Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; an independent report blamed operator incompetence for allowing clouds to affect the solar energy supply.
NT sacks energy chiefs after report into Alice Springs system black
Giles Parkinson 9 December 2019
The Northern Territory Labor government has sacked the territory’s two most senior energy chiefs following a damming report from the market regulator into a “system black” event that hit the city of Alice Springs in October.
Tim Duignan, the CEO of Territory Generation, and Michael Thompson, the head of network operator and systems control company Power and Water Corporation were both sacked after the government received a report from the Utilities Commission into the outage, which affected 12,000 customers for between 30 minutes and 10 hours.
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It seems clear that this is not a problem about technology – despite some trying to sheet the blame on the amount of rooftop solar in the local grid and the impact of passing clouds – but of corporate and energy culture. And of incompetence.
An investigating report by consultants Entura – requested by the Utilities Commission – found that staff managing the system did not anticipate the approaching cloud cover, and did not know what to do when they realised what was happening and output from the Uterne solar farm and rooftop solar panels declined.
Thermal generators failed because they had not been properly maintained, and the staff had no idea how to re-start the machinery, because procedures had not been updated since the installation of a big battery. To cap things off, there was insufficient spinning reserve and the system was unstable.
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“This whole debacle could have been avoided if the companies and the government had shown real leadership by listening to workers and acting on their concerns raised about the condition of Ron Goodin PS and the capabilities of Owen Springs to deliver reliable power to the Alice Springs community,” he ETU said in a statement.
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Read more: https://reneweconomy.com.au/nt-sacks-energy-chiefs-after-report-into-alice-springs-system-black-10094/
The official report is available here.
The following is a video commentary on the story;
Even if we accept the official explanation of what went wrong, one thing is clear about our renewable future; more moving parts, more chances for some idiot to mess things up.
Clouds. We know less about them than Joni Mitchell.
Surely the key para in the reneweconomy article is this:
‘Thermal generators failed because they had not been properly maintained, and the staff had no idea how to re-start the machinery, because procedures had not been updated since the installation of a big battery. To cap things off, there was insufficient spinning reserve and the system was unstable.’
It looks like the ‘cloud’ event was just a trigger for a cascade of issues that led to the blackout. There were multiple failures here, both machine (poor maintenance, insufficient spinning reserve) and people (lack of training, outdated procedures) related. I’m not sure what they mean by ‘Thermal generators’ – can anybody help? TEGs powered by gas, or something else?
Some of the generators at the Alice Springs power stations can run off either diesal or gas.
Skimmed the report.
Rotating reserve.
3 megawatts intermittently switching in and out of the system,in seconds.
New gas turbine plant coming on line.
Old plant being taken out of service.
Battery system,feeding back in via inverter system,blocked the normal sensing system of gas generators..No droop. No generator reaction.
Classic example of solar being unfit for the purpose,if you need excess generation capacity equal to the solar output, rotating while you “use” solar,you are paying twice for the same power.
Utterly retarded.
The only “savings” are in the government issue accounting system.
The battery sourced AC interfering with the traditional signal for “More output” is just too funny.
No body anticipated this?
Unbelievable.
I am quite sure many system engineers and tradesmen pointed this flaw out and were ignored or even fired.
I advocate for the human power wheel.
Hamster wheels for human power.
ITs ecofriendly,its biodegradable,it works at night,needs no wind…
Where every politician,civil servant and Subsidy Slurper shall run until they provide electrical power equal to the taxpayer wealth they squandered on these magical free energy schemes.
Wheel of Karma?
“John Robertson December 10, 2019 at 8:44 pm
I advocate for the human power wheel.”
Remarkable isn’t it, Australia leading the way on renewables.
