Aidan,

The zero wind day saw SA meet just demand in what was not a particularly special day, and this was achieved only by a massive ramp up of the gas generators and the use of the interconnector. A year from now when Hazelwood has closed, the question will be whether Victoria can supply enough to keep SA afloat, or will we see another renewables blackout.

Hasbeen, the ABC already has backup diesel generators.

Aiden, in a perfect world, what you hope might happen, is somewhat unrelated as to what will actually happen in the real world. This was so aptly demonstrated when you look at what happened in early September.

In the long run, as the population increases as will the demand for electricity, Victoria will have to build another brown coal fired power station in the Latrobe valley because the greens will not let us build a nuclear power station.

David

Shadow,

You seem to be implying that SA's gas fired generators were running at capacity on the zero wind day. But in reality they were nowhere near capacity. Indeed once the Pelican Point power station was running, prices returned to normal levels. So a more sensible conclusion is that the market doesn't always work very well; when the electricity companies get the opportunity for profiteering, they take it.

I have already indicated I'm in favour of solar thermal at Port Augusta to help address this problem. I also support construction of more interconnectors including a second one under Bass Strait.

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David, in an ideal world, failures would never occur. This is simply a matter of how to deal with them so they don't create much bigger problems. Even if they don't go with the solution that's technically best, the problem is solvable.

In the long run, as the population increases as will the demand for electricity, another brown coal power station in the Latrobe valley is totally out of the question. Nuclear is an option but renewables are likely to be better value.

Aidan, I've no issue with anything you've say about connectivity solutions. Flywheels for load balancing purposes would do it, amongst other things.

What represents "better value" is the problem. If renewables are not despatchable 24/365 at an affordable price, i.e without thermal energy backup, they are pointless in the battle against AGW (with gas backup, there is barely be an emissions effect, with nuclear backup, they are redundant)

For this you need affordable, storage, preposterously humungous amounts of it, and placing faith in something economically viable magically appearing is where we part. A wing and a prayer is a road to a dead-end.

You say nuclear is not "better value". If Green-Dreamers would let it compete, and if massive subsidies were removed from renewables, we'd soon see. And let's not forget the main game, attacking AGW.

...where I said "there is barely be an emissions effect..", please read "emissions reduction effect", of course.

Aidan,

The fact that a fair portion of Pelican point had been mothballed and the Labor government had to beg Engie to restart their plant is solid proof that there was a desperate shortage of generation capacity.

Pelican was mothballed because as a combined cycle plant it is not designed to stop and start rapidly as the demand caused by renewables dictated. The low wind caused prices for power to peak higher than $10 000 /MWhr 24 times in 2 weeks.

The labor government had to throw money at the generators to maximise power supply as the alternative was the $2bn price tag of the blackout.