Only the Australian government, the Australian media, and Nature Energy can believe it possible to build a plant at half the cost and produce three times more electricity than what it actually does.
Guest opinion by Albert Parker
The recently defunct Concentrated Solar Power tower (CSP) with thermal energy storage (TES) by molten salt (MS) of Port Augusta, South Australia, was a 150 MW rated power plant, 135 MW power under normal operating conditions, of cost AU$650 million, supposed to deliver 495 GWh of electricity annually fully dispatchable at a cost of AU$ 78/MWh.
From Wikipedia:
The premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill announced on 14 August 2017 that construction would commence in 2018 and was expected to be completed in 2020. It was expected to cost A$650M to build, including a A$110M loan from the Federal Government. SolarReserve has a contract to supply all of the electricity required by the state government’s offices from this power project.[2]
The plant received formal development approval from the state government on 9 January 2018. At that time, finance was not yet all in place, but SolarReserve still anticipated commencing construction in mid-2018 and taking 650 workers two and a half years to build it.[3]
On 5 April 2019, South Australian Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan announced that he had been contacted by SolarReserve who said the project would not be going ahead.
These were the claims in the press and the peer review in heralding the grand scheme:
South Australia planning to build the world’s largest thermal solar plant
World’s biggest solar tower with storage starts commissioning | RenewEconomy
https://reneweconomy.com.au/worlds-biggest-solar-tower-with-storage-starts-commissioning-77818/
Solar thermal power plant announced for Port Augusta ‘biggest of its kind in the world’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Concentrating solar power: Still small but learning fast
Nature Energy volume 2, Article number: 17095 (2017) https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201795?proof=trueIn&draft=journal
by Johan Lilliestam, Mercè Labordena, Anthony Patt & Stefan Pfenninger
Empirically observed learning rates for concentrating solar power and their responses to regime change, Nature Energy volume2, Article number: 17094 (2017)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201794
Lilliestam, J. & Pitz-Paal, R.,
Concentrating solar power for less than USD 0.07 per kWh: finally the breakthrough?
Renewable Energy Focus, 26, pp.17-21 (2018).
The last claim was more than a little bit questionable.
The actual costs were larger, due to the large-scale generation certificates (LGCs) valued at around AU$ 80/MWh, a low interest loan of 110 m$AU provided to the developer, and the indirect costs of the larger share of intermittent and unreliable electricity production in a state where peak power prices were already varying from AU$ 100 to AU$ 14,000/ MWh.
More than that, the only other plant of same technology built in the world, incidentally by same developer, Crescent Dunes, Tonopah, NV, USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crescent_Dunes_Solar_December_2014.JPG
Rated at 110 MW capacity net, had a cost of 975 m$ US 2015 values, for a planned electricity generation of 500,000 MWh/year (capacity factor 51.89%) but actual electricity produced in the best year 127,308 MWh/year (capacity factor 13.21%).
How is possible to believe somebody can be able to cut the cost of the plant to one half, and produce three times more? It is a good question to ask to the Australian Government, as well as the scientific journals that published the claim.
We learn now that no investor decided to risk a cent on this project, that has been consequently axed, as admitted also by the ABC:
Port Augusta solar thermal power plant scrapped after failing to secure finance – ABC News
The renewable energy projects of Australia are always the world biggest; but, they never get real.
This posting got me curious…and OMG what I have been reading:
“Does South Australia need two back-up power stations?…While load shedding is best avoided, truth be told, it’s not the worst sort of blackout. Individual homes or businesses are rarely without power in a load-shedding blackout for more than 45 minutes…”
And they accept this? I would be livid if my power were disappearing for 45 minutes in the heat of a Texas summer because my d**n government was too stupid to plan ahead properly.
“How will these (9 fossil fuel) power stations operate? In the first instance, the Government will source nine General Electric aero-derivative turbines from US company APR Energy. These are trailer-sized units which operate on either gas or diesel and are capable of very quickly producing about 30 megawatt (MW) of power each (a total of 270MW, or roughly 10 per cent of average demand).”
Apparently they are using diesel “temporarily” until they get permanent sites up…So they tore down perfectly good power plants to build green energy ones, and now those need a huge expensive battery AND 9 fossil fuel backup power generators. Oh boy…did my Australian cousins get taken to the bank or what…
“Do we need these AND world’s largest lithium ion battery?…Batteries can also be used to prevent load shedding, and the SA Government has indicated it will have the power to command Neoen’s battery to do just that. But batteries have limitations — if used at full output, the battery will last for less than an hour and 20 minutes. It then has to be recharged to be used again, and quickly discharging/recharging batteries can limit their shelf life. In contrast, so long as they have fuel, the gas generators will be able to keep running for much longer.”
