Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Phil Salmon; Will nobody turn up the solar panels?
Entire Sydney suburbs plunged into darkness as more power outages loom
Suburbs around Sydney suffered power outages on Monday night, as officials warn more blackouts could be on their way.
Homes in Beacon Hill, Frenchs Forest, Narraweena, Cromer and Dee Why were all temporarily without power, Ausgrid said.
Queenslanders were warned they were at risk of a significant power disruption between 5.30pm to 8pm on Monday, but blackouts were avoided.
Meanwhile, NSW is on high alert from 7pm on Tuesday due to a predicted supply shortfall.
The power outages come as Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen warns the system is “under pressure” and said households should ‘brace for a bumpy period ahead’.
“In terms of the immediate situation, it’s being very actively managed,” Bowen told Sunrise on Tuesday morning.
“We managed to avoid any load shedding or blackouts in Queensland last evening.
…
Read more: https://7news.com.au/technology/power-outage/entire-sydney-suburbs-plunged-into-darkness-as-more-power-outages-loom-c-7154237
The AEMO government regulator greensplained that the shortages are because greedy power plant operators refused to provide power at below cost.
Power companies accused of ‘unconscionable conduct’ as they withdraw from grid
By Mike Foley
June 14, 2022 — 3.43pmPower generators are exploiting the chaotic energy market by withdrawing power supply from the electricity grid and waiting until strict rules to prevent blackouts kick in, forcing the energy market operator to direct them to fire their plants back up and triggering profitable compensation payments.
There’s no law stopping power companies from withdrawing their electricity generation from the market, and in the past two days they have reduced the volume available by 2 gigawatts in Victoria, 3 gigawatts in NSW and 1.5 gigawatts in Queensland.
The withdrawals were prompted by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) decision to put a cap on spiralling prices that electricity generators are charging for wholesale power, which crimped the profit margin of some generators, which are battling coal prices that are soaring because of sanctions on Russian exports.
But the electricity market is tightly regulated and AEMO has powers, designed to prevent blackouts, which enable it to force generators to fire up units and start supplying electricity to the grid. Whenever AEMO does this, companies are awarded compensation.
AEMO was unusually forthright in a public statement yesterday when it said that directly after price caps were imposed on power companies “available offers were reduced”.
…
A spokesperson for the Australian Energy Council, which represents major power generators including AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin, said its members faced a “complex issue” but were seeking solutions to the power crunch.
“The price cap unintentionally means that some plants can’t recover their fuel costs. Participants are legitimately seeking ways to resolve the problem,” the spokesperson said.
…
Read more: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/power-companies-accused-of-unconscionable-conduct-as-they-withdraw-from-grid-20220614-p5ath9.html
If only there was a reliable, dispatchable 24×7 zero carbon energy source whose generators only required refuelling every couple of years, which Australia could refuel from our world class mineral resources, which could shield Australian consumers from volatile fuel prices, and maintain stable baseload during difficult circumstances.
The penny is beggininng to drop, with molasses-like alacrity…
That made me think of this:
Well that’s not quite it. Most of the greenies aren’t driven by a financial incentive. As usual, quoteinvestigator.com comes to the rescue.
William Jennings Bryan
The greenies can always muster up a ton of facts and logic. There are nearly infinite facts. You can always find a bunch to support any argument, no matter how crazy. That’s why conspiracy theories are hard to thwart.
Only when the voters start to feel real pain will the stupidity end. Even then, I’m not completely sure the greenies can’t turn the crisis to their own ends.
It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It
A single alteration is all that’s required
It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His TENETS Depend Upon His Not Understanding It
One could only wish that the grid could not organize for all the new ‘Teal’ electorates to celebrate their election and get turned off for the night!
A week would be much better
I’d say when his BELIEFS depend upon his not understanding it.
Once “invested” in the “Cause,” it’s difficult to cut through the emotion, politics, etc.
William Jennings Bryan? Except for his aversion to foreign interventionism, he would have loved every other aspect of Team Biden.
Indeed. On the other hand, he’s described as a populist. So, not being an ideologue, there’s the chance he would have governed in a sensible manner, had he been elected.
Also, rather than cutting off our nose to spite our face, we have to give the devil his due. How many times have we seen the Democrats refuse to do something sensible just because Trump suggested it first?
True. I guess it all depends on what’s ‘popular’ at any given time, e.g., ‘free stuff’ or ‘leave me alone’.
Reading the press release gives a hint as to their future plans.
They are currently blaming the “greed” of the plant operators for the current problems.
The obvious solution, for them, will be to have the state seize the plants and so that they can be operated at a loss.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Example — Venezuela.
No . There is a few gigawatts of generation that had been withdrawn because these ‘instructions’ to generate mean they get paid much more than the going rate
You didn’t bother to read the article. The going rate is less than the cost of operating. So going for something above the going rate is the only way left to actually make money.
Basically true. But of course each generating site is different and some can make money at the peak rate and others cant
Its normally price is a fraction of $300 gWhr ( $30?)so raises questions about how expensive their costs really are.
Sure coal and gas prices have peaked , but thats spot prices, a power station will mostly have longer term contracts at lower rates. And they have income over the full year, a profit doesnt have to made every single hour of every day.
If you ran a business it wouldn’t be for long. But then again, Socialists don’t like business.
Oh don’t give them THAT “out,” they’ll be more than happy to rush in to “save the day” – at taxpayer expense, of course (once again).
“… the only way to deal with him is to outvote him.”
And we did outvote him for President, three times.
Biden was only nominated once, so what are you saying exactly?
“Biden was only nominated once, so what are you saying exactly?”
Maybe he’s saying he ran for President three times . . and not being nominated when running generally means someone else got more votes. (Just a wild hunch ; )
OMG, you must be the world’s oldest person. 🙂
Very unfortunate for those not enclosed in the bubble, but for the enthusiastic supporters of the climate agenda its a wonderful endorsement of a lovely bunch of teals.
Virtue signalling tend to suffer rapid shrinkage when there’s skin in the game, indeed.
But then, does it matter at this point?
cAn brely typer whilaughing at them so hard
Nicely phrased last paragraph. You summed up nuclear power in a nutshell, without even using the word.
He he 🙂
That is sexist, Eric, you have to say “them them” now.
Xe Xe?
(Heck, I dunno nowadays, Oldseadog. I was just guessing there.)
(s)He (s)He !
