plant running, how close was it to nameplate? From the data I saw, about 95%
The problem would not have occurred if Hazelwood in Victoria with it’s 1600MW was still allowed to run. But politicians forced its closure. No doubt you supported that move Nick. This is the karma.
That is a sickening disingenuous comment Nick and you know it. There is no way any investor will build a new coal power station regardless of how profitable it might be on paper unless they are given a cast iron guarantee that it will not be discriminated against by subsidies and mandates. The renewable lobby, not basic economics, has made it impossible for any company to risk shareholder funds on coal. And the greens gloat that it is pure economics. Perversity.gone mad, and bad. When electricity contracts are made on the basis of despatchable power instead of aggregate energy (power is what people want when they flick a switch) then every wind and solar generator will shut down.
Nick,
Look at the drop off in output of SA’s wind ‘generators’ yesterday ( http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2018/january/18).
1,100MW at 07:30, 600MW at 09:00 (a drop of 500MW – similar to the drop from the coal-fired generators that you are quick to disparage) then falling to 100MW at 21;00.
Why are you not complaining about intermittent wind generators that fall 1,000MW over 12 hours or so?
Look up ‘intermittent’ in the dictionary and you will likely see a graph of wind generator output.
Remove your rose coloured blinkers, mate.
Yes, Nick. We can relate.
The Soviet Union suffered one intermittent problem after another through the whole three-quarters of a century.
They were caused by monarchists, Mensheviks, wreckers, saboteurs, spies, kulaks, generals, refuseniks, rockers, hooligans, dissidents and some such svoloch.
Your current problem is refusal to acknowledge reality. Unreliable, intermittent ‘renewables’ are F’ing up what once was a reliable, low cost power grid based on coal.
In the original Jo Nova article it was explained:
TonyFromOz points out that only 3 of 49 coal units are out of action:
Australia has 16 coal fired power plants and 49 Units at those plants. Currently, just three of those Units are off line. One is Liddell Number Two, now down for more than seven Months, and I have questions whether it will ever come back on line if the plan is to close the plant down, so why would they bother fixing it back up and realistically wasting the money if they plan to close it down. Then there are two Units in Queensland down, one at Gladstone and the other at Kogan Creek.
Hanrahan says: That’s not bad from generators that don’t have a level playing field on access to markets and hence can’t afford maintenance. It was the wind generators that let everyone down.
Ok Nick if Hazelwood was still going would we be having this conversation?
“Our current problem is intermittent coal-fired generators.”
If Hazelwood was still running, there wouldn’t be an issue.
If the money wasted on irregular non-supply had been spent on upgrading the current old power stations instead, there wouldn’t be a problem
All this is slated TOTALLY onto the renewable agenda.
And I suspect that you KNOW that , and are just being your normal disingenuous self.
It seems to me this may very well be what is called, “A teachable moment.” But, then do fools ever really learn, regardless of the opportunities for doing so? Maybe not.
There was plenty of spare wind capacity – it was running at less than 10% of capacity. Why didn’t they just turn that on Nick?
So Nick, since coal and gas are not 100% reliable, we shouldn’t criticize wind and solar which are far, far less reliable?
Yes. My ipower from them intermittent is due to rationing because there are not enough of them.
The problem with these old CFGs is not with the technology. IWTs and panels,on the other hand, are by their nature, intermittent and not fit for purpose.
Eamon.
So Nick started lying to deny facts like Griff. He knows dam well that Hazelwood was closed creating this situation and suddenly it’s coals fault .. You are a LIAR.
