Essay by Eric Worrall
“… this is putting a handbrake on our economy.”
Liberals’ Energy Chaos Hinders Tasmania’s Economy, Labor Claims
Tasmanian businesses and the economy are being hamstrung by Jeremy Rockliff and the Liberals’ failure to manage the state’s energy resources.
Tasmanian major industrials – the backbone of our economy for 100 years – are being constrained and told they cannot access any additional power.
It means a project critical to secure their future cannot go ahead.
It’s clear there is no power available. The Tasmanian Economic Regulator’s latest electricity market analysis shows there is no available power for new energy projects until at least the middle of next year.
And even Premier Rockliff admitted yesterday that “Tasmania has a power supply challenge” and “capacity is limited”.
…
Read more: https://www.miragenews.com/liberals-energy-chaos-hinders-tasmanias-economy-1062300/
The Aussie state of Tasmania frequently promotes itself as the battery of the nation. But they often struggle to supply their own energy needs, so I don’t think anyone takes their battery claim too seriously.
This problem is entirely self inflicted. The State of Tasmania only has a population of around half a million people, so a small nuclear reactor in conjunction with their existing hydro systems would pretty much fix all their problems, and maintain their status as a low CO2 emission state. Nearby South Australia with its massive Uranium reserves could supply all Tasmania’s nuclear fuel needs indefinitely.
Sadly the moribund Australian political establishment is utterly fixated on renewables. They will continue to inflict their ignorant energy fantasies on ordinary people, and make excuses for their failures, until voters wake up and elect politicians who can implement common sense solutions to people’s problems.
Actually having a working grid is secondary to virtue signaling.
And secondary to £millions from land lease to useless wind & solar pandemonium’s
So what? Tasmanians voted for this; it’s what they chose and deserve. Socialism and environmentalism is always the road to impoverishment. If they don’t like it, make different choices or emigrate to somewhere governed more sensibly. That would seem to exclude just about anywhere else in Australia and New Zealand.
Alternatively, they could join Greenpeace at the bottom of Auckland harbour.
The trouble with making decisions by vote, rather than on an open market, is that everyone gets what the majority asks for and deserves.
I think it was the great Thomas Sowell who wrote about the stupidity of letting people who have no skin in the game, make decisions.
We didn’t vote in a socialist/green government. Our state government is Liberal (right leaning). We are about the only state that hasn’t voted in a left leaning renewables-obsessed state government.
But rabid environmentalism is what you got, was it not? Tying your state into a situation of ‘build nothing ever’ may be a result of bureaucratic deadlock, but it amounts to the same thing. Nothing can get done.
They have been 100% renewable for electricity as hydro is the sole source
King Island is also getting to be a bit reliant on diesel again.
Electricity Maps | Live 24/7 CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption
The wind turbines have been producing a lot less over the past year.
Dunkelflaute
“Green Tasmania, the “Battery of Australia”, Runs Out of Electricity”
They are nowhere near running out of electricity. Your link shows their hydro energy storage is 42.2% full. They have been net exporting at about average 300 MW.
NEM prices are exceptionally low – $5/MWh in the last week.
Tasmania has always been supplied by hydro, and until recently there was no incentive to develop other renewables, so they lagged. Now they realise that they can use W&S, and reserved their hydro to sell when prices are high.
Oh, poor Nick as usual fails to understand the article main point about it.
So what is that main point, and why then is the headline so misleading?
No, you just don’t comprehend, because your paid ideology won’t allow you to face the truth.
Huh, just no-one can say what this mysterious point is? Actually say it?
Yet your comments are basically pointless.
It is a mystery you even try, with so much mis-information and unawaremess in your every post.
Nick is always demanding that others explain the obvious to him.
Then when someone does, he ignores it.
But they don’t do it. Please do.
Yes they do.. you just proved you ignore it when they do.
Many have and learn you are NEVER wrong thus you are not worth the time anymore.
Wow Nitpick Nick. Particularly dense today aren’t you?
Industry is told that they can’t connect to the grid and expand operations. There’s not sufficient capacity. Another way of saying…Tassie has run out of electricity. Not even slightly misleading.
But we haven’t run out of energy. It’s a political smear. Hydro won’t contract more to run down storage levels putting Tasmania in a risky position after the issues in 2016. And that’s a good decision.
A political smear? Sorry I don’t understand your point, Tim.
You are making a distinction without a difference. Hydro is making a projection that unless they deny potential customers access to power now, they will reach a condition where they have a disaster. Sure that’s a good decision. Because they’ve run out of capacity!
Kind of like hurtling down a highway seeing that a traffic jam is ahead and knowing that you have to hit the brakes to avoid a crash. You haven’t crashed yet, but you’re out of roadway.
If you won’t allow connections now because you are at risk of not being able to supply energy later, you’ve run out.
Otherwise, you would be able to support new demands. It may be a good decision to restrict your commitments, but you are doing that because of a perceived shortfall in generating capacity. An alternate, and better, approach would be to increase generating capacity to support growth (in industry, in population) and to prepare for the next drought or flood.
“An alternate, and better, approach would be to increase generating capacity to support growth (in industry, in population) and to prepare for the next drought or flood.”
Or build another cable which is what they’re planning. Also not overselling is simply prudent business, not “out of energy”. Out of energy (meaning shortages) is out of energy.
Haw haw haw……..
You didn’t read the post just the headline……
Wow!
It’s a skill he’s spent years refining.
You need to scroll down to the bottom of the report and note the “Traffic Light” for Q4-23, Q1-24 and Q2-24. That is what Eric Worrall was referencing. This is the natural of weather dependent power, it ain’t always there when you need it; its no way to run an industry where power is intermittent.
The “Traffic Light” is for large contracts, and just means that the Hydro has contracted its current capacity, and you’ll have to wait a bit. Contracts a year ahead and beyond are all green.
Tasmania has very little weather dependent power of its own. It’s almost all hydro.
I hope you would be prepared to “wait a bit” when freezing!
Industries seeking large contracts will have to wait a bit. For the rest, Tas has power coming out its ears. I don’t imagine anyone planning a large development leaves it to the last year to seek a contract.