😉
What about the nonbinaries, Bob? Admit it. You’re just guessing, too. 😉
Try …
Ha Ha
Ya Ya??
so is everyone else in that special needs bunch
Oh gawd sob, you’re so out of date. (S)he implies binary as in there are only two genders. We must say they to allow for the other 55 genders.
AH-64 AH-64!
(are we still doing the Attack Helicopter joke? 😛 )
Titter ye not!
If only!!!
That has to be the statement of the year.
The 21st Century and they can’t keep the lights on.
They are so proud of achieving the bare minimum.
Mediocrity is the foundation of government. If you want more mediocrity then vote for more government.
Ask them in Texas about that .
The reality these days is that building over capacity for a few days a year isnt economically viable for public owned corporations.
They have no duty to you to provide un interrupted power.
Ive see every time I go to a supermarket the large diesel generator ‘just in case’, a multinational I worked for had considerable resources from motor generator, diesel generator and batteries to provide seamless power for their critical functions.
Indeed I can see the home batteries being useful in future not for the futile attempts to reduce the CO2 but to ensure that lights are on when grid supply isnt
For some reason we have managed to provide power to the US for almost 100 years without frequent black outs.
Just not true. System wide black outs less common in last 20-30 years but have occurred previously when actual generation was still growing. they have been building capacity over decades for increasing market and can afford to make their money over the life of the asset.
The current system of intermittent , on an hourly basis, new generation wind is fools gold .
“Power companies accused of ‘unconscionable conduct’ as they withdraw from grid”
If it was a trade union on strike over pay and conditions then they would be heros to the lefty press.
It will take a couple of days of action before the regulator will get the message … in the meantime the companies will just keep relying on engineering reports saying it’s unsafe to operate and there is nothing the regulator can do. You can’t force a company to run generation unsafely.
I think you’re missing the point of the article. They say that it’s just a ploy to get compensation. You can’t get that if you’ve taken a sickie.
According to the article it appears if the energy producers did supply power, they would be doing it at a loss. Would you go to work for someone if it cost you more than you received in compensation? Australia has gone from being one of the lowest priced electricity markets in the world to one of the highest.. and now one of the most unreliable. My suggestion is to supplement windmills and solar farms with unicorns. That should solve the problem.
Read it again
“Power generators are exploiting the chaotic energy market by withdrawing power supply from the electricity grid and waiting until strict rules to prevent blackouts kick in, forcing the energy market operator to direct them to fire their plants back up and triggering profitable compensation payments.”
…
“But the electricity market is tightly regulated and AEMO has powers, designed to prevent blackouts, which enable it to force generators to fire up units and start supplying electricity to the grid. Whenever AEMO does this, companies are awarded compensation.”
…not quoted here
“When there is a looming shortfall, AEMO is required to
issue a notification, which it has been doing regularly
due to the large volume of power being withheld. There
are currently shortfall notices for Queensland, NSW,
Victoria and South Australia, but AEMO said on Tuesday
afternoon that about 2 gigawatts had been withheld in
both Queensland and NSW and this could be directed to
fire back up to supply the market, which would trigger
compensation.”
And you conveniently ignore:
“The price cap unintentionally means that some plants can’t recover their fuel costs. Participants are legitimately seeking ways to resolve the problem,” the spokesperson said.
Seems like a legitimate reason to refuse to burn fuel unless forced to.
Well, Eric had it up in red bold. “The spokesperson” speaks for the generators. But the article is suggesting that they are looking for generous compensation, and will probably come out ahead.
As they should. I do not understand your objection to profit and your approval of losing money.
Like most leftists, Nick wants free stuff. It doesn’t matter how much others suffer, so long as he gets free stuff.
No. He wants what he wants, when he wants it, and wants somebody else to pay for it. Just another ignorant Marxist.
He doesn’t approve of people losing money – he approves of the State using its police powers to force people to do something. If the State decides the compensation, what are the odds that it will be fair? If it only compensates the generators for fuel costs, they will still be operating at a loss.
Why, oh why, did the State not anticipate the need an install sufficient renewable-energy resources?
A a communist, Nick subscribes to the principle “to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities”
Those greedy operators are morally obligated to lose money preventing the Green house of cards from collapsing.
Am I wrong Nick?
because rank capitalism places profit over all, and thats as lousy as full on communism. in a crisis breaking even should be good enough for a few days.
the insane version of capitalism that runs ussa especially ,ends as the SAME as communism one or two people with obscene power think fk u overbook or amazon etc, the roths n rockers in the finances etc.
Profit for individuals and shareholders over the common good of all in the nation is unhealthy and stupid
your health or UNhealth care system is a prime example, people die or end up bankrupt paying highly inflated bills set BY corporations. as a society thats in no ones interest
And yet people flock to the US for a chance at a better life. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t have a clue. Profit for shareholders and individuals who provide value is the best for the common good. Socialism/Communism are bad for the common good.
The article is leftist junk the generators have a beef that the regulator continues to ignore and the incoming government is trying to press gang … so the companies are teaching them a lesson.
The lefty press can try and spin it anyway they can to make it the companies fault.
Why don’t you try actually reading the company view which you won’t find in left MSM. There are two sides to every argument try looking at the other side and get out of your lefty hovel.
“the generators have a beef that the regulator continues to ignore”
The cap was imposed for one business day.
It’s OK to force people to operate at a loss, so long as it’s only for a short time?
actually YES it is, most are OS owned and profit taking with low taxes benefitting Aus very little
So they will provide power in one day. Obviously it costs less to shut down then to sell at a loss.
The two sides to a Marxist argument are; a reasonable position, and a totalitarian position based on lies and using disinformation to convince the ignorant.
As usual Nick, you see what you want to see, not what is there.
The incentive is in the tarriff. Who wrote it?
“suggesting” – yet another word so beloved by the Climate Scientists, along may, might and could.
I question the word “unintentionally”.
Let them burn cake.
nah let em burn all the stockpiled plastic tyres and other waste! weeks worth of fuel just sitting around
unless its diesel I cannot see how they cant afford to run its just blustern bulldust
Nick
Have you really become totally delusional? We have gone from stable reliable energy to an ever worsening unreliable system in the span of 15 years around much of the developed world. This is mirrored by failures in almost every important life sustaining economic endeavor like food, medicine and housing. All because of government over reach and and control and all caused by the propaganda about CAGW. In the third world its worse. This is the cause you push when are you going to wake up, there is no catastrophic climate change and you know it, yet for pride sake alone you won’t let go of this BS. Come on man!