That Australia’s wealth emanates from digging up things out of the ground or exporting what grows on its relatively barren land is why it is called the Lucky Country, surviving despite a succession of poor governments and failures to build world beating manufacturing or other value adding industries on a large scale. It is always the same story of not co-operating but small individual pockets of industry looking for niches and fragmented government across innumerable organisations, all keenly possessive and defensive of their patch, their turf. South Australia’s energy problems are a product of this culture as well as a religious conviction on ‘Green’ energy and AGW. The ‘investment’ in renewable energy would not have gained public funding had the full costs been made known. The need to re-engineer the grid and re-organise the energy markets in order to increase ‘Green’ energy supply were hidden from the public. the engineers know, but who listens to engineers? It is not as if they are demi-god scientists. When SA experienced state-wide blackouts the Feds coolly coughed up another A$500 million (?) to sort it out. This is how it will continue in Australia, a country blessed with sun and wind let down by a culture that will not support sensible joined up government and the inevitable incompetence of government.
Wait a minute: why wasn’t the new megabattery there to save the day? Wasn’t it supposed to be able to paper over the cracks for an hour?
@ur momisugly Crispin …+100
Probably explains why there was no mention of the Tesla batteries coming to the rescue for 10 or 15 minutes worth of power.
Peter, It’s worth bearing in mind that South Australia is a bit unlike the other states in having reality little coal and a long running history of limping along from one bankruptcy to the next (even before federation). We do sit on what was the largest onshore gas deposit, but eastern Australia’s gas supply woes (since so much is contracted for export) is not new news. So the gullible warming meme and it’s related promises of ‘free’ energy from thin air and an excuse to levy yet more tax (this time above voter criticism since it’s all for the good of the planet) have been welcome news to SAs dysfunctional politicians.
On that note, we get the governments we deserve and South Australians have been voting for morons who can’t do sums (the labour party) since 2002, so this level of mis-managment should not come as such a surprise.
Sad in this case it’s hospitals in Victoria who have to take one for the team. Meanwhile, I wonder if the useless gobshites in North Terrace (Adelaide) even turned their aircons down while deciding which school or hospital to close next. The energy debacle is another good argument for ditching pointless state politics down under.
Here’s the contribution from Musk’s battery set alongside the use of the Heywood interconnector at 5 minute resolution for 15-21 January.
It would have taken over 20GWh of storage to supply the (essentially coal fired) power that was provided by the Heywood interconnector from midday on the 16th onward. The battery holds just 129MWh, or about 1/160th. Several other things are easy to spot on the chart: the 600MW import limit, reduced on the 19th/20th to just 250MW. The battery has not been used at above 30MW throughout this period, despite having a nominal 100MW power capability (though it has demonstrated 100MW discharge/80MW charge in the past).
The net value of sales less purchases by the battery was over A$700,000 because of the period of A$14,000 prices. The battery is going to need these types of events regularly to pay for itself: the previous fortnight earned just A$60,000, which is a paltry return on a supposedly A$100m asset.
It all makes sense. Sell the coal and gas and minerals to China and buy solar panels and wind turbines from them. Then get them to make a huge extension cord from China to Australia for backup power. Maybe build some coal plants in Indonesia or somewhere closer so that cord could be shorter.
Australia would then have more than enough electricity to provide tourist resorts and other services – though probably not enough to support a robust bitcoin mining industry.
You missed the plan to build solar in N Australia and export power to Indonesia
https://www.businessnews.com.au/article/MacTiernan-backs-solar-exports-to-Indonesia
Except Indonesia is not interested in importing intermittent, unreliable energy. This “plan” is just a PR fantasy.
Griff falls for the old fake PR new release yet again.
You always claim you check your facts Griff so here is the original release
https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2017/08/Exporting-Pilbara-sunlight-to-the-world.aspx
Note the words “Pre-Feasibility” so it’s not even a feasibility study in your or my speak it’s someone politicians thought bubble but you just tried to claim it as a fact.
IIRC parts of the ocean North of Australia are rather deep. So running a power cable, even to Timor, is going to be a rather challenging engineering and construction project.
Reportedly the temp handn’t reached this level (42C) in Melbourne for TWO YEARS and the Heat Wave lasted TWO days. How could that not be an EMERGENCY???!!
I love media hype. “The worst heat wave ever! (since 2016)
The real irony here is that the same ‘experts’ who are pushing the renewable scam are claiming to do so because of The Warming, so this heat wave should have been entirely predictable and not an emergency.