Full Article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/does-south-australia-need-two-back-up-power-stations/8763164
So…the big expensive battery can supply power for less than 1 hour and 20 minutes…but if you keep doing that, it destroys the battery so use the fossil fuel generators as much as possible…?
I am just without any more words to describe the mental anguish this “logic” has caused me.
Some backstory for those who live somewhere not labelled The Blackout State.
In 2016 the entire state when black. Some people, like me, only lost power for about 6 hours, while others for several days. Since those other places were not near the nice cafes the media liked to drink at and were not filled with people who voted for the (then) Labor state government this minor point was casually ignored.
So then Musk turned up and, having carefully done his sums in advance, told the Premier that he could built South Australia a massive battery within 100 days of the contract being signed or it would be COMPLETELY free. The Premier, having read somewhere that Musk was clever and wanting to be seen to be Fixing The Problem(tm) and well as having his photo taken with Musk, agreed and before the rest of the state could say ‘feasibility study’ the ink was on the paper.
A bit later someone pointed out that the battery was a great place to store albino pachyderms and probably wouldn’t protect the state should the lights go off again, and so a new truck load of cash was exported in exchange for the backup generators.
Why all this feel good but ultimately useless stuff? Two words – State Election.
State elections in SA are on a fixed four year cycle and had there been anything remotely close to another black out before the next one the Labor government would not have just been thrown out, but more than likely beaten to death in the streets. Everything was a band-aid designed to prevent the voters from rioting.
Sad thing is for the most part it worked. SA did not go dark and while Labor was booted out in 2018 it was not a ‘State Bank’ level of public anger. Steve Marshall, the new Premier, also unfortunately shows little big picture understanding of how to fix power system (cough – BASELOAD – cough) and instead is trying to push for individual homes to have their own battery systems. Sigh.
The sad and disturbing things is I have spoken to people here in SA who don’t even remember the 2016 blackout, a fact that unfortunately seems to validate the band-aid solution. Just keep problems off the front page for a month, wait till the Footy Seasons re-starts and no one remembers what happened.
Unfortunately SA is relying to heavily on the interconnector and with Victoria going thru it’s own supply issues the problem is going to get worse.
The average usage charge in SA (the state exporting uranium from the largest ore deposit in the world) in Nov 2018 was A$0.43/kWh or US$0.31/kWh comparable with Germany @ur momisugly US$0.33/kWh, the highest in the world.
my 80 yr old friend who had no water(electric pump from bore) and no ability to cook or get cool and lost all her food in fridges and freezers sure remembers.
power co gave her sweet FA compensation too.
yes she had insurance but excess and power outs arent covered anyway
Chris
You actually need that battery. As does any region that is heavily dependent on bursty wind/grid-scale solar/wave power. You may need more than one of them
Trouble is that it’s an answer to questions like “What happens when the sun goes behind a cloud?” It’s not an answer to “How do we keep the grid going if the windpower is unavailable for many hours/days?” It’s nowhere near big enough for that problem. But it could possibly give you enough time to get a CCGT Natural Gas plant fired up. (Assuming that your local CCGT generator has sufficient natural gas available to pick up the load — which apparently was not the case at Pelican Point,SA in July 2016)
let me add to it for you
our govt sells our LNG to OS markets for a pittance per joule while we pay around a dollar per litre ofr car use and over a dollar a kilo for 100kg home use gas supplies.
then they had the utter hide to say hat gas was running out.
turncots govt then “stepped in” to ensure supply and price continuity
ha ha ha its STILL costly and were getting shortgages claims ongoing
in spite of Leigh creek finding new gas reserves recently
Keep in mind that this “load shedding” is as much to preserve the entire grid, to keep the entire system from collapsing, much less prevent the temporary “brownouts” (that is the term we here in Texas use to describe what Aussies call “load shedding”). Imagine that – 9 trailer trucks, diesel or gasoline-operated, would stand between us and the whole grid collapsing. No American would stand for such third world nonsense for long, much less Texans like us, Robert. That is what we can expect, though, if certain politicians can snake their “Green New Deal” into place in this country.
Interesting…I did a quick profit analysis (using Crescent Dunes published numbers) and some basic guesswork, and this power station SHOULD generate a profit at the going rate for electricity in Nevada. I am not endorsing building giant mirror farms all over the desert, but if this all works perfectly they generate a profit after 25 years.
Assumptions: They generate (at least) 500,000 MWh annually, their operating costs start at $10M and do not go up more than 5% per year, they have a guarantee of at least 1% rate hike per year (per contract), they sell all the power they can generate at a fixed rate… (i did not subtract out any loan interest as I don’t know it).
