Quote Shadow
"Industrial consumers(EU) pay nearly 3x what Aus industries pay."

There seems to be a serious mismatch between your statement and reality here.

Average price paid (2014) by industries for electricity in EU was € 0.12 KWh as per link above or A$ 0.18 at current exchange rates and this includes cost of access to the grid.

There is no specific data for Australian power prices for industries, as they don't get any special treatment re taxes as they do in Europe, but I assume that Aussie industries do get discounts due to bulk purchase of power. Now the current domestic price of power in Australia is around A$ 0.30+ KWh (Inc access to grid) so industry here would need a discount of over 60% just to match EU prices.

So it would seem that the EU prices for industrial power are possible cheaper than in Aus, but the EU produces a much higher (X2)proportion of its power from renewables than we do.

There is an urgent need to move away from pumping gases into the atmosphere. New wwys of producing energy need to florish. Yes there will be extra expense initially, that may be the price required.
Example when computers were introduced to offices/businesses typing pools vanished that was the price. So the cost of supplying electricity will rise. It has aready despite what politicians say.
We were told that abolishing the Carbon Scheme would save us $550 a year that never happened. The price of electricity production and distribution will rise regardless.

Warmair,

FYI, I work in a large industry in Sydney that buys electrical power at just over 6c /kWhr including network costs or roughly 1/3rd of what those in the EU pay. While the average industry price might be slightly higher, (for which I don't have figures, the average commercial property pays about 15c (which includes shops, cafes etc).

Parrot,

I notice that you don't comment on the Bloomberg article for which the second link was for corroboration. For someone that cries foul when one tackles the messenger rather than the message, you are being hypocritical. I can easily find a wide variety of sites that say exactly the same thing.

The facts are simple,
1- the higher the proportion of wind and solar, the less stable the network. The countries nearing 30% of energy supply from wind and solar are already beginning to experience problems including blackouts and brownouts.
2- Wind and solar is still considerably more expensive than fossil fuels, and passing these on to commercial and domestic users has a negative effect on the economy and especially energy intensive industries.
3. The countries that generate >30% renewables generally have a large proportion being hydroelectric and biomass.

Given that Aus has no further hydro capability (unless the Franklin dam is built) and biomass is regulated to death, the limit for renewables peaks at about 40% with existing technology.

Shadow, what you claim are "the facts" are nothing of the sort, for they rest on unstated assumptions which are not always true, and are actually controllable.

1. It is simply untrue that "the higher the proportion of wind and solar, the less stable the network". Firstly adding more non dispatchable power capacity doesn't reduce the amount of dispatchable power capacity available, and says nothing about whether the transmission infrastructure is sufficient. Secondly solar thermal is dispatchable. Thirdly, network stability can also be achieved through demand management.

2. The ongoing cost of wind and solar power is much lower than that of fossil fuel power. Whether the total cost is higher or lower depends on the cost of finance.

3. Countries with a large amount of hydro power had a significant head start, but it isn't actually a requirement. Solar and wind make up over 30% of South Australia's electricity supply despite the none of the state's power coming from hydro or biofuels.

And where does your 40% figure come from?

Quote:
Thirdly, network stability can also be achieved through demand management.

Hmm, Otherwise known as Load Shedding.

When looking at the average supply available from solar & wind it
looks fine, but if you change the period considered it is a different matter.
In an hour output can go from max to min several times and be down at
min for just a couple of minutes.
That is where load following has great problems if there is no full
scale base load generator also on line.
My understanding is that even gas stations have problems following.

No, Bazz, demand management is completely different from load shedding.

Load shedding is interrupting the supply to some areas.
Demand management is varying demand to enable supply to be maintained to all areas.

"When looking at the average supply available from solar & wind it
looks fine, but if you change the period considered it is a different matter.
In an hour output can go from max to min several times and be down at
min for just a couple of minutes. "
For a single site that's true, at least for solar. But because solar power is generated in multiple locations, it's far more predictable.

"That is where load following has great problems if there is no full
scale base load generator also on line."
Why would having a full scale base load generator on line change anything at all?

"My understanding is that even gas stations have problems following."
My understanding is that single shaft combined cycle gas turbines have problems load following, but open cycle and multi shaft combined cycle gas turbines do not.