Of course, who could have ever imagine the hottest temperatures in two years for two days in a row!!! That is so much worse than we thought possible.
It’s called summer. Not unusual for this time of year. It’s actually been quite moderate except for a couple of days. Wait till we have a real “heat wave”. And Loy Yang only had one of four units out. I am keeping my aircon on. Hopefully it will trigger the blackout!
I’m gettin’ thin on top and what these AGW dipsticks do won’t affect me much but I worry for my grand children. In the early 70’s in Feb we had a drop of rain that flooded the downstairs bar at the corner of Spencer& Elizabeth, so a “dry” wait for the train. Next time it happens it’ll be GLOBAL WARMING. But the Pub’s gone- progress y’know so what the heck.
The future for Australia is diesel, ever more diesel. Blow up coal power stations that ran on Australian coal, and replace them with imported diesel.
Can’t use gas, it’s being locked up. Our politicians don’t like drilling for new supply. Australia has huge reserves, but there is talk of building import terminals.
Renewable are just not reliable.
The LNG import terminals makes sense, sorta. The biggest export terminals are in the north west [some gas fields are near East Timor] and Gladstone in the north east. Australian coastal shipping is incredibly costly so it would be cheaper to buy in Singapore using international shipping.
But, in Gippsland, not far from Melbourne, there is a proven on shore gas field. The water mixed with the gas is suitable for agriculture so the locals would welcome a well on their property but the labor government in it’s wisdom will not allow extraction.
It would be unwise to bet against the crazy Victorian and SA governments being reelected. The conservatives are too timid to nail their colours to the mast and say “Enough already!!!!”.
“Hanrahan January 19, 2018 at 10:41 pm
It would be unwise to bet against the crazy Victorian and SA governments being reelected. The conservatives are too timid to nail their colours to the mast and say “Enough already!!!!”.”
Agreed. So the crazy will continue and spread to other states.
The sad thing is that it will probably require a major blackout with all sorts of tragic and generally in-your-face consequences to snap the public out of their Green coma and seriously revolt against this.
EH they may point to the NOAA and NASA combo and say ‘at least we are doing our bit to save the planet for our grandchildren.’
Only humour will snap the masses out of this malaise.
A few days without air conditioning and running water in a hot concrete urban environment makes most people temporarily forget about the future and when they do again they may be more likely to be thinking about how to ensure their grandchildren do not have to endure that. Who would want that future for their grandchildren?
But I agree that humor can sure help. Every time I hear yet another story screaming about this impending crisis I can’t help but think about Monty Python’s Dead Parrot skit. The CAGW Parrot is dead. It was always stuffed. But the parrot sales team adamantly insists that it is alive, and claim that 97% of them agree.
‘Who would want that future for their grandchildren?’
Its a moot point, the propaganda coming out of the ABC has been extremely effective.
In this regard I’m still hoping Donald tweets CO2 does not cause global warming. The Trots in the newsroom would go ballistic.
The argument of the greenies was;
‘Sure, even if the laws of physics deign to comply with our religious beliefs, anything the West does will make a difference of less than 0.000001C. But we can not ask Africa and India and China to stay dirt poor if we are unwilling to do some virtue signalling ourselves.’
I am sure India and China have taken notice and drawn their conclusions.
Like the blackouts which have not happened in states like Germany with 35% renewable electricity?
(which export more than they import)
It really is interesting how Griff hangs on to his disproven lies.
Your list of German blackouts is eagerly awaited…
The Germans have the rest of Europe to fall back on when they have shortfalls. If they continue to replace reliable generation with unreliable, they will eventually face blackouts. This schedule will be accelerated if the rest of their neighbors follow suit. This is basic electrical engineering, far simpler than the physics that the CAGW crowd keeps chanting about, so even people like Griff should be able to understand it. But of course, they are not interested in understanding – they have a CAUSE to support.
http://www.dw.com/en/blackout-could-it-happen-in-germany/a-981943
The German grid is not an independent grid. That’s the lie you keep trying to pass off as new.