Talking of human powered appliances, already been tried;
I count 64 people who will ALL need showers just to provide the energy needed for 1 shower
And what about all the laundry that will need to be done? I recall watching that episode and it was a real eye opener about how much electricity is actually required to heat water with electricity. The green slime who want to install solar PV electricity to provide electrically heated water and space heating have to be exceptionally low IQ people. Clueless and very sad that these people will actually be part of the problem who make these decisions for society while these low density renewables will do society much more harm than good.
The interesting thing is it was an electric, on-demand/instant, water heater. Very common in the UK, I had one in my home. IIRC they are rated at about 7Kw, or something around that. For a shower it is run for 10 minutes each day, usually at peak times. I recall watching a documentary about living with EV’s in the UK and the speaker was talking about the charger installed in his home. It too, was rated at about 7Kw, which he used the shower as a comparison. Trouble is to fully charge the EV he had, an Audi IIRC, would take about 24hrs. Running 1 &Kw charger for 24hrs would costs heaps in the UK, even factoring in the over-night cheap rate.
yeah,but…yeah,but it was really cheap
The cost of bottled water and “energy” bars was huge though, not to mention cleaning riding jocks, tyres and chains.
Weaker sun…more cosmic rays and more clouds…
…cooler world.
Weather Change.
The culprit is government run sustainability schemes. No one in charge cares about getting it right.
If Australian power were privately owned and run to achieve a profit, the power would be on, stable, and plentiful 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Fire the government. Privatize the industry. Everything will start to hum with efficiency.
In a way, these government mandated schemes are run like a very poorly managed condo. Nobody really in charge, nobody cares, nobody does anything and the volunteer directors waste their time dealing with corrupt management and/or the maintenance dept who are just there for the money. Everyone who does any type of contract work for the condo over bills, because nobody is paying attention to any detail because nobody is really in control or even really cares. Except for all the owners who have to pay for the bills every month but think they are being professionally managed by the Strata and/or the management company. It is no wonder the banks don’t really want to lend to a strata corp, because it is a form of inefficient socialism when mismanaged. Our democracies in places are turning out like really mismanaged condo corporations. Much of it is turning into a slum.
“Earthling2 December 10, 2019 at 9:55 pm
Except for all the owners who have to pay for the bills every month but think they are being professionally managed by the Strata and/or the management company.”
I rent, so I pay those fees indirectly. I had an issue in a unit once where grey water was flooding up from the drains in to the unit from the kitchen sink. Grey water is not sewage, but it stinks. I had to call out an emergency plumber to block of the waste water pipe so no more waste water would flood in to the unit. I called the Strata (Strata just another work for layer (Of fees)) company and asked what my fees went on as it was a “strata problem”. I was told strata fees don’t pay for that maintenance. I was quick on to the property manager I paid my rent to and, eventually, got my money (AU$900) back from the Strata Management company and I was left with the clean up bill after. As you say, they are there just to collect fees.
They are poorly mandated, and believers can’t see it. All they see is Australia is meeting “it’s targets” on renewables and emission reductions (Which it isn’t).
its not only bloody privatised so all the profit goes OS but the mongrels are un accountable to the consumers and are sucking in govvy handouts like a dyson
when it was govvy run it worked better and the costs werent goldplated.
Giles the writer of the original piece is a major fanboy of renewables. He would never admit any flaws in the basic technolgy approach. While saying this isnt a core problem but and implementation problem (back up power and transfer) he would probably them argue in other pieces that solar doesnt really add complexity and drives down costs
@yarpos
Totally agree.
Gobsmacked that Giles quotes Monica Tan for reliable commentary on the event.
Monica is a former Greens candidate in Berowra, NSW, Communications Officer for The Greens in NSW, a qualified Arts Teacher (with qualifications in Communications, Media Arts and Communications from UTech Sydney) and author for Greenpeace.
Hardly credible qualifications to be Energy Transition Manager (even if only for Environment Centre NT)
Really?
The schmucks that got fired are probably just clueless managers taking advice from avaricious vendors and numpty public servants. They were probably sitting back fat and happy collecting attaboys and bonuses for their great achievements only to finally be exposed to reality.