No, you are being ignorant again. Tassie does NOT have power coming out of their ears.
Otherwise they wouldn’t have to be tethered to Victoria in BOTH directions.
Otherwise they wouldn’t need stand-by gas, and diesel gensets.
It’s in the nature of wires that power will flow both ways.
They buy from Vic when it is cheap (hard to beat $5/MWh) and keep their water for pricier times.
You really are grasping at straws aren’t you Nick
They NEED electricity from Victoria to help maintain their dam levels.
There is no extra being added for population growth.
Nick is actually correct in that some years eg 2021 Tasmania exported 1,526 GWH and imported 1,273 GWH while in 2022 they exported 688 GWH and imported 1,366 GWH.
Although it flows between Victoria and Tasmania it is often flow from South Australia into Victoria when wind and or solar produce more than demand and the price falls and when wind and solar fail to produce power flows from Tasmania via Victoria into South Australia at a high price.
I’m sorry but you are saying a generator at both ends? That takes a load of switching and syncing dude. Otherwise you end up with one generator running the other. Do you have any electrical training at all.
“Otherwise you end up with one generator running the other. Do you have any electrical training at all.”
Do you know anything about anything at all? They connect two grids. And power does flow both ways. From the regulator link, in the last week 49.73 GWh flowed Tas->Vic, 13.21 GWh V->T.
Normally it’s more balanced; the excess shows the robust state of Tasmania’s electricity production currently.
Why don’t you address the whole comment instead of dancing around a piece of what I said.
You made it sound like you could send power both ways on the same set of transmission lines at the same time. You can not. Something will give, probably catastrophically.
You have no conception of what it takes to supply high voltage lines with power. The transformers or inverters do not work properly in both directions. As I said, “That takes a load of switching and syncing dude.”
This is just so dumb I don’t know where to start. Interconnectors have been around for many years. This one goes under the sea, as many do. They work. And they carry current both ways.
You don’t of course send both ways at the same time. What would be the use of that? Anyway, it is DC.
You just dance around the issue I am addressing. DO THE SAME SET OF WIRES HAVE GENERATORS AT EACH END RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME?
Or is there switching gear that must be implemented to reverse the direction of current? Or, are there duplicated transmission lines to provide two-way operation?
Interconnectors have been working for many years. If you want to know how they work, go find out.
You may think that, but it happens. IFA1, and Eleclink (through the Chunnel with terminations in France (Coquelles, Sandgatte) and England (Sellindge) at essentially identical places have been operated in circular counter-flow on a surprising number of occasions.
He doesn’t realize how stupid he can be which is why many people tire of this know it all.
We don’t have standby gas apart from a single gas fired power station which has hardly ever been brought online. We have no diesel gensets either, these were brought over one time when Basslink was down and dam levels were very low.
If Tasmania has power “coming out of their ears”, why does anyone have to wait? You’re not making sense Nick.
If it’s $5/MWh at home and they are exporting 300 MW, that is coming out their ears.
The Hydro is happy to complete a contract any time from one year hence. That is not shortage of electricity.
So, there is no power available at the moment for new contracts.
Thanks for the confirmation.
I am puzzled. Why does anyone waste time arguing with the so-called ‘Nick Stokes’? It should be manifestly obvious by now that this is a fake identity.
Other people read the blog. Those people need to be aware of the disingenuous nature of people like Nick and his mates.
Typical WUWT for the totally anonymous to cast doubt on those who post under their proper names.
Can you provide proof that your name actually is Nick Stokes?
BTW, despite your righteous whines, that’s the nature of the internet, not just WUWT.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter who is casting doubts on your claims. The fact remains that you duck, dodge and weave rather than actually deal with the subject at hand.
I’m surprised you haven’t claimed that everyone who disagrees with you is funded by big oil.
Another anonymouse.
You are constantly claiming, with no evidence, that I am paid by, well, somebody.
Is this you Nick? From 30 years ago?
https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csiro-medals-1992-research-achievement-dr-nick-stokes-and-the-fastflo-team/
Yes, that is me.
Well, I am a harsh critic of your politics, Nick, but you have some secret of longevity. It gives me no pleasure to say that you probably won’t live long enough to see your beliefs discredited. I imagine that if I am lucky enough to live that long I will be just as stubborn as you are.
I was precocious :). But in nitpick style, it was 1995
LOL 28 years ago then!
Non-followers of the narrative that left wing governments flog to the sheep get cancelled and have their bank accounts frozen, or are followed by the FBI and targeted by AGs and charged as threats on par with ISIS, all for having the gall to point out the truth to power – so sorry if we have to use pseudonyms on the internet.
It’s ludicrous that you pretend that ‘Nick Stokes’ is your real name. That is a fictional character from CSI. What is amusing is that this identity seems to be used by multiple individuals.
Simply stated,you’re a fraud.Perhaps it would be more honest if you adopted the pseudonym ‘Max Headroom’.
Here is a publication I co-wrote with Steven Mosher and Zeke Hausfather.
“I co-wrote with Steven Mosher and Zeke Hausfather.”
That marks you down as a paid and manic zealot, working with the most devious and underhanded of the climate scammers/con-artists.
It fully explains your continued deceitful lies and dishonesty.
Not a good look !
You should be ashamed and embarrassed… rather than boasting about it.
Nick, don’t bother with these morons. Those of us that have been around a while know you, and are happy you stay with us. I’d hate to see you leave because of these idiots.
I don’t imagine that he needs to be paid at this point in his life. He’s defending his life’s work and doesn’t want to accept that he’s wasted it on supporting a propaganda war against humanity.
Nick has been mentioned and thanked by Anthony Watts for participating here. In the interest of truth, I don’t think he’s someone using a fake name. I’m certainly not a “Nitpick” Nick groupie.
There are some topics on which he has genuine knowledge and where his contributions can be of value. But he repeatedly demonstrates his lack of real knowledge about energy supply and markets. Easy for me to spot, having had an international career in the energy business.