Griff,
Germany is able to import Polish coal powered electricity.
And you are still a clownish troll.
Why is Germany opening up new coal mines.
Why has Angela Merkel abandoned the Paris Accord targets.
Why does Germany import nuclear power.
528 megawatts….that’s it…..you would think they would have more backup than that
That amount of electricity is huge for a 3rd world banana republic. So it is NOT insignificant if you consider that your socialist Leftist politicians *want* your state of SA or Victoria to become near-3rd world countries.
Imagine how your children will view that amount of absurdly huge amount of electricity in 2050 after the Greens destroy fossil fuel energy production.
And even then, Victorian coal was operating at over 85% capacity
When have wind or solar ever done that when needed in the early evening.
Fair go, wind has hit over 50% On12 occasions this month already.
It has also hit 0% on 11 occasions.
A “Yeah but” moment for the Believers … Just think of all the evil CO2 molecules that were not released into our air by this episode in near blackout at a hospital.
Avogadro’s number is YU-GEE. How many kilograms of coal went unburned? All those CO2 demon molecules are still safely sequestered in their reduced form in the coal pile at LYB.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“THE takeaway lesson for Australian politicians and people throughout the world should be that you can’t run hospitals and businesses on unreliable electricity. Next time turning off the cafeteria lights might not be enough; people will die if this renewable energy idiocy continues. Lets hope enough politicians learn this lesson quickly enough to avert a major disaster.”
“Thursday night asking them to ensure back-up power supplies were effective”.
Spare battery in the basement or dedicated windmill on the roof perchance?
Wouldn’t be a hydrocarbon powered generator surely?
These ideologues are ******* mad.
The Left doesn’t like Haiti or African countries being singled-out as shit-hole countries. They want that moniker to be applied across the current Western industrialized world.
This is oh so reminiscent of Ann Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Continually blame the very industry players that are bailing you out. The only way to stop this is either wait till total collapse, or for the guys doing the saving to decide to stop saving the day.
Agreed, but “Atlas Shrugged” isn’t well known in Australia.
The first I ever heard about it was when a street beggar in London lent me a copy. I lent him a copy of “The Road” in return – he said he didn’t like Science Fiction, so I lent him an unusual science fiction book.
You are mistaken. Chavez or Maduro would know how to stop it. They would imprison the operators of the coal-powered generator for hoarding electricity, nationalize the power plant and send in party faithful to put it back in operation.
You forgot the part where the party faithful do a Cuffy Meigs and strip the place.
Meanwhile here in NH colonies:
Texas shatters record for winter electricity use, without swamping the grid
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/weather/2018/01/17/texas-brutal-cold-leads-record-electricity-use-rolling-blackouts-avoided
Thanks to fossil fuels…………
So a coal plant fails and the writer blames renewables? Makes no sense.
“So a coal plant
failsgoes off-line and the writer blames renewables? Makes no sense.The reality is base-loads do go offline unexpectedly sometimes. But wind and solar are intermittent by definition, and going off-line frequently.
The solution is adequate base-load back up. That is known as dispatchable power. Today, that is usually in the form of natural gas-fired closed-cycle generators. They could also be fuel oil/diesel generator dispatchable power. The point is, every reliable grid must have dispatchable power and a reserve base-load.in order to be reliable.
Wind and solar do not and will never make that grade. And Elon-boy’s batteries only provide a few minutes of reserve power to bring dispatchable power online when the wind turbines shutdown or a transmission line goes down.
Baseload? That concept is so yesterday. /s
In the good ole days, operators had as part of their charter to have spinning reserve [available almost immediately] equal to the largest gen set on line, in case it tripped. That was called an orderly market. This mess we have now has no order, no charter.
yes, baseload is a dead concept
Reality is a dead issue for Griff and his fellow AGW worshipers.