Can’t discuss facts with CAGW cultists, it’s an ideological thing. Much like any other religion, there are no scientific data references which actually backs up their claims.
Hey, you already knew that, and so does “Nick”. I do applaud you for trying to enlighten the poor waif. He would have been a great addition to “Jonestown”, with all that blind faith and everything.
Yes, but the CAGW cultists will notice when they try to charge up their electric cars and find out an EV is useless during a power outage. Then they’ll scream.
It’s like in LA….a few jewelry stores and rich folks homes suffer grab and runs from street thugs, and suddenly there’s an outcry for law and order….”recall the progressive DA!”
Progressives never seem to mind when other people are hurt by their policies.
Spot on , the unelected are ruling our demise while Russia, China are barrelling along .
They wouldnt be influencing this upon us , surely ?
blame the WEF and the eu for the mess were in, the davos n bilderberger crowds as well
you know those nice filthy rich industrialists with all the power who are the ones forcing agenda 21/30 and all the rest of the greencrapola onto us, while theyre swanning round the globe moralising and making billions a day or week
From the article:
Exactly what don’t you understand about price controls?
I believe you miss the fact that when price controls are implemented, that businesses are under no obligation to provide product.
Your stance indicates, that you must believe in state control of business whereby they can force businesses to produce at a loss. You should educate yourself as to what fascism means to business.
Yes that is the trigger the companies … they already had beefs and the incoming government tried to push the issue. It isn’t hard to understand and if they did it to workers they would go on strike but Nick has green coloured glasses.
Well those companies are going to teach the regulator and government a lesson in negotiation.
Negotiation does seem to have succeeded:
AEMO also released a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying supply shortfalls in NSW and Queensland would be met following discussions with governments, industry and generation owners.
“Discussions with scheduled generators indicate an estimate of approximately 2,000 megawatts of generation in each of Queensland and New South Wales, which hasn’t bid into the market, can be directed by AEMO to be available to help meet forecast electricity shortfalls this evening,” AEMO said.”
You seem to believe that because the government abandoned a really stupid policy quickly, that means the really stupid policy wasn’t actually really stupid.
The government (which?) didn’t do anything.
The AEMO’s cap will continue to be applied on days where the rules require. The long-standing rules have not changed.
“Negotiation does seem to have succeeded”
Notice the announcement doesn’t say what was given to get the agreement 🙂
Like you the lefty MSM doesn’t even think to ask the question what happened.
Perhaps I will let you in on it … they have agreed to meet (including the minister) over the concerns of the generators and magically 2000 Megawatts came out of safety shutdowns. In normal industrial disputes it would be called a ceasefire and return to work order.
By the way we can also now address your other stupid claim that there was no threat of prosecution. Even the lefty MSM noted today that AEMO sent letters to the generators threatening them with $10M per day fines.
those idiots will hand themselves on a platter to the bloody greentards!!!!
Stokes is no longer trying to hide his red plumage.
Nick on other threads you have failed to respond to my claims that adding renewables to a grid adds costs directly. You now claim that the other generators are not generating because they would lose money. That’s another indirect cost of adding unreliable intermittent renewables to the grid.
Your unicorn farts are beginning to badly stink. We’ve warned you folks for years what would happen and you denied than and continue to do so.
It is so sad when trolls produce data that doesn’t support the point they are trying to make.
The quote you provide does not demonstrate that the plant owners are not currently operating at a loss.
That is, of course, one side of the argument. Where is the power generating companies’ statement to give a balanced view? I rather think that the power regulators are unlikely to say something along the lines of: “After several years of reduced payments for infrastructure and expansion, after years of attacks and undermining of the power industry, after capping prices whilst over subsidising the competition, when we simply asked them to supply more power out of their own pockets they were unable to do so.”
It’s not ‘pulling a sickie’ – it’s paying minimum wage then expecting evening and weekend working as well; never going to happen. If you refuse to pay a fair amount you must expect not to get served.
and that point? the amounts being claimed are NOT Fair or reasonable. were NOT importers of overpriced uae or other sourced generation WE have our OWN abundant coal and gas
If Joe Bloggs from down the road wants to buy my coal at twice the price that my neighbour wants to pay then where is the incentive to sell to my neighbour?
The indirect costs of a plant are almost the same, wether it runs 8000 hours per year or 80 hours.
Those 80 hours that the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, must bring in the revenue for the entire year. If not, sooner or later you don’t have money left to buy new fuel.
Would not surprise me, if that was the hidden intent of the prise controls.
Nick, it is not a trick. It is refusing to work at a loss. There is no reason for the price cap.
If it costs $200 to drive to work and back, and I only earn $150 a day, I am not going to show up. Refusing to participate in a losing deal is not “a ploy” to get more money. It is common sense.
How else will the idiotic Aussie Government shut down fossil fuel generation and still look good to the populace.
Force the energy sector to operate at a loss.
When they go insolvent and have to shut generation down, blame them for the lack of electricity.
Which kind of unicorn will work best?
Arctic Unicorn
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/narwhal-monodon-monoceros-swimming-in-the-ocean-picture-id1191670504?k=20&m=1191670504&s=612×612&w=0&h=xien5ZkmdG6qq1fsi3mfB4okyOCaXZ9vUgVp1cpZSQs=
Thanks for the update. So much to know, so little time! I hope they don’t
have pronouns, too, which could lead to this:
I think YOU are missing the point Mr Stokes.
Would you go to work for a time if your salary were reduced to the point that it cost you more to get there than you were allowed to make in a day or Would you simply call in sick on those days?
Be HONEST now…
With gas prices in the USA going through the roof, we’ll soon find out what that does to our local communters.
It is now €2.132 (A$ 3.22) per litre in Dublin.
And 49% of that goes to the government coffers.
Our Green Party Transport Minister has advice: he says motorists struggling to pay for petrol & diesel should contact their local social welfare office for support.
These people live in their own bubble far removed from reality.
Therein lies the problem. The government trough pigs need to suffer the same lifestyle they wish to impose on everyone else.
He will never give an honest answer (or any answer) here.
Dork.
And as always Nick you miss the point of what you read. It’s as though you do it intentionally.
But… but… but… the energy from the sun and the wind is free. So what Australia needs is more solar panels and windmills.
(I don’tI have to point out that that isn’t a serious suggestion, do I?)