He should stick to his last. I try to learn about topics where my knowledge is scant, and I don’t pretend to have knowledge I don’t. I try to contribute where I believe I can add to the debate on the basis of my knowledge and experience and analysis.
I cast doubt where I have supporting evidence to do so. Names do not enter into it. Only the accuracy of the facts and argument posted.
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit – let’s make it simple: the power they produce is spoken for, already sold and contracted, yet other Tasmanian entities need power for new projects and will have to wait, not sure why, maybe some contracts ending or maybe more power available do to weather and rainy season, doesn’t really matter because they don’t have any spare power, it’s all taken.
That’s not power coming out of their ears, no surplus at all and very poor grid management.
Saying it again for the hard of reading. Tas has
That is power coming out of the ears.
People developing new projects don’t turn up at the last minute turn up asking for a contract. Hydro is just saying they need about a year’s notice. After that, there is no current restriction.
Dams 58% empty
“After that, there is no current restriction.”
So someone who now has a contract, doesn’t get one… right.
Can’t have electricity now.. have to wait a year.
What’s not to like !!
And WHY do they “need” a year’s notice if they already have the capacity, Nick? You’re just being disingenuous.
Could it be that they average 300MW export but sometimes they have to import?
Perhaps economic development is not very high on the list!
In Nitpick Nick’s Socialist utopia things don’t work as they would in a free market.
In a free market if electricity was “coming out of their ears” and a prospective customer wanted to buy some, the non-socialist would immediately sell the product that they have in surplus. But Nitpick wants us to believe that they require a year delay because, well because that’s their process and they’d rather lose out on profits because it would be icky and unseemly to violate the process just over profits.
It’s totally nothing to do with being unable to reliably supply the power. No siree!
Eric writes “If Tasmania has power “coming out of their ears”, why does anyone have to wait?”
Almost certainly because its already contracted for and the Hydro wont put Tasmania in the same position it did leading up to 2016.
So they’re out of capacity, right? What’s so hard about admitting that Tim? Is your last name Flannery by chance?
So they’re out of capacity, right?
No. Its not an admission to be made because its simply not true.
“It’s almost all hydro.”
Yes, and it is not keeping up with population growth.
Hence they cannot offer any more.
Even a disingenuous shill like you should realise that.
Filling dams is very dependent on the weather. Having a drought for successive years plays its toll. Like when storages reached record lows when it did by 2016. The Bass Strait cable failure was the catalyst which created an emergency to set-up a series of diesel generators. Fortunately it rained before they were turned on.
The greens no dams ideology came back to bite tasmanian energy security.
They are still carrying on about draining and restoring Lake Pedder. One of the state’s largest hydro water storages. Madness.
“Tasmania has very little weather dependent power of its own”
ROFLMAO… seems that rainfall is not “weather” anymore.
Was that statement just a slip, or deliberate ignorance ?
Or a deliberate attempt at diversion?
Hydro doesn’t depend on the weather??
I’ve always thought of rain as weather, how wrong I was. Tasmania doesn’t have droughts because rain isn’t weather. OK got it.
Perhaps should have added /sarc thought it obvious
Maybe droughts are climate and not weather or something else…
Should have seen this before I posted.
How is hydro not weather dependent?
They have very large dams.
I posted on the other thread the last fifty years of nz hydro production. No sign of weather dependence there!
Your chart disguises the fact that a poor hydro year produces only about 75% of a good hydro year. That’s quite a variation, if not quite as big as in Norway, where the ratio is about 70%.
OK, here is a plot, same data (updated), just for hydro. Looks pretty steady
It looks like they were adding capacity until the mid-1980s.
Subsequently, the trough in 2000 is about 80% of the peaks in 1994 and 2004, and 85% of the subsequent peaks. So, yeah, fairly steady since 2004.
The 1994 and 2004 peaks are the figures which pique interest.
I analysed the raw data from the Statistical Review of World Energy. I stand by my statement.
No one ‘can use W&S’ they are engineeringly & economically incompetent
And Nick….
At what level do water restrictions cut in? Surely you know the answer to this. Surely you would tell the whole story.
Maybe you could look up the dam levels for the last time water restrictions were implemented and see if 42.2% would represent a significant threat to the supply, justifying water restrictions.
And then thin about joining the dots. If you can’t consume dam water as usual, then why would you allow the water to be flushed out to sea via the turbines?
It’s all about joining the dots. Can you see the dots? Will you see the dots?
Water restrictions are rare in Tas. It’s a wet place with big dams.
Rubbish. Water restrictions are a common occurrence on the east coast. Its rainfall is a fraction of that of the west coast.
None of that has anything to do with the management of hydro.
Then why comment about water restrictions when you were obviously clueless about them.
Disingenuous as always.
Hydro needs consistent water flows as the dam storages aren’t that great. Normally the rainier winters restore the dam levels .
It’s 45% now which is too low to carry them through the drier summer period.
What’s probably been happening is money made from exporting peak load power interstate covers the cost of importing power off peak but they selling too much under contract and the dam levels are falling
“It’s 45% now which is too low to carry them through the drier summer period.”
Here is a plot of each year since 2016. You’ll see that stored energy is currently higher than in any of those years. And each one carried through to the next winter without dropping below about 35%. In fact, current time is close to the annual minimum in those years.
So you’re arguing that Hydro are being too cautious in thinking and acting as if they are out of capacity?
Yet new customers can’t get power because Hydro thinks that they are out of capacity. That’s the reality. Deflect, distract, and deny all you want.
Some of those years have been record dry . A 20 year plot is more useful than the few years you mention
The point is that even in record dry years, storage does not go below 35%. Except in 2016, after a selling splurge plus broken Basslink.
So, They’re. Out. Of. Capacity!
Why obscure that simple blazingly obvious fact?
Who’s obscuring it.
It’s obvious from all the absolute indicators that they are not. And they didn’t say anywhere that they were. They said “no headroom available”. What the traffic lights refer to is a specific scheme whereby amounts of power are reserved for local development under supervised contracts. It looks like all the power under that scheme has been allocated.
