While I don't know why you are doing it, that's for you two to explain I guess. The fact is you have once again misrepresented what the plan is.
Are you hoping that people will not actually read the plan?

To give people at home an example for two battery systems.

Computer rooms generally are feed by multiple power feeds from the grid to ensure supply. however they also have a back generator. Normally diesel but sometimes gas depending on the location. They also have a battery bank. now the batter is not big enough to power the computer room for very long, just long enough to either get the generator on line or shut down the computers in a orderly fashion.

Another arrangement is a remote power supply used by farmers and others off the grid for many years. You have solar power and some times wind that feeds a large battery bank. The battery bank is big enough to power the farm for between three and five days, so that if there is not sunshine and no wind they power will still work. Most of these setups also have a diesel generator.

What the SA government have proposed is the first example. A battery bank big enough to smooth out power supply variability so that other options can be brought to bare. Not the later, although that may come in time as energy store options are explored and get cheaper.

God, isn't it expensive when the plan is to buy ratbag green votes, rather than a sensible power generation system.

From the article, ".....if a complete shutdown of the sort experienced on 28 September 2016 occurred again then some 7 GWh of storage would be needed as well as the two 250 MW power stations."

So, Cobber, are Heywood and Murraylink needed for shortfalls, or not?
Are you suggesting diesel backup?

Where is the great carbon saving bonanza in all of it. It's as if AGW has nothing to do with it now, just Weatherill's desire to claim, "Look Mum, no carbon!

The Riverland project is for 330 MW realtime peak PV with 100 MW X 4 hours battery. I think two other PV/battery projects are proposed for SA plus a possible solar thermal for which Xenophon got a cheap loan. From memory that would be 110 MW peak realtime output with up to 8 hours storage. The Cultana seawater pumped hydro was to be 6 or 8 hours at 100 MW but the joint builder AGL is now out of favour with Weatherill.

Since SA had few problems when the 540 MW Northern coal station was operating I think they should sign up for the NuScale modular mini-nuke under development. It's not clear if the RET abolition by 2020 gets bipartisan approval whether wind and solar can cut in to baseload generation. If so make it 'must run'.

There's a bit of inconsistency over the need for interstate connection. Originally windy SA was supposed to export power to less windy Qld helped by a national RET. Now self sufficiency seems to be the goal.

Weatherill is a complete dill and will spend a shed load of other people's money on appearing "Green". What he needs is a proper power station that is reliable and cheap. Like the brown coal power plant being built in Pakistan by the Chinese.
Buggerlugs Andrews of Victoria will also be shutting down our reliable power and forestry industries again to appear green
My solution is to explain what is taken away from us punters can be taken back. New system for PS and pollie pensions. They get a tax free amount and then they bear the brunt of budget repair. As in pensions up to $60k taxed as now but over $60K a special levey of lets say 94% of the value.
Before anyone asks this was the highest rate of tax the last century so do not say that is unfair OK?

Quirk and Miskelly seem to have done the sums which Wetherall should have done before he started talking to Elon Musk. Having the state government build two new 250 MW gas fired power station would be a much better bet. The unwashed multitude out there don't know the difference between 100 Megawatts of generating capacity and 100 megawatt hours of storage capacity.

360 million times two is 740 mill! And for 740 mill Kirk Sorensen could build some 7 molten salt, walk away safe, thorium reactors, the claim being he could build a working reactor for 100 mill! If one is doable?

Check him out on on U tube.

Moreover, we have enough easily recovered alluvial thorium to power our entire carbon free energy needs for the next one thousand years. Just get on and build the things off budget, then supply the world's cleanest, safest, cheapest, industrial energy to any and all who want it!

And pay it off from the proceeds over say the next thirty years. Or from the revenue we could earn very safely reprocessing other folks nuclear waste!? A far better option than to be the proverbial rabbit caught and frozen in the headlight glare. By the light at the end of the tunnel?

Which in this case is a thundering express roaring toward you at breakneck speed? Aptly named enduring economic misery?

Leaders lead! Others stand staring at the economic doom thundering in their direction, trapped by the glare of public opinion and asking all and sundry for permission to move! Just two options beckon! Do it or do it.

We mine and ship uranium and climate altering coal for heaven's sake!

After all, anyone, with half a brain and a comprehensive blueprint can build and operate a thorium reactor!

But getting an operating licence from the stonewalling (regulating) illdisposed banana fearing authorities? Terrified of the rads generated by bananas? [Bananas being more radioactive than thorium, which is fertile not fissile! And therefore, entirely bereft of any weapons spin off! And the very reason the 50's technology was abandoned in the 70's!]

Or is the disruptive/irrational tail wagging the dog, green vote/Hanson phenomena, the only real problem!?

Please explain? You think someone who'd run a fish and chip shop would at least understand, when the power bill was greater than the wages bill, something entirely rational and pragmatic needs to happen!? And or, those responsible need to be held to account! Well?
Alan B.