“as Australia continues it’s transition to green energy”….They ain’t stopping now.
Should be renamed “dark energy”…
Blame the astronomers, they introduced the concept.
Be more honest. There might actually BE ‘dark energy.’
“GREEN” energy, on the other hand, isn’t “green” at all and is 100% dependent on fossil fuels, providing nothing more than a facade as opposed to any actual energy.
Should read “continues its transition to the Stone Age”…
Not only more of them but also add mobile wind & solar units for emergency crews to use after the
next typhoon hits!
Several of our trolls have made the exact same claim. That the solution to these power shortages is more wind and solar. So yes, you do need to point out that you aren’t being serious.
Their solution to a sinking ship is to pour in more water.
To be fair, if you pour in enough water, it won’t be “sinking” anymore…
OK, how about “their solution to a burning g building is to hose it down with gasoline?”
Taking more of what ails you has all the homeopathic of ‘like cures like’ for a culture of embedded stupidity wishing to defend the continuation of governing regimes, currently vested economic interests, and planetary salvation heroism; while for some the very collapse of western democracies is an intently savored outcome.
And more daylight saving hours
Our wise overlords consult with the wizards of smart.
Spitters. (SPITRs) They think they are The Smartest People In The Room, therefore everyone must do as they say. Those that won’t are evil and must be destroyed. If no one is buying the ideas they are selling, then government must force everyone to do as they say… because they are the spitters.
[insert eyeball-spraining eyeroll emoji here]
On the Sydney outage on Monday night, the Ausgrid tweet is here. It doesn’t say that the outages were load shedding, or anything other than normal line problems. The said they had crews working on it, which would be an odd response to load shedding.
The report, with no indication of how many homes were involved, appeared in Murdoch publications, 7news and the Daily Mail. There is nothing in more sober media.
Blackouts were virtually unknown in the West until the advent of “Renewable” energy. Funny, that…
Short memory
I wrote “virtually”, not “never”.
Reading comprehension is clearly not your strong point.
But wait, there’s more.
Begin @37:30- dealing with Top Gun students who are a “great stick, but
have a certain attitude”.
Quote @ 40:00- You can’t push a rope & you can’t polish a turd!
BONUS- behind-the-scenes footage on filming Top Gun: Maverick
Nick didn’t notice the count going up as we entered the renewables era. Nope! He couldn’t admit that.
Good catch!
Nick isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks, and clearly failed to check his own reference.
Hoist on his own petard.
The first thing I noticed was that very, very few of the blackouts listed were in Western countries, which after all was the focus of the original comment.
Nick is getting dumber by the day.
Needs to get his meds checked and rebalanced.
The comment was about modern grids in the west, almost all of the blackouts in that list are in 2nd and 3rd world countries.
Of the few blackouts that did occur in the west, a few dozen over several decades, for the entire western world, would count as virtually none to a rational person.
As usual, when Nick does produce data, it doesn’t support the claims he is making.
OK, let’s just look at 2003:
“On July 22, a severe wind storm disrupted power to over 300,000 customers in the Memphis, Tennessee, metropolitan area.[71]
On August 14–28, the Northeast blackout of 2003, a wide-area power failure in the northeastern US and central Canada, affected over 55 million people, 14 days fully restored.
On September 2, the 2003 southern Malaysia blackout resulted when a power failure affected five states (out of 13) in Malaysia, including the capital Kuala Lumpur, for five hours, starting at 10:00 am local time.
On September 23, a power failure affected five million people in east Denmark and southern Sweden.[72][73]
On September 28, the 2003 Italy blackout resulted from a power failure that affected all of Italy except Sardinia, cutting service to more than 56 million people.[74]”
2 of your 5 examples are third world countries, of the other 3, you do your standard cherry picking to find a small number of incidents that occurred in a cluster, however you still had to include the entire world in order to create it.
PS: Nobody ever said power blackouts never happen, the claim was that they were virtually non-existent in the west. Nothing you have presented have refuted that statement.
“2 of your 5 examples are third world countries”
Italy is third world? Or was that Tennessee?
Your wind storm in Tennessee knocked down power lines. That happens whether you use coal or solar to generate electricity. It’s not the large distribution lines. It’s mostly local to a small area or a single building. The number of lines down is what causes the problem.
About 4 of those blackouts were western nations, which was Graemethecat’s original point.
Yes, 4 out of 5 for 2003.
But GtC’s claim was that
“Blackouts were virtually unknown in the West until the advent of “Renewable” energy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/12/three-blackout-near-misses-in-three-months-says-national-grid
Even your friend The Guardian is getting alarmed at the increasing instability of the UK’s National Grid.
Nick has yet to learn how to stop digging when in a hole.
Well, it was in 2019. The grid seems to still work.
4 blackouts for the entire year, does not refute the claim.
The claim was:
“Blackouts were virtually unknown in the West until the advent of “Renewable” energy.”
Really???
This list only includes blackouts on a near nation wide scale.
Do you consider downed power lines to an individual house to be a grid backout? I think the discussion is about failure of power generation.
I answered that as well. All the major blackouts I can find were system failures, not overall shortage of electricity.
You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you imagine current shortages aren’t principally the fault of intermittent renewables.
Other than for two or three days over the last couple of weeks, this has been the parlous state of UK generation.
I don’t think a blackout every 40 years or so is that big of a deal.
Nothing to do with supply.
The claim was:
“Blackouts were virtually unknown in the West until the advent of “Renewable” energy.”
Stop wriggling, it’s undignified.
Nick, I suspect it’s useless to explain to you what was meant by “Blackouts were virtually unknown ….”, but here goes. This meant blackouts CAUSED by poor energy management policies. You in turn cite blackouts caused by weather, accidents, etc. Really Nick, I suspect you are smarter than you seem, but simply can’t get past your socialist/communist ideologies.
Caused by a software problem, not by a failure of a portion of the generation supply, so called renewable or green energy which is mandated and favored by the government, to provide dispatchable energy outputs.
Requiring the coal plants to provide that backup without paying for that service is the problem. I commend the coal producers for NOT doing so until the price paid is sufficient to fund the fuel AND reimburse the excessive maintenance and repair costs associated with the excessive cycling of the plants due to wind and solar being the first “used” energy.
You will go to your grave believing in unreliables. Why do you hate the poor?
Screw you.
He’s a deep red watermelon.