“baseload is a dead concept”
This has to be one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever seen uttered in my life, and I’ve been around for a while. I guess you really can’t fix stupid.
Griff making those stupid statements is just proof he has no understanding of how a grid or even electricity generation works. Fortunately, the system operator have people running it a lot cleverer than climate scientists, and they have a model that works.
For Oz, normally they have a number of coal station units running at part load. That means that if something falls off, the partially loaded units can ramp up very quickly. During this event, all the available coal units were running near flat out so they had no reserve. The gas units were running, but they were all sucking on the same straw, so there was no gas available to run any more. That is the problem the politicians have created with their energy plan. Gas can only provide backup if there is enough capacity in the gas pipeline, the plant operators have an appropriate usage contract and there are wells that can supply it. Oz has none of those.
“Griff January 20, 2018 at 2:39 am”
Lets hope you are not in a hospital requiring treatment to save your life when “baseload” dies. I am extremely happy to be a heart attack survivor for one reason, that being my local hospital is supplied with RELIABLE, online, baseload COAL fired power.
Let’s look at Eastern Australian weekday electricity usage
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/tonyfromoz/eastern-australia-power-consumption-summer.gif
See that 18,000WH, that is what absolutely must be available ALL THE TIME
During the day it climbs to 30,000WH
That amount of DISPATCHABLE electricity MUST be available when needed.
It is no use having 18,000WH of RELIABLE electricity, then 12,000MW of “maybe if its fine and windy”
You HAVE to be able to GUARANTEE that 30,000MW. and wind and solar CANNOT GUARANTEE.
At the moment , Sunday early afternoon, the Eastern region is using 24,200 MW, ..
….. of that, just under 400 MW is from “wind and other”
That really is an ABSOLUETELY PATHETIC amount considering there is well over 4000 MW installed wind
50+ year old plants sometimes have issues.
That is why a NEW coal fired power stations MUST be built in each eastern state as a matter of national importance.
The RELIABLE load is too close to the knife-edge because of the idiotic rules of the RET put in place because of the anti-science, anti-carbon agenda.
If Liddell does close in 2020 or whenever.. that’s it.. LIGHTS OUT !!
Don’t worry Andy, they add a couple of those Great Tesla Battery “generators” and everything will be OK./sarc
Thats correct Andy. There is currently around 4,300MW of Wind, 6,500MW Solar and 25,000 Coal. Name plate only of course. Delivery is a different story, but don’t tell the Greens. If all goes to plan combined solar and wind will equal coal,within the next two years, so we should see a change in climate any day soon.
Coal plants went off line in the past, but there was sufficient reserve capacity to handle it.
Thanks the the renewables nonsense, reserve capacity is a thing of the past.
Griff is truly ignorant when he keeps ignoring the obvious:
“This greensplaining ignores the central issue – the shortage of reliable, dispatchable power capacity. Despite billions of dollars worth of investment in Aussie renewables, a shortfall of a few hundred megawatts was enough to trigger a multi-state emergency.”
Noticed that you didn’t address this central point at all.
You have actual scientists and Engineers expose your foolish comments, yet you persist in your stupid propaganda anyway.
You can’t buck markets and you can’t change basic elements of human nature. As soon as you start messing with the base pieces if Mazlovs triangle – the human needs of food, water, shelter, warmth etc etc., any support for this absurd green ideology just evaporates. Which is why these ridiculous notions of running a modern world on windmills and solar panels will never work.
But… in between that “panels will never work” moment-epiphany and today… is a lot of public misery due to their gullible buy-in of the Left’s climate lies and propaganda.
You’re right Joel, just look at Nick and AL in this thread. Instead of learning from it, they’re just trying to blame the old coal plant, so we can get in with the conversion to unreliables. Maybe we should give a little thought to how this might play out in a few years when that plant is even older, or mothballed.
You can get people to put up with a lot of misery if you convince them that you are doing it for their own good.
Just look at places like Cuba and Venezuela.
This is what happens when politicians think they are engineers.
This is what happens when politicians think.