We don't need foreigners or foreign price gouging control to do what our oldies did! Build their own power stations.

If foreigners need to first borrow to build, then pay for the debt load, and the parasitic shareholders, hands out for unearned unrisked money? From the price gouged proceeds?

There was a time, around the time of (true liberal) Mr Menzies when we built and operated our own power systems!

Look, governments can borrow for around half that of private players, and we can involve the private sector as before, by requiring transparent competitive tenders to get the plants/allied infrastructure built!

The only thing that demands foreign investment by controlling owning and operating ,price gouging, profit repatriation, tax avoiding foreigners, is a highly flawed ideological imperative!

Ever hear the expression, if it ain't broke don't fix it! It wasn't broken but now it is!

Evidence? A 106% increase in just ten years.

It was better before we had a national grid, which in effect acts as a gold plated, privatized, price gouging non competitive monopoly, with a captive cash cow market!

And vastly more reliable, when states generated their own power; and local councils reticulated it and maintained the local distribution side!

People out west forced to run air conditioners 24/7, months on end to survive ambient temps that rarely if ever, went below 40C, now being hit with power bills as high as a reported $7000.00 a quarter, and farmers deep in the drought can't afford to pump water to save the crops!

Needless to say the streets are empty. Ditto the shops on many a main street, all the economically essential discretionary spending disappearing like the smoke from coal fired power plants.

It's time to stop with the BS and brown nosing foreigners, and just get the economic growth train back on track. And pardon the homespun homily.

We have a 2 trillion super fund that' still ours! So why do we need foreign money? And or the price gouging and control etc/etc, that goes with it!
Alan B.

SA had a lovely run of cheap gas fired generation with pipelines from both Moomba and Victoria. The inefficient Torrens Island steam cycle only baseload station was at one time Australia's largest gas user. Spot gas was about $4 per GJ in 2015 now it hovers around $10... see the AEMO homepage. What will it be by the time new gas plant is at mid-life? Drilling in the Great Australian Bight looks unlikely as does farm fracking in the southeast of the state. If energy storage was scalable and cheap we wouldn't need so much gas for intermittent backup and peaking.

At one time SA baseload dominated with Playford 250 MW, Northern 540 MW and Torrens Island 1280 MW capacity. Over 2000 MW baseload out of 3000 MW heatwave peak demand and very few blackouts. I think SA should go back to being baseload heavy but next time without so much carbon emissions.

Why not stick with proven coal technology, just get some experts in to tweak the efficiency and there you have it! No more green battery rubbish needed, proof:

"China’s national energy ad­min­istration has enlisted Feng as its champion in renovating outdated power plants and developing new ones that meet its needs to make more energy from lower fuel inputs, while emitting far less ­pollution and carbon dioxide.
Feng recently took The Australian on a tour of his virtually spotless Waigaoqiao Number 3 power station, which produces 138 per cent as much electricity as the ­Yallourn coal-fired plant in ­Vic­toria’s Latrobe Valley.

It operates with a workforce 53 per cent the size of the Australian generator, emits just 13 per cent as much carbon dioxide equivalent, and its efficiency — measuring how much of the energy in the coal ends up as electricity — is 166 per cent that of Yallourn. It took three years to build, and opened in July 2008."

There you have it, problem solvered!!
Geoff

Not much difference between gas and ultra-supercritical coal in Oz's overall emissions impact.

Imminent is the supercritical CO2-Brayton cycle (see Sandia), rather than steam turbines, which would put gas ahead of USC-coal on emissions, but nuclear ahead of both. Current steam generators could serve during a transition.

Large or modular nuclear reactors, or nuclear batteries, together with the Supercritical CO2-Brayton cycle would deliver baseload flexibly, rain wind or shine, cheaply, extremely efficiently and without emissions. All this without massive grid changes and rectification.

But I digress. Back to rescuing SA. It must immediately cease building more renewable generation and look only at stability and continuity, but will it?

Thorium reactors of around 40 MW, can be factory built and trucked virtually anywhere in a stock standard shipping container to be producing 24/7 power within day, 10 of them producing 400 MW! 100 4,000 MW!

And given factory build, mass production, for far less than equivalent coal fired options! And able to run for as many as 100 years without needing to refuel and for far less every which way than coal!

Solar thermal still needs specific sites and the still vulnerable Transmission towers!

Yes there will need to be tri annual inspections as routine maintenance of walk away safe thorium reactors, which operate at normal atmospheric pressure and therefore don't not need massive containment vessels to protect us from them.

And can be sited wherever power is needed! special materials and sacrificial anodes take care of most corrosion problems. Routine shut downs two or three times the life of the projects and normal replacement schedules taking care of any perceived problems

And given the power is very local no expensive and highly vulnerable transmission lines need to be run out just a few underground cables connecting local, also buried, transformers!