I call Bovine excrement
OK, let’s suppose they were just normal line problems. That means that if they fix the lines, the problems won’t happen again for quite a while. But, if the problems do come back, or if gas or coal power has to fill the gap, then they weren’t normal line problems after all.
My guess is that they weren’t normal line problems in the first place, simply because there doesn’t seem to have been a normal problem (how long since the last time supply failed and was it a normal line problem then?), and there’s another very simple logical explanation: renewables have stuffed up the system.
One question which surely the ABC and their fellow travellers are going to have to answer soon, is why didn’t the wind and solar suppliers simply supply a bit more when there was more need. Answering that question basically answers everything.
” or if gas or coal power has to fill the gap, then they weren’t normal line problems after all.”
??? This is just part of the suburban network. It has no dependence on the source of power.
The Ausgrid tweet said “Our crew are working to safely restore power.”. What on Earth would they be doing if it was a problem caused by renewables? Or any kind of generator inadequacy? Ausgrid do poles and wires.
“The Ausgrid tweet said “Our crew are working to safely restore power.”.”
The “line problems” could have easily been from switches tripping because of under-voltage/high current, phase problems from low voltage, blown fuses/transformers, or any number of things. Line crews would have been required to be dispatched to fix any number of problems from cut-off switches to fuses to to blown transformers — all because of a lack of sufficient generation on the grid.
You *really* don’t know much about the power grid, do you? Yet you consider yourself enough of an expert to comment on why line crews are needed after grid failures?
He a red mathematician, he don’t do no stinkin’ engineering.
So if it was a grid-wide problem, why did it occur in just this one locality?
Because problems start at a point of failure, nd spread to become bigger problems or stop. They are failures, sir, and not entirely predictable.
So a point of failure? What does this have to do with inadequate generation?
One of the tabloid outlets decided to beat up one of the routine tweets from Ausnet that you can see any night. Somewhere around the country. there is a problem and they have sent out a team to fix it. There has been no further reporting of the matter, either by the tabloids or the sensible media.
There is no evidence NSW was lacking power on Monday night.
Cascade failure. Read the following for very brief explanation for lay people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure
Note the following.
“One of the primary problems with preventing electrical grid failures is that the speed of the control signal is no faster than the speed of the propagating power overload, i.e. since both the control signal and the electrical power are moving at the same speed, it is not possible to isolate the outage by sending a warning ahead to isolate the element.”
Funny how electrical signals propagate at the same speed!
But with fiber optic data transmissions, the switch CAN isolate the element before the problem reaches it.
But I am sure that power providers have not spent the money to do this type of thing since all the allocations, as directed by governments and regulators, must go to infrastructure to the subsidized remote “renewable” generation capacity.
Why do you think fiber carries information faster than electrical signals over a signaling wire. Fiber requires repeaters that insert delay.
Light on fiber and electric signals on wire basically all travel at the speed of light. Fiber has the ability to carry more information is all.
The problem is that a shorted transmission line looks like a short to the other end at the speed of light. Increased current flow will trip devices immediately. Losing a load at a power plant can be catastrophic. You simply can’t forward a message around a fault fast enough to prevent the fault from causing a problem. These failures will bounce around causing problems just like a break on a billiard table.
Folks, we electrical engineers have spent hours learning all this. Identifying single point failure possibilities that can damage a multipoint system (not necessarily a power grid) is the stuff of nightmares.
WOW.. Nick is really showing his ignorance of electricity grid now.!
The Teal and Green seats are the ones that should be targetted for load-shedding, don’t you agree, Nick..
or would you get too many blackouts ?
Because those were the locations that were skirting closest to the line.
You should not talk about what you have no clue whatsoever.
Someone skimped on the gold plating on the transmission grid.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages
Major power outages in Australia: 2007 VIC caused by bushfires, 2011 QLD cyclone, 2013 QLD cyclone, 2016 SA tornadoes, 2019 Sydney storm, 2021 Melbourne storm.
Now suddenly we face major blackouts without a cyclone or a storm because of “normal line failure”?
Nuts.
There is no evidence this was a major blackout. Any estimate of households affected?
Mathematically speaking, at least five: “Homes in Beacon Hill, Frenchs Forest, Narraweena, Cromer and Dee Why were all temporarily without power, Ausgrid said.”. But maybe a reasonable estimate would be a few thousand upwards. But then they also say that more blackouts could be on their way. Doesn’t it seem really strange that major failures in the past were triggered by major weather events, yet this one is happening all under its own steam. Incidentally, the definition of a ‘major power outage’ includes “The outage must affect at least 1k people.”. I think our unfortunate friends in Beacon Hill etc would easily number 1k, and these unfortunate people are being warned that they may be going to get a lot more of the same.
The system is stuffed, and the combination of the war on fossil fuels and the installation of far too much renewables (and rules unfairly favouring them) is doing the stuffing.
You don’t have a clue about power distribution do you? Do you think you just go over and flip a wall switch to connect a generator to a large grid?
Nothing in more ‘sober’ media. Because those still live in cloud cuckoo land and won’t print anything critical of the climate religion for fear of Fatwas.
Also, it is something of an intelligence test.
It’s pretty hard to cover up a major grid shortfall. Basically, nothing has happened. There have been warnings.
Yes rational people who know the AGW meme is a farce, have been warning about this for ages.
Glad you think several suburbs being without power is “nothing has happened”
Your turn next !
There is nothing to link that Monday night local incident in Sydney with the grid generation worries, which in any case never lead to a shortfall in NSW.
Did we ever learn how many households were affected? Thought not.
Your in the Eastern States good luck in the next week 🙂
How is all this going to affect the hockey stick, Stokes?
“There is nothing in more sober media.”
Yep, the far-left propaganda rags that you get your information from are hardly likely to mention it, are they!
Nick hates the “only slightly left” balance of the Murdoch press
Much prefers the far-left non-balance of the gutter press.
Clean, cheap, safe, reliable …
None of which are provided by wind and solar power.
That Federal Agency Energy Minister is a wag isn’t he? He speaks while controlling the worlds richest coal deposit area. An area that exports coal all over the globe and he thinks he has achieved something special, when he came out with this: quote.
“We managed to avoid any load shedding or blackouts in Queensland last evening.
Meanwhile back in America we too are rolling toward blackouts, while NERC does nothing:
https://www.cfact.org/2022/06/14/news-of-nerc-is-not-good-for-reliability/
Contrary to headline-this has nothing to do with green energy. In both states electricity producers have withdrawn multiple gigawatts of power in the hope they can get a higher price.