Net Profit: $293,000,000 or about an average of $11,700,000 per year. That’s a 32% return over 25 years.
Now I get to watch for all the things they didn’t expect to happen – to happen. They won’t have a hurricane, so that is good! Earthquake? Battery leak or explosion? Pitting of the mirrors causing the production to fall, attack of giant sodium eating gophers… who knows?
I worked near Crescent Dunes last summer. It seemed to operate about 90% of the time … you can tell, because it is a huge eye-sore. The tower–when the mirrors are focused–is super bright, like looking into the sun. Which is a real pain in the backside, as it is located in your face as you’re driving South on highway 95. Being in a low humidity desert, and a very long straight road, it is in your face for about 30 minutes.
There is apparently a very large maintenance crew to maintain the 10,500 mirrors, each about 1200 square feet. The salt pool is pretty exotic stuff, and costs around US $30M. Soon after the plant opened, the salt leaked and they lost some huge percentage. Up until that time, they had actually operated at capacity for 3 months of the first 5 years. After the salt pool repair, they’ve not met design capacity.
The region is desert, but under influence of Summer monsoons which blow up out of the Gulf of Mexico. So that when demand is highest, they get some very cloudy days. Workers told me there are a lot of bird pyres in the mirror field, which is like 3 miles wide.
Some seem to think the mirrors are fixed, they’re not. They rotate independently, and can likely fry something in space if the operator wanted. When the plant is down, the mirrors are pointed to project a light cone straight up off of the tower. Because summer is fire season for California, and Nevada is down-wind from California, most summer days are hazy with smoke. This is how you see the light cone, with the light reflecting off of the smoke.
It’s okay. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law made money on the deal.
https://neonnettle.com/news/6471-pelosi-s-brother-in-law-loaned-737m-taxpayer-money-for-failed-green-project
Wow – this whole project sounds weird, like something out of The Twilight Zone.
Australia actually produces a huge amount of solar energy: solar hot water heaters. They are excellent. But the idea that this country can run on solar and keep coal and gas in the ground is truly absurd. Go with your strong points, not your dreams. Put them on hospitals, government buildings etc. They can save real money, not cost money.
Believe it or not, they wok in New Zealand too.
you can use the old style copper coil water heaters or home make them for a few hundred as opposed to 3k or more for PV and costs of wiring and when grids down so is your power anyway
We are repeatedly told by the “Giffs” of the world that securing funding for coal power will be impossible. Seems like that is also true for renewables now. So how will SA power the itself?
As far as I know, SA has no industry to speak of, so where does it get it’s revenue from to blow $650mil?
a very few mouthy protesters and the get up scumbags lobby loudly and long and have scared the morons in banks from loaning to coal etc
then the banksters want to be seen to be green so promote the scams further for feelgoods in the delusion people will sap to them for social conscience.
nope its int %rates and bank fees that sway peoples moves
and your’e right we used to hve a LOT of industry in SA not anyore 2 huge carplants closed washing machine fridges etc all gone we now have NO whitegoods makers in aus. no cars and little else thats required if SHTF oseas and supplies go awol.
So how will SA power the itself?
Kangaroo powered treadmills attached to generators … at least until PETA-Australia finds out about it.
Fortunately, Jay Weatherill is no longer in power. I suspect his state Govn’t revenue came from federal GST (Tax) redistributions.
This technology is really not much better that wind power with respect to power delivery.
I’ve been writing about power generation from all its sources now for 11 years, and when this technology was proposed as the way of the future to equal coal fired power generation, it always amused me somewhat.
Spain was a big implementer of these plants, so what better way to prove how poorly they really did generate power than to do some analysis on those plants in Spain. So back in mid 2013, I did that analysis, and compiled a chart of their 24 (at that time, as it’s now 34) of those CSP plants. I found that the combined Capacity Factor across all 24 of them was just 28%.
If any of you wish to read it, it’s at the following link.
https://papundits.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/solar-thermal-power-concentrating-solar-fail-just-look-at-spain/
Tony.
Australia was once known as the lucky country. I moved from New Zealand and lived in Sysdney between late 1980 and late 1990 leading corporate restructure.
Australia lost its way early this century, after all, all you had to do was dig a hole and sell the contents of that hole. The backbone of its economy is still digging holes.
There are a lot of good hard working people of many ethnicities in Australia and they deserve better leadership than the suit wearing over educated morons that call themselves politicians. Cmon Aussies get off your butts and rid yourselves of these idealistic know nothing Buffoons.
Maaaate, you can do it.
Regards
The lucky country is basically that; Australia was lucky. Not through any proper planning or direction, like finding $5 on the street!