No, This is what happens when voters elect Leftists to political majorities.
The Left is mentally deranged and unfit to lead. They live in a world of lies. Their lies fail when put in public policy in the real world.
The Left’s rightful place is to always remain the back-bench opposition. So as Aussies are now finding out (and soon the Canadians), putting the Left in charge leads to disaster.
The problem around the world is finding parties that are not of the left. I blame some of the people who keep voting for these left-wing mutations of former right-wing parties such the the Conservatives in the UK thinking they are still what they claim.
Does memorizing, recalling and repeating various dogma quality as ‘thinking.’
The problem is that a majority of have bought into the lie that they are entitled to free stuff paid for by taxes on rich people. They have bought into the lie that the only reason why they can’t have all the free stuff they want is because rich people are just too good at hiding their ill-gotten wealth from the virtuous tax man.
“No, This is what happens when voters elect Leftists to political majorities.”
Oh please. Texas is a solid red state, with a Republican governor, House and Senate.
This is what happens when politicians.
This is what happens?
Is this not the green future many desire? That is until the respirator, heater, air conditioner, refrigerator, battery charger that they, or a family member, need desperately to work without fail…. fails…
But, blame the proven, but neglected back up system right?
Please WUWT do not pander to the Greenies by adopting their premises and language.
Temperatures did not SOAR…there was no HEATWAVE….down here us natives think of it as SUMMER.
If there is an issue, it is with Greenie interference with normal infrastructure.
Quite agree, Charles GN. It seems that what was once just summer is now catastrophe waiting to happen. I’m totally sick of the irresponsible misrepresentation by the media. Even the BOM is in on the act, with a special little section to update the “catastrophic weather” or supposed “heatwave” that they reckon is happening. They’re not even good enough to be called “useful idiots” anymore, because I personally think they know full well it’s all a fabrication.
Actually there was a heatwave it happened as soon as the AC was shut off to save the grid.
Actually there was a heatwave it happened as soon as the AC was shut off to save the grid.
Our feeble politicians pat themselves on the back and tell us their latest energy guarantee policy is working and thus we avoid blackouts. The truth however is much more grim. Less power is being used because it is unaffordable. Ten years ago I was irrigating and power cost 5.9c/kWh. It is now costing between 20 and 24 c/kWh. The Kurri aluminium smelter has shut down and many manufacturers have either closed or moved production to China. Where are the figures for lost jobs and lost productivity because of dear electricity? These brain dead politicians make electricity too dear to use and then claim they have more than enough. Stupidity of the highest order and still they draw wages and ask to be re-elected.
Notice how Australian summer is now called a heatwave, like it is something unusual.
“This just in over the AP wire: …. Australia, caught in an unusual spat of unexpected summer is scrambling for enough power to keep the a/c on….”
Notice how any day over 35 C is being called extreme. Politicised garbage.
Man, what bad luck.
But how could this possibly happen!!!??? SA has a GIANT battery now LOL.
Solar in daytime goes to daytime demand. No juice left to charge the battery. Wait, maybe they could charge it at night when electrical demand is low. Government officials are looking into this…
They could build a coal-fired plant to run the special high-intensity lights that could power the solar panels to charge the batteries that could keep the lights on until…. oh wait..
You mean as in Spain where they did exactly that but with diesel generators, so they could get their hands on the fat subsidies?
A decent size gas power plant in South Australia would solve their problems. (they have ample gas out in Cooper Basin)
They are just a small population, after all.
The whole state less than half Melbourne’s population.
Yup. Tgat giant battery that can power South Australia for a whole three minutes 🙂
“James of the West January 19, 2018 at 9:39 pm”
No. THe biggest battery in the world. Victoria are planning even bigger.
You know the Greens are ignorant when they talk about “528 megawatts of energy”. They just don’t understand that power is not energy – hence they think wind turbines, solar panels, batteries etc are wonderful.
isn’t S.A running off Musk’s batteries by now?
I think the 100 days to install are up so there should have been no issue.