The other problem is the breakdown of ageing coal fired power plants. But, for WUWT- I guess this sort of misdirection is just routine.
If only someone would build some new coal power plants. I wonder what is stopping them?
Insurance companies, institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, superannuation funds, financial institutions, scientific concensus, etc.
You are a human turd…Government is the answer. They also hold back nuclear.
Eff you. Why do you hate the poor?
Citing “scientific concensus”- the first sign that someone is anti-science.
Especially when said consensus is built by declaring that anyone who disagrees with you is not a scientist.
And misclassifying those whose input you do count, while ignoring responses that don’t appear to support your preconceived conclusions.
FIrst off, there is not and never has been a scientific consensus.
The rest of your list amount to politicians getting in the way of reliable power.
Loydo, look in a mirror.
Keep up for Pete’s sake. Larry Fink of Blackrock said recently that they will no longer pressurise investors to favour green investment (thereby admitting they were favouring green investment) shortly after Stuart Kirk of HSBC called the investment community out and exposing to clients the massive risks being taken with their money by going green.
Now the genie’s out the bottle investors are lining up their lawyers to sue ideologically green investors who are not fulfilling their fiduciary duty.
Are you still trotting out that puerile nonsense?
Fund managers who fail to make decent returns for their investors do not last long. All the ESG and Green nonsense won’t change that.
“Are you still trotting out that puerile nonsense?”
He knows he has nothing else. !
So all part of the greenie, far-left anti-CO2 SCAM called AGW.
Yes.. we have known that for a long time.
Glad you are finally waking up to the consequences of the ignorant anti-science ideology you have been sucked into.
Thorium liquid salts cooled reactors would provide low cost reliable power that is a basis for economic growth.
And where are their any of these miraculous devices currently pumping useful energy into an existing electric grid?
Have you checked with the green outfits that oppose nuclear, period?
“We don’t need nuclear power to tackle climate change
…The transition to renewable energy is already underway”
We don’t need nuclear power to tackle climate change | Greenpeace UK
Wuwei, Gansu province, China. Due to be scaled up to commercial production.
That’s a Chinese test site that doesn’t, by your own choice of wording, produce commercially useful generation. So again, where are there any Thorium Generators pumping electricity into any grid? (Hint: there aren’t any)
Stupidity.
Why build another coal plant, when there is plenty of coal power already- that’s not the problem: the problem is that generators are withholding their power to get higher prices.
Do you know of a famous company that tried the same rent seeking stunt in California?
Enron- it didn’t end well for them, nor will it for the present power companies.
You need to review what Enron’s problem was. It has nothing to with this issue. In fact, it is almost the opposite. They booked future contracts as current revenue. A Ponzi scheme if you will. Why do you think Arthur Anderson went out of business from fraudulent accounting?
You don’t expect Tony to actually understand the issue.
All he knows is that private companies are evil.
Tony,
Whenever price controls have been applied to an economic problem, product that cost more to produce then the set price have disappeared from the market. When you make the price lower than the input fuel cost, never mind the cost of labor and maintenance, the producers have no choice but to withdraw from the market.
If they were morally upright, Owen, they would keep on generating until they go bankrupt. Nick, Loydo, and Tony can esplain it to you.
I know. There are so many people these days that confuse “rights” and “wants” and think someone else should pay for their good times. It will all go swimmingly until they finally run out of other people’s money to spend.
Tony, why do you leftists lie all the time? Enron was a Texas company, not a California company. Houston to be precise. Their problem was that they falsely reported the value of their assets, not that they withheld power – you made that up.
One constant with socialists, they don’t understand why businessmen are reluctant to operate at loss. To a man, they hate it when reality gets in the way of the free stuff they demand.
There USED to be plenty of coal to cover peak load, then some
That is no longer the case
But its great to see that you think we should build up to that situation again
Grid would be highly stable and much cheaper.
Yes, the rent and subsidy seeking wind and solar scammers will get their comeuppance.
Ever hear of supply and demand?
Correct, Tony. The electricity producers are seeking to make money, which should not come as a surprise in a free market society like Australia. (Well, “free-ish” market.) Somehow, electricity producers must pay for: fuel, maintenance, and employees. And they must pay back debts. On top of that, most companies not only want to cover their costs, they want to be able to save some money which they can reinvest.
You are quick to call it a “misdirection”, but if the aforementioned is how the electricity producers work, then when it becomes cost-ineffective to operate they simple slow down or shut down to preserve what they currently have and to wait for more economically feasible conditions.
In a proper socialist world, companies don’t worry about profit and make everything free of charge. That they should seek to make a profit is just proof of how they don’t know how to run a business. The solution is of course to have the government take over everything.
UNESCO released a paper recently on their preferred direction of children’s education on this planet, and it said exactly that:that children should be taught it is wrong to make a profit out of their personal hard work and ideas and inventions.
It’s funny because in Lenin’s socialist experiment in Russia, he complained that companies were not innovating at anywhere near the rate companies were in the capitalist West. He couldn’t figure it out on his own because his brain was locked into a single way of thinking. It took prodding from the upper echelon of the proletariat– and famine, inflation, and chaos– to finally convince him to reform the economy.
When there’s no incentive– i.e., money, security, stability– to get better, there is no innovation.
Either you didn’t bother reading the actual article, or you didn’t try to understand what you were reading.
No. Like Texas, Australia’s east coast was hit by an unexpected spate of cold weather that caused a massive increase in demand. Like Texas, the renewables were unable to supply any extra power (low wind speed and overnight so no solar either) so there was a sudden shortfall that needed to be filled. Interesting to see the parallels really.
“in the hope they can get a higher price”
You mean getting enough to cover their costs ?
“breakdown of ageing coal fired power plants”
Yep, due to being starved of maintenance funds by the greenie anti-CO2 agenda,
Is great to see you realising that we desperately need to build some new ones.
Not just starved of funds for maintenance, but given outrageous improvement conditions for repair permits that make conducting such repairs ruinously expensive.
And why would they break down?? Oh yes, it is because they must vary output at a much greater range than before “renewables” to make up for the variable output of “green” energy. That continuous ramping up and down accelerates the aging of the plants and greatly increases maintenance costs, which the “green” producers SHOULD be required to pay for but are not.