It will be interesting to know how much all this costs to rectify. Naive enthusiasm cost South Australia half a billion dollars and they still need to run generators even when they too much wind power. This should be far less but probably significant in terms of small NT budgets.
its not only bloody privatised so all the profit goes OS but the mongrels are un accountable to the consumers and are sucking in govvy handouts like a dyson
when it was govvy run it worked better and the costs werent goldplated.
and SA is now also paying mega millions to run a entire NEW line to NSW to add to what it sucks off Vic grids as well,
and if torrens island gas unit has a breakdown they have NO reserve spinning backup at all
Vic sucks in from Tassies hydro as well now theyr talking a second cable under bas strait
and warning us all of blackouts coming as they shut Hazelwood to shut the greentards up, Loy Yangs aged and also going to be shut by os owners, rather than upgraded
Insufficient spinning reserve. Aaargh! The stupid, it burns..!!!
Australia: The smart country, leading the world in the charge to 50% renewable energy.
@Patrick MJD
Ok, b’cause Germany is leading to change to 100% 😀 so the wishfull thinking 😀
Had to re-read your comment 😀
Indeed, Germany is leading to rush to so-called “renewable” energy, but at horrendous cost: 40,000 lives lost in a single winter, wasted for useless Green virtue-signalling, which does no good for the Environment at all.
Here’s an article in German:
https://www.focus.de/immobilien/energiesparen/energie-die-grosse-stromluege-warum-strom-zum-luxus-wird_id_5388458.html
Translated to English by DeepL:
https://sealevel.info//Energy_Poverty_kills_40_000_Europeans_(DeepL_translated_to_English).html
Translated to English by Google:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.focus.de%2Fimmobilien%2Fenergiesparen%2Fenergie-die-grosse-stromluege-warum-strom-zum-luxus-wird_id_5388458.html
Google Translate: “Energy Poverty Kills 40,000”
It takes time to wake up carbon generation equipment, anywhere from 3 minutes for a 2MW diesel to 30 minutes for smaller coal plants.
What they need is a gas turbine!
On your regular cruise ship, the emergency generator has to run up and be providing power within 45 seconds, by law. They are also tested once per week.
I see no reason for utility systems providing power to many people should operate under less strict rules!
gas turbine start times
Small stand alone GT genset (
cold start ~ 2 mins (to 50%) ~ 5mins to 100%
hot spinning start ~ 1 min (to 40%) ~ 3mins to 100%
BIG stand alone GT genset 30-MW
cold start 15-20min
http://www.hitachi.com/rev/pdf/2008/r2008_06_006.pdf
CCGT (gas turbine + steam turbine)
hot spinning start ~ 2 mins (to 30%) ~ 10mins to 100%
hot start ~ 18min
warm start ~ 30 min
cold start ~ 4-8hrs
https://www.power-eng.com/2013/06/12/gas-turbine-combined-cycle-fast-start-the-physics-behind-the-con/
The most common failure mode of a VRLA Battery is an open circuit, most often caused by cell dryout. UPS systems typically have a SERIES connected battery system to provide a high current to the UPS System DC Bus. If one cell in a string opens, it will break the current in the entire string. In short, just one failed battery cell can bring down your entire infrastructure.
They could have tried to engage with a local Aboriginal rainman and ask him to do his dance and charm the clouds into releasing their water, thus clearing the skies. But somehow I think that the locals would either be more clever than that or charge an exhorbitant fee.
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time with the usual fanfare-
https://www.savingwithsolar.com.au/alice-springs-solar-bess/
https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/News/world-first-battery-storage-approach-alice-springs
but you’ve heard of Black Bess now haven’t you?
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/oopsie-cloud-causes-system-black-event-at-alice-springs-affecting-thousands/
“We’re not quite sure what’s happened there,” … “It shouldn’t happen …” when it actually happened but at least the whole world’s talking about batteries eh chaps?