Yes I understand transformers need to be cooled,and easily done using natural convection, outlet expansion chambers and and the separate intake pipe directing cool air on/at the oil cooled mechanism. And likely better than stood coping in the blazing subtropical blazing (cook an egg on the pavement) Australian sun?

Meaning, storm tempest and flooding rain can come and go, without the lights or the fridge or cooker or air conditioner or computer or tv program or fire fighting/trash or effluent pumps ever going off, except for maintainence!
Problem solvered.
Alan B.

And while the topic is connected to energy? Let's have a look at the "renewable", ethanol.

Now as many are aware for every unit of energy you get out of ethanol, you need to put two in! And guess where the extra one comes from? Peak demand coal or oil?

Meaning the reduction in Co2 emission by adding 10% to petrol, is just 5%? as is the import replacement paradigm? and uses both arable land and increasingly scarce water and food into a very bad bargain!

Whereas if we used our own copious natural gas, (methane) we could save as much as 100% imports as import replacement; and reduce transport related carbon emission by around 40%?

LNG is process requiring enormous energy input, huge purpose built transport tankers and shipping it halfway around the world at considerable cost and carbon production, to our industrial competition?

Everywhere one looks, one sees methane flares from gas wells, refineries and drill rigs, pumping millions of tons of Co2 into the atmosphere annually!

Another choice would have been and remains, catalytically converting it to liquid metanol, then shipping that wherever! Or using it at home as a petrol replacement! And yes a harmless dye could be added to ensure, the flame was neither colorless nor odorless!

Moreover, catalytically converting it to methanol, would allow us to export the liquid in ordinary tankers or drums. And get similar prices as charged for refined petrol!

One cubic metre of gas having roughly the same calorific value as a litre of petrol, whereas as catalytically converted liquid methanol, the difference is around 1.25 litre of methanol to a litre of petrol!

It's not just S.A., that's disconnected, but our muddle through gormless, (please explain, I haven't a clue) pollies, who just gauge every project or proposal through the prism of the three year cycle and how it figures against their (re-)election prospects, rather than the long view or the actual national interest?

How do you think we got into this shambolic mess? By design? Design inferring an intelligence at the helm and organising desired outcomes!
Alan B.

@Luciferase nothing I said would suggest any change to being connected to the national grid. the SA governments plan is to cater for load shedding events, it's not a hard concept.

@VK3AUU actually I think it's you that doesn't understand the difference.

@Geoff of Perth comparing a 50 year coal power station using lignite coal to a brand new one using Bituminous is like comparing apples and oranges. SA doesn't have any bituminous coal, so gas or nuke would be a better option as a mix with wind and solar.

That's interesting, Cobber, because it seems each renewablista has his own take on this.

On another thread I venture that "As more reports come in I'm now unsure whether the (battery) storage is supposed to be just for load management to make power failure more gradual than sudden, or the final solution."

Aidan then weighs in heavily with, "Luciferase, I repeat:
IT'S A MEANS OF PRODUCING A RELIABLE SUPPLY. If what we were after was merely away to prevent a sudden failure from becoming catastrophic, we'd go with flywheel storage, not batteries."

It's bob each way while holding out great hope in some magical affordable storage solution saving the day to make the stupidity of going 100% renewable look like a good idea.

If I were running this place, you'd have a job Alan B.

The way of our future will be; when the Chinese perfect another's invention, we'll enthuastically take it on board and have it presented as futuristic . That way politicians will not need to shift their thinking outside the three year electoral cycle.

The current example that fits the above, is the snake oil salesman from the U.S. selling gullible politicians batteries for storage.

When Malcome Turnbull lectures Australians on the need for innovation, this is what he means.

If Alan gets the gig, diver, he might read this guide
http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/P4TP4U.pdf
Check out boron.

Luciferase ....

Interesting....get back to you on that one...up to pg 100 of 400 ...it's a task.

diver, and anyone with an IQ, come over to https://www.brightnewworld.org .Five bucks a month qualifies you to say you truly give a rats.

You could donate to Friends of the Earth at the same time but, honestly, something would have to give. http://www.foe.org.au/

Nuclear and renewables have their places, just not on the same grid.

".....just not on the same grid."

Actually, I shouldn't say that, SA being a case in point. Now that it's gone to the expense of so much renewables, all it needs is reliable thermal backup, be it in SA or a connected state. As renewables plant is retired, nuclear could fill the gap until SA is entirely weaned to the point it should have started from, given its natural assets.

Again, loud and clear, renewables plus storage won't cut 100%. Hope is not a plan. Anyone truly caring about the world our Oz grand-kids inherit should get on board nuclear. It's worked for 60 years in France and Russia. China and India are taking the path. We need to be a part of it if we are to do our share on emissions as a first world economy, as well as competing in the world economy.

As to those who think Australia must simply adapt to projected climate change, that would be by moving to Russia, Alaska, Greenland or Northern Canada. That is not a plan.