This is another validation of the observation “if you subsidize something you get more of it, and if you penalize something you get less of it”. So, subsidize “green energy”, which can’t deliver 24/7, and you make the problem worse. Eric is right about Nuclear Energy, clean and safe, and Australia has lots of fuel for it.
Just to be fair, Green Energy can deliver 24/7 on some weeks just not 24/7/365 on any year without reliable Fossil back-up interconnections to the grid
Green Energy only ever delivers 24/7 for a week anywhere/anytime by having massive over capacities. That means more capital investments, more complexity, and more waste.
And then you have the massive oversupply issue when conditions are perfect for “always on” weather dependent energy production
Green Energy can never deliver 24/7 if solar is part of the mix.
“which can’t deliver 24/7”
The “elephant in the room” no one’s mentioned yet is storage. Oz has only 1 GWh of battery
back-up- a whole 2 minutes of it. WOW! The fact that the wind blows less in summer & winter when
extreme weather strikes only makes the need for back-up even more important. David Wojick
discusses the YUGE hidden cost of batteries:
https://www.cfact.org/2022/01/19/unreliability-makes-solar-power-impossibly-expensive/
As for the “evil hydro” storage, Tumut 3 has 600 MW capacity but for how long? A day’s operation
supplies 14 GWh when Oz uses >500 GWh/day- a drop in the bucket!
You might want to examine your units here. 1 GWh is 1 gigawatt for an hour. 1 GW for 2 min is .5 GW/min. Over an hour that works out to 0.0083 GWh capacity.
When you’re using ~30 GWh/hr, it’s only 2 minutes, assuming the batteries
are fully charged. When rating capacity, they conveniently show the YUGE rating but
don’t mention the short time that it lasts. Deception at its finest!
“Experience is a dear (expensive) school, but men will learn at no other”.
(Benjamin Franklin)
Unfortunately some men are incapable of learning.
Nick Stokes perhaps?
Sounds even worse than Blighty – and we have Carrie. I stumbled on the madness of ABC and Tasmanian Catholics…
“”Loretta Lohberger noted in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the archdiocese’s newspaper, The Catholic Standard, recently published an article “Exposing the ‘modern green religion,’” a favorable review of a speech given by geologist Ian Plimer at the Christopher Dawson Centre, a thinktank established by Archbishop Porteous.
In her article, Ms. Lohberger cites at length from Concerned Catholics Tasmania (CCT), a progressive Catholic group in Tasmania
While he is entitled to his opinion, I do not see why what he says and writes should be given free rein in a Catholic Church publication, especially without qualification,” wrote CCT chairman Kim Chen.””
https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2022/06/13/media-slam-catholic-archbishop-giving-space-climate-skeptics/
Yahweh, Gaia, it’s all the same to me – irrational
“it’s being very actively managed”
There’s a euphemism for the age.
Look, we voted for Better Weather and a few blackouts to get it is worth it! Maybe!!
Amusing because the cause of the shortfall was due to huge demand for heating due to the cold weather they’re currently experiencing. Southeast Australia is expecting snowfalls as part of the ‘polar blast’ bringing cold weather, thunderstorms and freezing rain to the eastern coast.
And in AUS, are the blocking the installation of gas heat or subsidizing the use of electric heat in new buildings?
That, will, of course, increase the impact of cold weather on the electric grid.
Every moron who supports this shit deserves to sit in the dark and starve.
See Simon, Lloydo and Nick. They attend the church of unreliable energy.
Dark energy,
I’d like to see this in the US (Oz- Biden = Albanese):
And with smart meters, government can selectively black out individual houses and businesses when production cannot meet the need. Start with the homes of the highest ranking elected green and leftists, then their underlings in the government and the boards that have pushed the “renewables”, all old and present who voted for this crap, then to all NGOs that support “green” and all their employees and offices, then work your way to the registered greens and leftists.
Conservatives should not be punished for the actions of the left as we are by inflation and fuel prices in the US.
The more outs of colour we have the sooner the dumb greens will catch on that renewables are not the answer I look forward to seeing the depowering of grids in UK, USA and EU this winter. Nothing gets the peasantry reaching for the pitchforks like a dose of cold and famine
Why should I believe the dumb greens will catch on?
Australia is worse. Resource export taxes provide so much money there’s very little to check absurd flights of political idiocy, other than incompetence reaching such an extreme the entire system fails, like it did in Venezuela.
Amazing.
I always assumed this kind of stupidity wouldn’t happen in Oz because nobody could possibly be dumber than the climate crackpots in the U.S.
I always had the European greenies that I saw there 40 yrs ago as the “Gold Standard”, followed by
our California “climate crackpots.” Oz has quickly closed the gap & has at least tied- if not
overtaken- them considering the recent elections & the recall of Soros’ San Francisco prosecutor.
The lack of Oz resistance to the CCC- “Covid Concentration Camps”- was a foreboding sign that your
rise to possibly the silver medal was imminent. I think our Californians were slowed down a bit by
the BLM (Buy Large Mansions) riots. If the rioting & crime rate slows down, you’ll need to put on
your track shoes to keep your silver medal!
How Did Watts Up With That Miss This?
Huge victory for scientific truth, and empirical proof for scientific fraud…
The revised Second Law of Thermodynamics, where ‘back radiation’ (the foundation upon which ‘climate change’ stands) is present in the Earth’s Energy Budget…
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/what-is-earth-s-energy-budget-five-questions-with-a-guy-who-knows
But missing is the ‘back radiation’ on the left side of the graph for the incoming radiation (77.1 Wm2) that’s directly absorbed by the atmosphere. Opps!
NASA’s earlier graph of the ‘Earth’s Energy Budget’ affirms the Second Law of Thermodynamics by omitting ‘back radiation’…
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/62319main_ICS_Energy.pdf
Send emails to NASA informing the publicly funded agency that the big lie of ‘back radiation’ is out of the closet…
https://www.nasa.gov/about/contact/index.html
Ignorant. The First Law is all that’s needed to analyze radiation budgets. The Second Law is not required.
F#@! Hugh Victory!
I’m slavering for this story to appear on BBC
So, how long have you got?
Drink lots of liquids to avoid dehydration.
Energy is also pretty tightly regulated here in the USA, with the exception of Texas. But here power producers can always request a price increase to reflect their actual cost of fuel, or by including an added fuel cost fee to the power bills of their customers, and most if not all states here cooperate in approving the increase. To demand that producers absorb a loss over something they have no control over is just ridiculously incompetent government administration.