What does that mean if not that they’re producing at full capacity?
I think you were interpreting Rich’s statement as having run out of storage capacity.
No, I’m referring to the scheme that the traffic lights referred to. It is a mandated scheme whereby a fraction of production is reserved for local projects. Headroom is what is left within that fraction. It does not refer to total production.
If there’s no headroom left, you’re producing to capacity.
Conversely, if you’r producing to capacity, there’s no headroom left.
No, it means you have fulfilled your obligation under that scheme.
We’re not likely to agree. My take on it is that
a) they’ve hit the wall on what they can commit to provide on an ongoing basis, and will flog off any excess that might be available on the spot market if there is enough profit in it.
b) they think there’s a nice little earner in the mainland market through arbitrage, so they’re only committing to as little as they can get away with.
“ they’re only committing to as little as they can get away with”
We’re not so different. There is a scheme which prescribes a minimum that they have to reserve. They have done that, and can now go after better earners. That doesn’t have anything to do with running out of gas, which, as I said, is coming out their ears (to Victoria).
It’s always a problem when inherently low risk companies and utilities are captured by the MBAs who “know better” and try to turn them into high risk companies.
It usually gets well away from the core business, and bites both the customers and the company.
Distract Deflect Deny reality.
That’s old Nick. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Not when you’ve got rain dancers anyway
I don’t know why I am replying, but anyway, it was you, Nick, that stated water restrictions are rare in Tasmania. Simply straightening you out, again.
Those big dams are for Hydro.
Hobart gets its water from the Derwent River.
The east of Tasmania is often very dry for long periods.
Seems you are ignorant of Tasmanian geography as well as most other things.
Water restrictions for Hobart come into effect. Here’s what you are and aren’t allowed to do – ABC News
Water restrictions for Greater Hobart for two months | The Examiner | Launceston, TAS
The first sentence of your first link:
“From today, Hobart residents will have to comply with water restrictions but they’re not because of drought. “
They had a problem with their water treatment plant.
Hobart has had regular water restrictions.
It is in a rain shadow and often has low amounts of rain for long periods.
Tasmania endures driest summer in 40 years, fourth driest since 1900 – ABC News
Here we go again. Same thing. From your link
“The restrictions were put in place because heavy rainfall in the lead up to summer overloaded water treatment plants with storm water run-off.”
So they can’t even provide water when it rains… That’s hilarious. !
And you say they don’t have restrictions.
Can you be any more stupid.. ..
Seems you keep trying to “out-stupid” yourself.
The driest summer was last year 18 months back , very wet since
Even Launceston can have water restrictions, although not often.
Launceston under water restrictions | The Examiner | Launceston, TAS
The fact remains that they happen. Which is bad if you are relying on those dams to provide most of your power.
Seems to me the dam owner a state owned generator is using arbitrage to make more profits by selling peak load power interstate – hence no power for new contracts- but buying cheap power off peak from interstate to maintain the dam levels.
So the core problem is the peak load power is restricted as it’s all under contract for local and interstate users
“Seems to me the dam owner a state owned generator is using arbitrage to make more profits by selling peak load power interstate – hence no power for new contracts- but buying cheap power off peak from interstate to maintain the dam levels.”
Not exactly, 2016 taught us to not oversell. So whilst the Hydro will use every opportunity to make money during peak times selling to Victoria, they wont put themselves i a position where they run down storage levels like they did leading up to 2016.
Hence why they cant/wont commit to selling more yet.
Or in plain English, THEY’RE OUT OF CAPACITY!
“THEY’RE OUT OF CAPACITY!”
No. Out of capacity implies shortages. There are none of those. This is a strategy minimising risk in the light of recent-ish issues that are unlikely to be repeated but nonetheless drive policy.
The UK, apart from SE England, is a wet place with regular Barbecue Summers h/t The Met Office, but even Scotland gets droughts. Probably every decade Scotland will have a dry summer.
It’s almost an annual even for summer warnings about water usage in the UK, even until recently this year with the wettest July evah
In my lifetime it has often been some of the wetter places in the UK like parts of Scotland and and Wales that report water shortages in the occasional dry season.
Growing up in the middle, Northamptonshire, we have no hills to speak of and have equally boring and very modest rainfall statistics. Yet we have almost never had water shortages and/or hosepipe bans when much of the rest of the country is complaining loudly. This is mainly due to proper management of the available resources despite significant population growth in Northampton and Milton Keynes since the 1960s.
Wetter places, on the cheap, often just didn’t (don’t) take the trouble to manage their bountiful water resources because there is normally such a huge excess of supply over demand. Going back in time, water supplies were managed on a relatively small local scale by regional municipal corporations.
But after privatisation of the water industry during the Thatcher years the new water companies were too much of a boring industry for the now profit-incentivised management. These ‘young Turks’ then decided they fancied their skills at doing things like investing in media and other wholly unrelated adventures. Some consumers today are still paying the price for them not investing in the dull, mundane business of efficiently supplying water to their captive customer base.
The amount transferable through Basslink is a tiny pittance of NEM requirements, even if they waste funds on an upgrade.
Tassie is lucky enough to have the geography and rainfall to supply ITS OWN hydro power most of the time.
… but “Battery of Australia” .. just another piece of leftist fantasy.
Just that comment makes them a laughing stock… just like Nick.
Solar won’t do a lot in Tassie in winter
… and there will be a LOT of kicking and screaming (from people like Bob Brown) if they try to destroy their environment with ugly useless, bird slicing wind turbines.
Nick is being an ignorant, mindless W&S shill as always.
It’s a conservative government in Tasmania
They are already 100% hydro for local production
One thing seems pretty clear from the link to the regulator’s market watch data (the top graph on page 3 of the pdf file):
The prices routinely vary wildly from highly positive to highly negative as demand varies during the course of a single day. That is the sign of an electricity grid that is not fit for purpose.
Domestic consumers cannot easily escape the long term effects of this, even if the retailer irons out the peaks and troughs somewhat to spread the pain.
But no sensible industrial consumer would want to invest in such an environment, even if they were allowed to.
