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The Forum > Article Comments > South Australia’s energy plan gives national regulators another headache > Comments

South Australia’s energy plan gives national regulators another headache : Comments

By Jeffrey Sommerfeld, published 15/3/2017

But an interstate scheme cannot be fixed by the unilateral actions of one state government – in this case, it is likely to be worsened.

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And then we should consider this:

"Over the past few days, the world has gone gaga about Mr Musk’s plan to ‘solve’ South Australia’s energy crisis.

Musk tweeted:

‘Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free.’

According to ABC News:

‘In response to South Australia’s power problems, Tesla has been talking about a battery array capable of storing somewhere between 100 and 300MWh. While that’s a measure of storage, the actual output of these batteries isn’t clear.’

Sounds great. Then you look at the facts.

According to Australian energy regulator, the…erm…Australian Energy Regulator (AER), Australia’s current electricity capacity stands at a touch under 45,000 megawatts.

So if Mr Musk’s grand plan involves adding 100 to 300 megawatts to the capacity (we assume he’s talking about storage capacity), this number appears to be a rather small drop in the ocean.

And if we’re talking about output, according to the AER, Australia consumes an average of 22,000 megawatts per hour. So again, the 100­–300 MWh is hardly significant.

As a further comparison, the Snowy Hydro scheme, among its various assets (which includes hydro and gas), has 5,500 MW of capacity."

Another white elephant.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 12:31:36 PM
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Musk is offering a half price deal to get his toe in the door. A loss leader ticket to the bigger game?

He can afford half price because he's already sucked every drop of government assistance for his Gigafactories.

The level of domestic and international subsidy of renewables is astonishing.
Posted by Luciferase, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 2:52:38 PM
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Geoff of Perth,
Megawatts are a measure of power, not energy, so average consumption is not "per hour".

SA usually generates between 1000 and 2000 megawatts; so it's certainly not a drop in the ocean.
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 16 March 2017 1:32:16 AM
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I think Jeff is comparing an eastern combined blackout. To call that a drop in the ocean.
This system is for SA so that is where the story ends..
People keep trying to confuse the issue to discredit masks plan..
The man is a genius and given credit for doing something for SA. Which our federal govt can not do.
Posted by doog, Thursday, 16 March 2017 3:05:45 PM
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The only headache this gives the eastern states regulator is a drop in shares and sales of electricity to SA. SA has told the regulators to get stuffed we are going it alone.
Posted by doog, Thursday, 16 March 2017 3:21:07 PM
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I read about the Musk deal and I think it's absolutely ludicrous. But then again, almost everything he does has a little bit of crazy in it, until it works out. In any case, at least there's someone trying to do something radical about it in a way that's really going to push the industry to react. I mean, can you imagine how everyone else is going to scamper if he manages to even pull off even half of what he promises?
Posted by webbrowan, Friday, 17 March 2017 5:37:50 PM
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