“Martin Cropp April 6, 2019 at 10:38 pm
Australia lost its way early this century, after all, all you had to do was dig a hole and sell the contents of that hole. The backbone of its economy is still digging holes.”
Not for a long while now. The backbone of the Australian economy is housing. All eggs, one basket!
The expensive, sad failures of one electricity experiment after another must be near the point of investigation of accountability of decision makers, plus the fraud that often goes with it.
All of the basic engineering to provide Australia with the lowest cost, most reliable national power scheme has been known for 50 years. The competitive economics of nuclear power are clear. Only politics prevent its immediate start.
Apart from nuclear, we have intimate experience with fossil fuel generation. It used to provide us with the bulk of that highly reliable, low cost electricity that attracted global industry and investments. Only political decisions caused some plant to be dnamited.
Politics are non- optimum are every turn.
Instead of informed, firm, optimum political decisions we have about incomprehensible mish-mash of moves that seem designed to appease all sorts of special pleaders, except it seems, the older white male experienced engineers (and the female ones who performed better or as well).
These matters rule above all politics.
1. Australia must immediately withdraw from the Paris climate agreement as fast as is procedurally possible.
2. All aspects of the Renewable Energy Targets must be stopped and confined to Oblivion. They are purely political and offensive to taxpayers of different politics.
3. So called Renewable energy projects must cease to have special favourable treatment, such as unique subsidies, low cost government loans, official preferences for use of Renewable energy. Apart from some small, well-known applications, their fundamentally engineering is hopeless, old fashioned and surviving only through political decisions.
4. Australia must advertise open doors for all of the nuclear fuel cycle. No cash subsidies or incentives, mainly a removal of present barriers that are entirely political.
What a difference these simple moves would make. Apart from putting more money in just about every pocket, we would have a new base for restoration of individual pride and enthusiasm to succeed. We are now too close to loss of these critical properties. Geoff.
Thanks Geoff, you have pretty well summed it up.
Mid you the Greeenists are so blinded by their ideology that they cannot see any of this.
All that’s needed is to mandate any tenderer for electrons to the communal grid be able to reasonably guarantee them 24/7/365 (ie short of unforeseen mechanical breakdown) or they can keep them. Immediate end to State sponsored dumping.
How is that battery charged?
Regarding the towers which fell over, just take a look at the photo of these towers. They are very small and thus cheap. The big normal towers never did fall over., so who paid flor the El Cheapo small towers. Possibly the windmill owners.
MJE VK5ELL
I wonder how this is looking now:
https://www.afr.com/business/energy/electricity/sanjeev-gupta-steps-up-137b-renewable-energy-build-near-whyalla-steelworks-20180815-h13zcc
Politicians, according to their own statements, are usually “non-technical”. They need to have reliable, intelligent, technical advisors. How to select such people?
I know. By the size of their political contributions. What could possibly go wrong?
13% of rated output sounds about right.
We had a project to sell transparent Fresnel lens for solar, mostly for linear systems. The technical guy on the project reported that 10% of rated output is typical for reflective systems vs. about 50% for transparent Fresnel lens system. A 1° error in local shape on light weight reflectors results in a 2° error in the light beam. It misses the collector. A 1° error on a light weight, transmissive Fresnel lens results in insignificant error. Now add wind and light scattering from dust and reflective systems have always performed poorly.
Fresnel systems are limited in size so multiple units must be used and one cannot have one massive collector. They still must track the sun accurately and this makes them too costly compared to flat panel collectors. If there was a multi-junction solar cell that could run an 10-20 suns without expensive cooling they would be viable.
I have not seen anybody mention that the Australian renewables finance ORG ARENA –
= Australian Renewable Energy Agency – a year ago said [concentrated solar thermal (CST) technology could be a commercially viable form of dispatchable renewable energy within a decade.] English translation – not viable now.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5690
At the end of the ARENA media release they say [ARENA is also currently working with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), in consultation with the Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency (IPFA), to provide the Commonwealth Government with advice on Solar Reserve’s 150MW Aurora CST project proposed for Port Augusta, including its suitability for a federal loan of $110 million.]
Lots to read between those lines. Note ARENA exists to pump Commonwealth taxpayers dollars into renewables.
This is really frustrating for the people that see these projects as sales pitch policy scams on the front end like watching a car accident as it unfolds in front of you. The advocacy groups are the ones that race away from the scene of the accident to cause more wrecks.
a A$110M loan from the Federal Government.
≠======
I see 110 million reasons to at start the project. And then give up when the money runs out. Just make sure some of the funds are donated to the right political parties. Don’t want anyone asking for the money back.