When it’s not raining it’s 57.8% empty
Sorry but the Australian voters failed their good voting decision now you have to live with it.
To be honest Sun,
There isn’t much to vote for.
The Liberals (mostly LINOs) are as much “into” the AGW scam as the Labrats (except for a couple of more knowledgeable members.)
They are also very weak-kneed and trying to be Labor-Lite as their platform, hence not giving rational voters much to vote for,
Can’t they plug in 20 million Chinese battery cars and get it back up and running for an hour? Great stuff that V2G /sarc
The state of Victoria also deprived itself of a capability for a large scale hydro power generation facility when the Labor government declared the Mitchell River headwaters catchment a national park about 20 years ago.
This high plains river was always earmarked by Victoria’s statutory electricity commission (SECV) as an ideal resource for development of a utility-scale hydro power generation facility as the state’s population and economic activities grew over future decades.
But the leftist Labor governments always need to curry electoral favor with the irrational green looney fringe voters, so of course they jumped at the opportunity of burnishing their greenness.
Never think things through as usual, just as it will go with wind & solar lunacy.
My cursory research today on this suggests Tasmania/rest Australia was to now very similar to Norway/Germany. Both Australia and Germany foolishly bet on intermittent renewables. In both cases, when renewables produced a surplus, it got sent cheap to Norway or Tasmania. Which let them conserve their hydro. When the opposite occurred, Norway/Tasmania sold hydropower to the renewable idiots at very high prices.
The difference between Norway and Tasmania is only that Tasmania has now run out of hydro capacity to play this very profitable game, while Norway has not (yet).
So Tasmanian industry will now pay higher net E prices amid supply constraints because both Tasmania and Norway still want to play the profitable game as much as possible.
Yes Rud it appears that reliable power supplies for the masses has now become some kind of debauched board game.
Interesting also that while BC Canada is in the throes of building a new large dam to supply an extra hydro facility, its neighboring state Washington is de-commissioning a number of its own hydro plants on “fish habitat” rivers.
To be replaced with – (you don’t have to guess)
It looks as if soon WA will become a willing buyer of electricity, and BC will become a willing seller.
Who do you think will get the most benefit from this arrangement?
(I suspect also that both WA and BC can foresee California as the real “john”)
(OT; When the next Hunter Biden bashing opportunity comes around, do us a favor and give a light intro to FARA … I’m too lazy/slow to figure it out on my own).
Easy. Look up the Manafort conviction. FARa just says that if you are acting (lobbying) in the US on behalf of a foreign entity, you have to register yourself and the foreign entity. If you don’t, it is a felony. Hunter was clearly acting on behalf of Burisma and the Chinese energy company.He didn’t register. AND the crooked Delaware DA charged him for not paying taxes on the income, but not the underlying FARA crimes that earned the income.
Accurate but don’t forget that the law only applies to Republicans aligned with Trump.
“ Tasmania has now run out of hydro capacity to play this very profitable game”
Their dams are half full, which is a reasonable commercial running level. They have been exporting plenty.
Half full is not a good place for a hydro dam.
Exporting to grab money, because they have no other income worth speaking of.
They better hope Vic has some to spare if their WEATHER DEPENDANT hydro runs any lower.
“Half full is not a good place for a hydro dam.”
A dam has two functions, to catch rain when it falls, and to supply water when it is needed. It can’t do the first if it is 100% full; it can’t do the second if it is 0%. The rest is management.
Poor Nick doesn’t understand that hydro power production requires a high head of water.
Basic physics seems to be beyond him.
And no, Nick is wrong again… Tassie’s main hydro dams are for hydro, not for water supply.
I suspect Nick knows this and is deliberately lying again.
And once again Nick demonstrates 1) He has no idea what he is talking about. 2) He has infinite confidence in managers to fix any problem.
No, a proper manager lets the water in the dam go to as close to 100% as is safe, during the rainy season, and then prays that the levels don’t go to 0% before the rains return. Deliberately shooting for 50% is probably one of the stupidest thing a dam manager could do.
A number of the Hydro dams in Tasmania are “run of the river” on the Derwent river. They are very carefully managed so as to not spill and waste potential energy/income.
Vacuous statement. A well managed hydrological resource will have a range of capacity factors that vary seasonally. If your reservoirs aren’t close to full at the right season you will be in trouble later. If they are fairly empty just before the rain/snowmelt starts, there is less reason to panic. See e.g. Norway
https://www.statnett.no/en/for-stakeholders-in-the-power-industry/data-from-the-power-system/#hydrological-data
“If your reservoirs aren’t close to full at the right season you will be in trouble later. “
In fact, the storage isn’t strongly seasonal. From the link in the head post, here is storage in recent years. Note that at least since 2015, it’s currently at the highest level for time of year, and they are never much higher than at present
Nick proclaims that the dam levels aren’t seasonal, then proceeds to show a chart that shows a strong annual variation that repeats year after year.
In other words, he has demonstrated that his words are wrong, the levels are seasonal.
I said they aren’t strongly seasonal.
But the key point is that 2023 levels are higher for this time of year than since at least 2015. This is not “running out of electricity”.
But it can’t provide new contracts…
Pretty dumb , hey !
You make a pretty strong case that Hydro is screwing Tasmanian residents and industry in order to take advantage of the moronic policies that are screwing everyone in Australia. Is that the conclusion you’d like us to reach rather than that they’re actually out of capacity?
Industry can get power on the market this week at $5/MWh.
And can they get a contract guaranteeing that power each week for the next 5 years?
Typical Nitpick Nick irrelevant fact.
In mid-June, strawberries are almost given away in New England but not so much in December. If I was looking to start a strawberry shortcake business, would I make my business plan based on prices and availability in June or December, Nick?
In offering new connections Hydro Tasmania has to plan for supply in bad years. Just because this week the supply looks OK in a better year for rainfall doesn’t mean that next year or the year after won’t be very different. 2016 was the aftermath of the last big El Nino year. Somewhere in your subconscience you know that.
What is equally clear is that annual
replenishment is insufficient to support a significant increase in output.