Most power generators here in the U.S. are publicly owned, i.e., stockholders provide the investments of capital and not only expect but are owed a return on their investments. The regulators can not force companies to operate at a loss since this would abrogate the companies fiduciary responsibilities to its shareholders.
Since a contract’s only as good as the signatories, right now I absolutely don’t trust those
representing the government concerning the Constitutional contract, especially because of
the powers it gives to the president in emergencies. During the Great Recession, regulators
changed the rules on Wall Street without facing resistance. True-dope did the same thing in
Canada to villainize the protesting truckers. Here in the US, we’re still under a Wuhan flu
national emergency which allowed gubmints to abuse us. Forcing companies to do things
would be small potatoes for these bullies!
amazing that not that long ago people existed without electrical devices.
People existed without electricity and whales were scared
People exist with electricity and whales are sacred
Nice.
May I use that when among waco leftists?
Feel Free
Even more amazing is that people were suckered into getting rid of all that old tech that had been developed for a non-electrical world and were lured into buying electrical devices with the promise of affordable reliable electricity.
–
If only they would have known we would come around full circle, they would have kept their oil lamps, ice boxes, carpet beaters, root cellars, smoke houses, hand saws, grist mills, wash tubs and wash boards. milking stools, milk buckets, milk cans, and butter churns.
–
But nooooo… No foresight whatsoever. They just didn’t see unreliables coming down the pike and that they might need those things again. Sold the lot of them off or tossed them. Big dummies.
[😉 definitely a 😉needed]
If Nick Stokes and Loydo get their way, these devices will be making a comeback.
Although the Milking Stools and associated Cans and Butter Churns will be gathering dust as they also want to get rid of Cows
And city streets were ankle deep in horse manure.
Next step will be a government takeover of those power plants. Then the plants will always obey the order to turn on production. But wait… who pays for the cost of the fuel at these high prices if the cost of producing the electricity goes up and the politicians don’t want to raise rates? Then you can expect either a) some kind of means-tested price hike that only the rich (aka middle class) will pay or b) out of a general but “temporary” tax increase for those in higher income brackets.
Cost shifting to upper income brackets is always the first step towards socialist dystopia because its so popular to make the rich “pay their fair share”. Its a great scheme until the government runs out of other peoples money, as the great Margaret Thatcher once said.
Of course, there will be no cost-benefit evaluation of these green policies, no questioning of whether CO2 really is the primary driver of recent warming, no questioning of government massaging of temperature data in ways that just happen to fit the AGW narrative.
The central planner’s plan IS to take over the powergrid, in fact all energy industries. It’s probably part of the back room agenda behind a number of present grid weakening strategies The oil industry has experience with being “nationalized” in many countries and know that failing to supply as a price negotiating tactic would result government takeover within days.
From the above article:
” ‘The price cap unintentionally means that some plants can’t recover their fuel costs . . .’, the spokesperson said.”
Thereby reflecting the dismal knowledge the spokesperson has about the results of intentionally capping prices.
The “spokesperson” was “A spokesperson for the Australian Energy Council, which represents major power generators including AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin”
SO?? Did he lie?
What exactly is the point of that post Nick?
According to Gordon Dressler above
“Thereby reflecting the dismal knowledge the spokesperson has”
I think he thought it was AEMO.
So the power was available but just not economical to access it. I smell nationalization of power companies. Then they’ll announce nuclear is the only solution. Once in control of Aus electricity they’ll tax and charge the hell out of it and brag about the new found reliability they brought/manipulated.
Oh God. Can you imagine the government in charge of a NUCLEAR power plant?
Like nuclear submarines for example?
I despise government but think it makes sense from a security (nuclear proliferation or terror threat) perspective to put the Navy in charge of nukes colocated with military bases.
Well actually I can.
There are Many on US Navy ships, where there has never been an “nuclear” accident that caused anyone any physical harm.
This could not happen to a nicer government.
Perhaps the public should make fires under their posteriors.
“The withdrawals were prompted by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) decision to put a cap on spiralling prices that electricity generators are charging for wholesale power, which crimped the profit margin of some generators, which are battling coal prices that are soaring because of sanctions on Russian exports.
But the electricity market is tightly regulated and AEMO has powers, designed to prevent blackouts, which enable it to force generators to fire up units and start supplying electricity to the grid. Whenever AEMO does this, companies are awarded compensation.
AEMO was unusually forthright in a public statement yesterday when it said that directly after price caps were imposed on power companies “available offers were reduced”. “
If only they’d understand the basics of economics, as taught by the Austrian School. Price controls result in shortages, period, full stop. By putting price caps in place, they INSURE that some generators will withdraw their supply, as their costs are above the capped price. Duh?!?!?!
Things happen on the margin – set the controlled price below the marginal producers cost and you lose that marginal producer. Funny how it’s so difficult to get that basic concept through to those that think they can control markets.
Wouldn’t now if it still applies but aaaaages ago I stumbled upon A Figure which piqued my interest.
It was that, at whichever time agaes ago it was, that there was more electrical generating capacity under the bonnets/hoods of the cars of this world than there was ‘proper’ installed generating capacity.
Car alternators obviously
Bring that up-to-date where it’s been suggested more than once, that the batteries of electric cars be used as ‘Grid Storage’ balancing peaker device things.
(Such are the capabilities of the new smart meters being installed in UK houses – a smart meter for the house and a separate one for the car. One that can not only be remotely disconnected but can also discharge your car with equal facility to its charging ability)
Why not use that technology now?
Have an inverter and meter installed and if the grid looks like falling over, ask folks to attach said inverter via some ‘jump leads’ to their cars/trucks/whatevers and then start the engine.
Even a modest little motor should be able to bump 500Watts into an ailing grid and arrest a complete collapse and blackout.
A big truck should be good for a couple of kW at least
Don’t especially need a financial reward – howzabout a day’s free parking or a day’s relief from the local congestion charge, or motorway toll etc etc sort of thing.
(I can sense even now, just suggesting such a thing, the Evil Vibes emanating from any greenies reading this – can’t you too?)
And what happens when all the automotive batteries need recharging and it is time to go to work? Of course, there is also the problem of all that fuel cost and CO2 emissions for the cars which also have engines.
??? I read it as Peta suggesting supplying off the alternators, not the batteries, Peter. The batteries would remain charged.
It’s an interesting, outside the box idea, but the exhaust…
…and then the greenies have the sads again.