Thanks observa Takeaway lines for a standup comedy.
“The system itself is similar to the South Australian battery solution – albeit smaller – and the SA project has the whole world talking.”
“The reality is that even though our solution is much smaller, it represents a greater percentage of the grid – ours is 10 per cent of the total load compared to about five per cent in SA.”
The 5MW battery energy storage solution is primarily being installed to improve generation stabilisation, and is timed to coincide with the shift from the ageing Ron Goodin Power Station to the upgraded Owen Springs Power Station.
“This Energy Storage system, along with our new machinery at Owen Springs, heralds a new era of power supply for Alice Springs,” Mr Duignan said.
“We’re replacing aged electricity generators with the latest equipment, to provide efficient and reliable power supply, drive down the cost of producing electricity and to support a transition to renewable energy.”
The Battery Energy Storage System will be used to provide improved power generation reliability for the region, by assisting by compensating the output of Territory Generation’s solar power during cloud cover events.
“There is significant expectation from industry, business and the community in Alice Springs to increase solar penetration on the grid, however without storage to smooth the solar output, there is limited opportunity to integrate further solar without impacting on grid stability,” Mr Duignan said.
“Reliability of base-load power is a major issue in Australia at the moment and these new technologies are an important step to ensuring reliability in a controlled transition to renewables.
“Ultimately it will assist in supporting the system to be able to increase the solar profile in Alice Springs.”
Territory Generation has undertaken extensive modelling of the Alice Springs grid with its new generators at Owen Springs Power Station, engaging consulting engineers Aurecon to provide the technical advisory services for the development of the project.
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Covered all the bases talked about.
I solved this problem of intermittency of grid-connected wind power one year ago. The same solution applies to grid-connected solar power. My work here is done. 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/16/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/#comment-2520849
Here’s an even better solution:
1. Build your wind [or solar] power system.
2. Build your back-up system consisting of 100% equivalent capacity in gas turbine generators.
3. Using high explosives, blow your wind {or solar] power system all to hell.
4. Run your back-up gas turbine generators 24/7.
5. To save even more money, skip steps 1 and 3.
I don’t see it as a problem. Just have Congress legislate clouds during the day out of existence! It can still rain at night.
This is the sort of insanity we are seeing more and more of around the world.
A former Australian Prime Minister – Bob Hawke – once touted Australia should be ‘the clever country’.
Poor Bob… he must be turning in his grave. He actually promoted nuclear energy and the sale of Australia’s massive uranium reserves. Sadly, nuclear power never became a reality in Australia.
Solar power has its place.
Such place is a niche, at best. If anywhere was a viable candidate for solar power being something bigger than a niche, sun-kissed central Australia would seem to fit the bill.
But even there…
Runaway, renegade clouds — yet more evidence of climate breakdown.
A building EMERGENCY generator per code in the US must take on the required loads within 10 seconds. Those would be life safety and emergency systems like elevators and lighting. In Las Vegas, emergency systems include elevators, fire pumps, slots, point of sale equipment and casino cameras and HVAC equipment since that is where the money is. Most major casinos and other facilities have multiple generators and program for load shedding if all do not operate properly. Ex. A generator drops out and the cooling tower and chiller (very high electrical load) may shut down although the circulating pumps will continue to run to produce residual cooling.
So what is needed was load shedding to reduce the load to the available output when solar o wind do not deliver. My suggestion: Start with the houses of all green and labor elected officials, then all those who voted in the last green or labor primary (if the primary election system does not exist in OZ you need to institute it to identify the clowns), then all those who are registered to the green or labor party, then to all buildings for higher education, specifically the faculty office and administrative buildings, then all government offices for the greens and labor, then specifically to the offices of any liberal (OZ) legislators who ever voted for the global warming hooey and then the entire precincts that voted them in.