In fact, the prudent storage level is quite seasonal. The minimum (desigend to avoid another 2016) means that the effective storage variation is much more seasonal, because of the irreducible minimum.
https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/446b166a8e3932068a712a3f444a40fb
And they have put in restrictions because of their ridiculous over-cautious nature.
Totally not because they are out of capacity to reliably supply any more power and also not because of the market distortion of ruinables policy in other states leading to them preferring to sell vastly overpriced power to fools dependent on ruinables than to supply their own industry.
Right, got it Nick.
It seems that the Marinus project to provide another 1.5GW of HVDC to Victoria across the Bass Strait is running into severe cost constraints, with estimates now over A$5bn. Hard to see how such capacity could be used. Demand runs about 1.2GW, and hydro capacity is about 2.3GW maximum, with small additional top-ups from wind and gas. There is already the 500MW Basslink. It would make little sense to try to build pumped storage when free storage via using imported power and not running hydro is available. With hydro sites essentially maxed out there is no space to increase capacity anyway.
“ hydro capacity is about 2.3GW maximum”
They have plenty of dams and plenty of flow. They can add generators.
If they add generators without adding capacity to the dam, all you are doing is producing more power for a while, but having to shut down earlier when the dam runs dry.
They are big dams. You can decide when to export power. They do it when the price is high. With Marinus, they could be more choosey.
They would have to be more choosey. The tariff needed to cover the cost would be substantial, requiring even larger price differentials to justify use. Of course, that drives down utilisation and increases the required tariff still further.
Basically the project is completely uneconomic.
No, they don’t need larger price differentials. They just need to be able to sell more MW when the price is high. Which they will.
You haven’t the first clue about interconnector economics, have you? To sell there has to be a margin between the cost of supply and the price for delivery that has to cover the costs of delivery, which include line losses and transit fees. If the fees and losses are too high then the interconnector doesn’t get used. The annual project amortisation at A$5bn cost is PMT(4.5%,30,5000,0) or about A$300m. At 100% utilisation transmission would be 13.1TWh/a giving a required fee of about A$23/MWh. Drop utilisation to 50% and the required fee is doubled. Add in some more for the losses. Gives a large incentive for local generation.
Average electricity prices in Tasmania and Victoria are very similar: the Basslink flows at low differentials that the new link could not hope to match.
I should point out that the costs apply to each leg of transmission, so if the idea is that Victoria sells surplus wind or solar and buys Tasmanian hydro during Dunkelflaute costs occur on each leg of transmission, so the round trip margin has to cover double the single leg cost.
The spot price cap in the NEM is $15,500 / MWh
Most people dont understand how much peak energy is worth.
https://www.aemc.gov.au/news-centre/media-releases/2022-23-market-price-cap-now-available
I am very much aware of that: I have looked quite often at the trial and tribulations of various states in NEM. But then you get AEMO overruling and limiting prices. Unless there is a severe disruption, like the loss of the Heywood or Bass interconnector, such peak prices are still relatively rare. I note there was a 5 minute event that saw limit prices of A$16,500 in NSW on 15th August at 6 pm AEST – but Tasmania was not able to take much advantage.
http://nemlog.com.au/interconnector/
Download data for long periods and you can evaluate the income potential.
“I am very much aware of that”
Orly? Then why did you argue a fee of $23 or doubled $46 per MWh was a deal breaker?
I dont think you have any grasp of the scale of the hydro infrastructure in Tasmania.
RAINFALL replenishment is the constraint.
The Nor-UK link has been in one direction virtually all the time since October 2022. Keeping UK Carbon emissions low at whatever cost
When the Norwegians feel they can let us have some supply. They have used a variety of devices to limit supply: convenient “technical” problems that just happen to reflect political opinion in Norway that they shouldn’t be importing high prices to keep others supplied with power.
Eric says “But they often struggle to supply their own energy needs, so I don’t think anyone takes their battery claim too seriously.”
Well I live in Tasmania and this is rubbish. It took multiple ducks lining up including bad decisions leading to lower storage levels and then the drought leading up to the broken cable causing the issue in 2016. Tasmania is one region of the world where W&S actually makes sense because hydro generation is fast enough to respond to load changes.
That article was a rubbish attempt to smear the current government by the opposition.
Do any varieties of ducks need to line up to keep power coming from coal or gas plants, Tim?
(I do believe it takes quite a few ‘wood-ducks’ to believe that w&s can reliably supply a modern economy anywhere)
Yes. Texas, Valentine’s Day.
All the wood ducks froze on Valentine’s Day in Texas, Nick
They tried to keep warm under rows and rows of solar panels, but that was a complete bust.
Next year they’ll head for Tennessee where there’s reliable coal & gas powered heating.
In Nick’s mind, the fact that gas plants could only ramp up 30% when they needed to ramp up 50% proves that natural gas was the problem.
Let’s completely ignore the fact that solar had dropped close enough to zero that the difference no longer mattered and that wind power had dropped by over 90%.
Gas didn’t ramp up. It dropped from 45MW to about 30 MW, which was the main power loss:
Nick They lost the gas pressure do to the fact that some compete idiot converted all pumps that move the gas in the pipes from the natural gas powered pumps to electric . So when the wind and solar dropped out there was no electricity to pump the gas. So the gas pressure dropped and the gas powered backup generators were unable to supply the load.
“So when the wind and solar dropped out there was no electricity to pump the gas.”
Famously, wind and solar go up and down, and had done so many times before without the gas stations failing.
The gas didn’t fail Nick, the renewables that were needed to turn on the gas pumps didn’t turn up.
In effect, you’re saying it was the fault of an ambulance when it didn’t turn up to a 000 (911) emergency, even though the rostered crew were non-responsive, sleeping off a bender in the back at the time.
Of course Nick knows that. But you can’t expect him to volunteer the truth
Wind dropped to NOTHING
Solar dropped to NOTHING
Gas was pushed higher and higher providing basically ALL the electricity, then got cut back because they tried to use electricity from other non-existent sources to run the pumps.
And the deceitful NIck-Pick tries to blame gas.
