forgot to add this
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/Maps/Network-Diagrams-pdf.ashx

Shadow,

Yes, of course I know that CCGT are less efficient at ramping up and down than OCGTs. Obviously if the objective is to cover a short term surge in unmet demand, you'd go for OCGTs. But for covering the extended periods when output from renewables is low, CCGTs are far superior. So I couldn't understand why they weren't more profitable.

I think I have the answer now: Engie (the company that owns the Pelican Point power station) doesn't have a large retail customer base like its competitors do, so commercially it is far more exposed to market price fluctuations.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Luciferase,

"Of course there is emissions abatement with load following gas turbines c.f. FF baseload. However, it is nothing like you would have it and certainly not enough to have the potential to achieve anything meaningful on AGW, even if the entire world adopted renewables with gas backup."
That would depend on how much renewable capacity the world installed (and what they did with nuclear). 100% is NOT the limit.

"This interim goal towards fully despatchable 100% renewables, would be quite acceptable if there were a viable scalable storage solution. There isn't, so you simply hold faith. You're a member of a religious cult."
On the contrary; I'm a Christian, and very much opposed to blind faith. But I look at what's going on and I comprehend the implications. It's increasingly looking as if you don't.

I recognise the need for more dispatchable renewable power, and am very much in favour of building CST with MSS at Port Augusta (which I hope will be the first of many locations in Australia). I also recognise that battery technology is also rapidly advancing. And significantly, I recognise the existing dispatchable renewable power is not filling its full potential. For example, much of Tasmania's hydro power is used to provide low value baseload.

Everything, including nuclear, is very very expensive. But interest rates are low at the moment, and there's a strong economic case for the Federal government to make concessional loans available.
(tbc)

Luciferase (continued)

"Why would SA need more renewables if it could buy nuclear generated electricity from the Latrobe valley (as could almost the whole eastern seaboard through interconnectors)?"
SA's interconnector capacity is not (and never has been) anything like what's needed to supply the whole state.

"Aren't we thinking ad hoc and small? Why should borders hold up nuclear transmission via existing HVAC while renewablistas dream of extended networks across state boundaries via HVDC?"
As the file you linked to makes clear, one of SA's two interconnectors is already HVDC. Future interconnectors will also be HVDC, whether or not we opt for nuclear power. The main issue is where to build new interconnectors. Rather than just augmenting capacity, I'd like to see new links made to improve reliability and create new trading opportunities. For instance a Port Augusta to Broken Hill connection would enable SA to sell more electricity to NSW and buy more electricity from NSW, plus it would improve the reliability of Broken Hill's power supply, and would directly connect northern SA to the national grid.

Firstly, I reiterate that none of my comments on renewables ever refer to hydro. It works where applicable, which isn't much here in Oz, and can't be more while Greens stand in its way anyway.

I don't understand this comment, "That would depend on how much renewable capacity the world installed (and what they did with nuclear). 100% is NOT the limit."

I'm saying that if nuclear is universally eschewed for renewables with OCGT load-following backup, or with CCGT cogeneration, there will be little impact on AGW. I am saying that without scalable storage that guarantees the despatchabity of renewables 24/365, there will be little impact on AGW.

Working on the sensible assumption that there is no scalable, affordable storage in sight (which you don't), I also raise the matter of transport fuel. Presumably you would have us running vehicles on gas, or, running enough renewables to meet normal load plus manufacture of sufficient transport fuel (assuming, for the argument, this is viable). Providing energy for fuel production is the only valid reason all that could exist for renewables meeting more than instataneous 100% of load requirement in SA.

Apart from the fact that the scale of your proposed enterprise is simply preposterous, so will be its cost. Talk about whether there are sufficient interconnectors has nothing to do with the points you fail to sensibly address. Your entire argument is based on there existing scalable storage for 24/365 despatch of renewables, and, there being some financial arrangement that should be extended to make this more economically viable than any alternative. The former is a mirage through yours and Weatherill's rose-coloured glasses, while the latter is what we effectively have already in the LRET.

PS Presuming sufficient interconnection and that you have no ideological problem with nuclear in the Latrobe, wouldn't nuclear to the SA grid make renewables redundant?

The ideas that nuclear is unsuited by population sparseness (when the existing FF infrastructure already accommodates this) and that we couldn't adequately man the installation(s) to meet the needs of SA and most of the eastern seaboard, seem to be clutching at air, IMO.

Aidan,

The problem is mirrored in what is happening in Germany. Where there is a large proportion of renewables, the generators that are closing down are not the coal fired ones but the CCGTs who are less adaptable to the swinging load, precisely because under these circumstances they become the most expensive generators.

SA labor has had to make a heap of financial promises to Pelican Island to encourage them to come back online, this is one of the reasons that SA has the highest electricity costs in Aus and why their businesses are collapsing.