Those individuals and facilities would be required to install the smart meters that would allow that process to occur at their own expense. The determination of who this includes would be done NOW, before they have a chance to change their affiliations.
They caused the problem, they can pay the price with their own inconvenience.
Las Vegas had some brown outs for a couple of days years ago during the time of the Enron scam and associates government related stupidity. The problem was a lack of sufficient OUTSIDE power depended on by the power company. The casinos could have easily made up the deficiency by running their generators but most of them are diesel and by law are not allowed to be used for peaking power in the Las Vegas Valley due to pollution concerns (EPA regs,). Years earlier I had worked on a building being built by a major shareholder of the gas company and the generators they installed were for emergency backup and for peaking power and were powered by natural gas with diesel backup in case of gas line failure. They ran them during the summer peak cooling loads. The company spent the money because of the animosity between the gas an power companies. At that same general time the gas company got behind gas engine driven AC compressors. They were called Triathlon and manufactured by York. They used Briggs and Stratton engines. They were noisy, when they would start up the neighborhoods would sound like everyone was mowing their grass. The engines did not last as expected and they were all withdrawn by the manufacturer and replaced with electric compressors within 3 years or so.
There are large (7 and 15 ton)natural gas driven heat pump units being manufactured now that have so far a very good performance record. I looked into the 7 ton unit for a 4300 sq ft house in Las Vegas but the initial cost was too high since it was a retrofit. It would take 10 years or so to recoup the costs. It would have been cost break even within 3 to 4 years for a new built house. You could zone out the building to easily isolate unused areas increasing the efficiency. The only problem would be that system, being a heat pump, was either heat or cool at any time. The City of Las Vegas installed them on several fire stations and they were very effective and efficient and saved substantially on utility bills. The motors were built specifically for natural gas temperatures and were very easy to maintain.
If a cloud could cause a 10-hour failure, what would happen if it rained? Would rain water short out the system?
Maybe they need to tear down this system and rebuild it on the moon. No need to worry about clouds, just a slight problem transmitting the power to Australia.
???
A) Don’t they have this reduced sunlight problem every day?
B) Surely, they have much more frequent clouds than they make out?
Leaving me to wonder why the urgency to blame their staff for one cloud?
Someone had to design the battery for this facility?
Or did some fool just buy the biggest battery they could afford, without buying the engineer resources to detail installation and all procedures surrounding the battery?
It appears the persons who should be fired are at higher levels than this facilities “staff”.
I thought there was gas fired backup for no sun/no wind situations. Clearly not.
Speaking as a CAGW skeptic, electric utility engineer with significant career experience in renewables let me add my tuppence worth to this discussion as it seems to be a big skeptic group hug where one demonstrates how skeptical they are by how much they hate renewables.
Power system failures have always happened and are not new. Work I’m doing currently in a West African nation has frequent system blackouts (sometimes 5+ per month) but has no renewables whatsoever. Yes, it isn’t a well-performing system but in fairness to them it is small and the statistics are all against you in that situation.
The ‘problem’ of solar PV output drops (up to 90%) due to a passing cloud is well known in the industry and has been studied. To address this phenomenon, in the technical conditions of connection the system operator will specify a maximum ramp rate (typically 10% per minute) and the solar owner will have to ensure they meet that (typically 50% of output size is required as short term storage i.e 40MW solar PV would require 20MW energy storage with about 4MWh energy storage – a few mins storage).
It sounds like this is a fairly small isolated system so its performance wouldn’t be as good as we’re used to in large systems such as US, UK etc. The failure here was specifically the failure to maintain properly the thermal generators and for that failure the senior managers got their just desserts.
A large system (Ireland 6GW) today frequently has up to 70% of load supplied by renewables plus DC interconnectors. We have had no major blackout to date. The issues are being properly studied and dealth with.
I’m sure if they just keep firing people, they will get the system to run smoothly and reliably.