Really at the bottom of the sewer, ever for him. !
beat me to it.🙃
Wind was about 5 GW, which is has been many times before. It was dark. This situation never caused gas stations to fail before.
Weird notion that the main sources of electricity in Texas can’t work without wind power.
Yup, weird. Imagine what kind of weird regulator would insist that a natural gas pumping station be dependent on anything other than natural gas to operate. Yup, that’s weird. But true. So the electrical power was cut back, which shut off the natural gas, which made the electrical power get cut back, and so on. Not even Nick can make that up. Or sound sane.
The weirdness is not that they depend on electricity, but on wind electricity. Why can’t gas generators provide power for their own gas pumps?
The fact is that ERCOT assumed that they could always rely on 15% of wind nameplate, and planned badly because of that. In the event, wind production dropped as low as 649MW because the wind died – right when demand was projected to be at the highest. If the mass trip and blackouts hadn’t happened before they would certainly have happened by then.
Again, the slimy disingenuous and deliberate strawman attempt.
Thing is that Nick is well aware that they had change their gas-line pumps to operate of UNRELIABLE supplies.
So he is just being totally deceitful in his comments.
Yep, virtue-seeking is really bad engineering.
“they had change their gas-line pumps to operate of UNRELIABLE supplies”
Lie!
Your chart shows gas ramping up from 5 to 45GW as the wind subsided and the weather got colder. At that point ERCOT ran out of dispatchable capacity, and grid frequency started becoming erratic and lower. ERCOT started implementing district blackouts, but continuing loss of wind and lack of reserve capacity meant that just one plant trip was sufficient to trigger a cascading trip that knocked out half a dozen plants almost simultaneously at 1:52a.m., withe frequency dropping to 59.3Hz, triggering automated load shedding that left gas compressors unpowered, limiting gas supply and hence also gas generation.
” triggering automated load shedding that left gas compressors unpowered, limiting gas supply and hence also gas generation.”
So they cut off their own gas compressors?
No Nick, Your comprehension levels are very low today, even for you.
Virtue-seekers had changed from using gas powered pumps to using “green energy ” powered pumps.
FAILURE was bound to happen.
Evidence? Sounds like nonsense to me. They would have got power from the grid like anyone else.
So why did the load shedders choose to cut off the compressors If they did)?
Basically, they didn’t follow The 7 Ps, with the inevitable result.
It has been covered in detail a few times, and “It doesnot add up”‘s comment summarises it quite well.
When a district where a compressor is located suffers an automated power cut the compressor gets a power cut. So they don’t get power, like everyone else in the district. Perhaps they should have had emergency gas powered generators to keep them going, like they used to.
Pipeline gas compressors supplying gas to consumers including power stations were cut, because ERCOT failed to plan to avoid that. Automated load shedding takes no prisoners.
“Do any varieties of ducks need to line up to keep power coming from coal or gas plants, Tim?”
Why dont you ask the countries previously supplied by Russian gas just how precarious their position actually was.
What a moronic comment Tim. It was idiotic for Europe to continue relying on Russian gas after the 2014 takeover of Crimea (as Trump warned them). That has nothing to do with natural gas being unreliable and everything to do with Russia being unreliable. The Europeans are in trouble because of their insane Net Zero policies.
“That has nothing to do with natural gas being unreliable and everything to do with Russia being unreliable. “
Continuity of supply is definitely a duck that applies to fossil fuels.
Solar makes sense when low intensity energy is needed during daylight hours eg domestic consumption.
Wind makes sense when it doesn’t matter when the low intensity energy is supplied eg pumping water into dams or tanks.
Hydro makes sense when you have enough water reliably available when you need it.
But when the chips are down you need high intensity energy to be available on demand during a drought at night when there is no wind. Coal, gas and nuclear come to mind.
Want to expand hydro? Build more dams. Just don’t build them on the gordon below the franklin!
“But when the chips are down you need high intensity energy to be available on demand during a drought at night when there is no wind. Coal, gas and nuclear come to mind.”
And that’s what Tasmania effectively has with its cable to the mainland.
Just don’t get between China & Biden, or your cable might have issues (to be blamed on China)
Except when the cable broke in 2016.
Um, what would happen if the cable broke? Oh never mind, that could never happen.
During a drought at night when there is no (or too much) wind and the lines to distant suppliers are out. You can’t depend on SA or Victoria to supply power at night anyway.
“During a drought at night when there is no (or too much) wind and the lines to distant suppliers are out.”
You can always come up with circumstances that interrupt supply. Equally a pipeline disruption could effect gas supply. There are any number of things can go wrong in the supply chain.
“bad decisions leading to lower storage levels” Who made those decisions?
“then the drought” Which, of course, no SENSIBLE person would conceive of occurring, so why plan for the possibility?
You made a quite successful attempt to smear the current government.
The power company made large profits selling power over the cable but drew down on water storage reserves. Then the drought meant they spent even more supplying the State with power when the cable broke.
Maybe being the “battery of Australia” wasn’t a viable idea?
The dams are owned by “the local governments of Tasmania.” GOVERNMENTS.
The value of Tasmania’s hydro infrastructure as a “battery” is to service peak loading. Not many people appreciate the importance of that and think battery means supplying all power for a long time.
That lack of awareness is strongest amongst those who think that renewables need little backup.
“That lack of awareness is strongest amongst those who think that renewables need little backup.”
Tasmania has successfully been fully renewable for most of its history. The bias some people have against renewable energy is irrational. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense but to criticise it when it does, shows something about the commenter.
Hydro certainly has a very important place as a power source in countries with the right geography, geology and climate, and provided it is not over-exploited, it can be fully dispatchable. There can be hazards from reservoir induced seismicity (up to ML 8 has been recorded) and dam failures, which can be catastrophic for larger projects.
Having looked closely at the possible role of Norway as the “battery of Europe” over the course of several years I think I have a good understanding of how to evaluate the potential limitations for Tasmania as the battery of Australia. I find it interesting that the Norwegians are already balking at further connections to other countries: they have a good understanding of the limitations of their own resources and the consequences of abandoning control to others.
I got the pamphlet from Labor the other day. Went straight into the fireplace after a quick look. I heard that many locals misunderstood it. Not surprising considering the literacy rate is below 50%.
The regional ‘high schools’ are going to have senior classes soon, instead of finishing at the junior level.
Companies having to wait for power = run out of electricity.
Welcome to the world of energy rationing, our green future, right?
Eric writes “Companies having to wait for power = run out of electricity.”
No it means the electricity is already contracted for and to sell more would risk running down storage levels as happened in the lead up to 2016.
Which means they can’t or won’t sell power now. If the shop has stuff in the warehouse but the shelves are empty, they’re out of stock, they’ve run out. If they refuse to restock today to save some for tomorrow, that means that they know they can restock, it doesn’t mean they have any available now. And if they offer to sell you some to be delivered next year, that doesn’t fill your needs today.
They’re not selling, because they’ve run out. In this instance, they’ve run out of energy they are willing to sell instead of all energy entirely. But that does not matter to the customer. He still can’t buy it. (although it does suggest that force majeure might work)
“But that does not matter to the customer. He still can’t buy it. “
And which customer wants to buy it but cant?
This is a statement from the political opposition. Its politics.
Not quite. There is no uranium enrichment in Australia. The enriched uranium for Tasmania would need to come from outside Australia maybe from SA sourced uranium.
And what a waste of opportunity that has been for decades Rick.
Even socialist ex-prime minister Bob Hawke eventually fessed up that Australia was uniquely placed to be the safest nuclear fuels processor, supplier and spent materials receiver and curator for the world.
Which would have meant that Oz would not, as it is now, be looking for a future, it would BE the future for most of the developed and developing world.
Besides which, what sense does it make to dismiss the hypothetical that SA could supply the needs of a hypothetical nuclear power plant in Tasmania because there isn’t a hypothetical enrichment plant in SA?
A) there could be. If Iran can build centrifuges, so can Tas.
B) depending on the fuel and tech, don’t need it. See CANDU for instance.
C) use thorium or a fast spectrum breeder and enrich in situ.
Batteries work!
All New Mercedes EV
LOL!
These people are just dumber than dumb. I hope they suffer a lot before they wake up.
Tassie greens, very thin skinned. Scratch the surface and see their true colours.
Here’s a (non exhaustive) list of ad hominem comments made to Nick Stokes just in this post.
“ …
Why does anyone waste time arguing with the so-called ‘Nick Stokes’? It should be manifestly obvious by now that this is a fake identity
No, you are being ignorant again
Yet your comments are basically pointless. It is a mystery you even try, with so much mis-information and unawaremess (sic) in your every post.
No, you just don’t comprehend, because your paid ideology won’t allow you to face the truth.
Oh, poor Nick as usual fails to understand the article main point about it (sic)
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit
Even a disingenuous shill like you should realise that
Seems you are ignorant of Tasmanian geography as well as most other things
Just that comment makes them a laughing stock… just like Nick.
Nick is being an ignorant, mindless W&S shill as always
Basic physics seems to be beyond him.
Vacuous statement
Those people need to be aware of the disingenuous nature of people like Nick and his mates
… ”
There seem to be a lot of them …..
I’m wondering why this is so. Do they actually forward the discussion in any way? Do the people making these comments actually enjoy schoolboy (school person) levels of insult for some difficult to understand reason?
I’m also finding it really difficult to understand why, even when he makes a completely incontrovertible comment (for example a reply to “Jim Gorman” who made an incorrect (and somewhat slighting) statement about power interconnections, he still receives negative votes. To down vote someone because you don’t like him seems the action of someone who is acting in that way for reasons other than logic. Perhaps exactly like one of the people who are in the pay of the WEC or the UN or the Illuminati or any of the other world destruction enthusiasts.
Nick Stokes often writes comments with which I fail to agree, I sometimes find him irritating. I sometimes find him very irritating. However, a reasonable proportion of his comments are supported by referenced evidence even if this evidence may not be good for my view of the climate change arguments. Surely it is necessary to look at all comments without resorting to personalities? Can’t we just be kind to each other even if we disagree? Surely saying “I think basic physical laws disagree with what you said” is more adult than “ Basic physics seems to be beyond him”.
The greens scored a major point when they called people who had a more objective and different view, “deniers”, do we really want to descend to their level in a supposedly intelligent discussion environment like this?
For the record …. I’m not a “mate” of Nick Stokes (although I’d certainly be interested to have a conversation with him), I think the evidence supporting ACC and its effects is somewhat sketchy (although I feel that it would be a great idea to stop burning so much gas and oil because they are such wonderful chemical feedstocks) and I have not been a member of Greenpeace since they started wanting me to live up a cold and wet tree and eat raw vegetables.
A very Christian attitude, there, Dave.
But even Jesus, when reasonable discussion with the grifters in the Temple did not work, began turning over their tables.
We are at that point with the grifters, the liars, and the fools. Most of us, I think, are hoping we don’t need to bring out the scourge, or trade in our cloaks for swords. But suffering the lies and idiocy of people like Stokes, trying to reason with them, may lead to that in the end. God forbid!
Attack the argument, not the man. Always.
When the arguments are relentlessly disingenuous, it’s fine to attack both.
And the argument is that the man advancing the argument is playing you for a fool.
So you have a “gentler” opinion of those who disingenuously support the climate scam with lies, misdirection, misinformation and deceit.
The scam that is being used by totalitarian bureaucrats and far-left governments to destroy western society.
OK. !
People like Nick are the enemy within for western society as we know it.
Dealing with the falsehoods and misdirection posted by Stokes is a game of whackamole. He repeats the same lies in post after post, and never appears to learn when his claims are refuted. In fact, his usual response when he encounters a refutation is to downvote it and not otherwise acknowledge that he was wrong.
You might like to factor that behaviour into the reaction of other posters here. I do try hard to keep my responses civil, but he appears ineducable at times.
Thanks for reading, Nick.
This is where the Marxists want the West to go. The question is will the Tasmanians put up with it?