The single highest priority of any electricity network is to provide a stable and reliable supply of power.

The ALP in SA pledged at the elections to fix the electricity system and install an interconnector to lower the price of power in SA. Some years later we find SA with the highest electricity prices in Aus, and clearly the least stable, which collapsed after a larger than normal storm.

Weatherill, Labor and the Greens are spinning madly to convince the voters that the system collapse had nothing to do with their poor investment choices with respect to the grid.

Labor over the decade has ignored warnings from the network providers etc that the over reliance on wind and solar had made the network vulnerable. And with the compulsory purchasing of renewable power the stable and reliable coal and gas energy suppliers have closed, leaving the network dependent on the interconnection with Victoria.

When the storm took out several grid towers (clearly insufficiently well built) the network collapsed threatening the viability of industries and jobs. Given labors more than decade long time in power the buck stops firmly at Weatherill's door.

shows how dumbed down SA have become over the last decade.

If you think renewables played a part in SA's statewide power cut, perhaps you can suggest a credible mechanism as to how? Do you seriously think coal or nuclear power would have prevented the pylons from blowing over?

No matter how much you and the Libs try to spin this as a renewable energy issue, the facts say otherwise. This is a network reliability issue that's got very little (if anything) to do with how the electricity's generated. And there are certainly questions that need answering, but you seem less interested in finding the real answers than in blaming renewables and the ALP.

I can't remember who was in power in the 1990s when the decision was made to build the Heywood Interconnector, but I'm fairly sure the Libs were in power when it opened. It was a Liberal state government, encouraged by a Liberal federal government, that chose to sell off the power stations, and when they did it resulted in Enron style market manipulation and supply problems. Wind and solar power have greatly reduced the potential do do this, and have driven wholesale prices down (though the way it's funded has had the opposite effect). Profiteering by the privatised infrastructure companies is also a problem – it adds to the cost and is part of the reason why there's no direct connection to NSW or Queensland.

BTW closure of the coal fired power station at Port Augusta was due mainly to economic reasons: it was old and very inefficient. It wasn't located right next to the coal mine, so the coal had to be brought in by rail. And the nearest coal mine was running out of coal.

Aidan,

Irrespective of the reasons for the failure, a state wide blackout is a cock up of monumental proportions, a 50yr storm while unusual is well within design requirements (buildings are built to withstand 200yr storms) and should not be able to take out an entire network.

SA has received many reports and assessments by experts that highlighted the risks, so much so that it became a core election promise by Labor to install the second interconnector to reduce electricity costs and to improve reliability, which was yet another lie. Instead they invested a ton of cash into renewables which pushed power prices higher and made the network less reliable.

"South Australia gets its electricity from wind, solar and gas but no longer has coal power after Alinta’s Northern Power Station and Playford A station at Port Augusta closed in May. It followed the closure of the Playford B in 2012. At the time, Australian Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said the closure would leave the state with less back-up energy on days of high demand. The state would need to rely on renewable energy and the interconnector which provides electricity from Victoria for base-load power.

“The reality for South Australians is that we’re in uncharted waters,” Mr Warren said in May. “There’s an increased level of risk that we really haven’t seen before anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t mean we’ll have more blackouts, hopefully if we’re smart we can sort out solutions so power supply can be the same as usual, but it’s an increased risk.”

This week’s blackout was not the first time South Australia has felt the impact of losing its supply from Victoria. It also experienced a blackout in some parts of Adelaide, Barossa Valley, Port Pirie and west coast region late last year. That was blamed on the failure of the interconnector."

I guess the Electricity pylons being blown over had nothing to do with electricity outage.

Jayb,

The answer is that they shouldn't have.

If you are relying on the changeable whether of sun and wind to provide power be prepared for its extremes. Gas,uranium and coal are physical substances extracted from the earth, not dependent or affected by the whether. From the photos of the downed pylons it was the weight of wind in the wires that pulled them down in their strongest construction. The construction of the infrastructure needs redesign; even the current wind turbines are poorly designed to stand against extremes of wind. Rows of solar panels in an open area tilted to the sun are subject to dislodgment in high wind velocity and flying debris.

SM: The answer is that they shouldn't have.

Should, Would, Could have. all very nice words. Something to throw at the Enemy, regardless of who they are.

Regardless of how Electricity is Generated, what other method do you propose be put in place to deliver High Voltage Transmission of Power to the people all over the State?

There is no doubt that the SA Wetherill government is moronic. 40% of our power comes from WINDmills that don't actually work when there is too little WIND or too much WIND. WIND power is a joke.

On top of that, the morons BLEW UP our only coal fired power station a few months ago and, finally, they didn't bother to maintain the one gas powered station on Pelican Point. The normal situation has been 40% renewables, and 30% from Victoria, which means that the other 30% must come from that other piss-poor source, solar. That, or the idiots can't do their sums: if wind and sun are the 'renewables' together, we only have a capaity of 70%.

Someone mentioned the crumpling of the interconnector pylons. Well, they were supposed to bear 200kph winds, but failed in winds under 100kph! A person connected with the design and building of the things said on radio that they were crap. It has also been noted that Qld regularly has cyclonic winds that have never plunged the ENTIRE state into darkness.

The entire fiasco is to be blamed on the stupid Wetherill government pandering to lunatic greens. The idiots were warned that their direction on power was stupid, and that the link to Victoria could not sustain their fantasy with renewable energy. That has now been proved.

The rest of you might find yourselfs inundated with asylum seekers from SA.

It was not renewable energy that caused the blackout it was a storm made worse by deniers and shills for fossil fuel.
Many more to come if we dont stop listening to the ignorant and the greedy.

Malcaymen has shown how unfit he is to be prime minister with his breathtaking lies and total lack of compassion for people suffering in a natural disaster. The cretin hasnt even bothered to show his face all weekend let alone visit the scene of the disaster and provide some assistance.

I don't know what side of Politics is IN in SA at the moment, but obviously it's that's Governments fault.

Then again, if the Opposition was in power then it would be their fault. Such are the facts of Political Life, eh.

Shadow,

Of course it's a cockup of monumental proportions. But the blaming of renewables when the evidence says otherwise shows (in runner's words) how dumbed down you, he and ttbn have become!

At which election was a second interconnector a core promise by Labor? And are you aware that one was built (and is in operation) linking the Riverland with Sunraysia? Its capacity is lower, but the capacity of the first interconnector has been increased.

'Tis no secret that I'd like to see a third interconnector linking Port Augusta with Broken Hill. Indeed I'd like to see a fourth linking Olympic Dam to Queensland (with geothermal power stations along the route) but funding it without increasing power bills even more would be difficult. More battery storage might turn out to be a better value solution.

__________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn, you've got your sums wrong: much of SA's electricity is generated in SA from natural gas. There are lots of gas fired power stations in the state, though Pelican Point is the most efficient one.

ITYF it was Alinta Energy, not the Wetherill government, who blew up Port Augusta power station. And all SA's power stations, including Pelican Point, had been sold off by the Olsen government. so of course the government didn't maintain it – it was no longer their job. The private sector owners kept it in operational condition, but they had no financial incentive to switch it on!

The pylons that failed were not on the interconnector, but between Port Augusta and Adelaide. We don't yet know for sure why they failed, but there have been some reports of tornadoes. Another possibility is the foundations being weakened by prolonged heavy rain. And I'm wondering if it could be that the pylons were designed for copper wires, and the wind loadings on the steel cored aluminium wires were higher.

Instead of instinctively blaming renewables, first find out what really happened.

No, Aidan, you are wrong as usual. They had to RESTART the ONLY gas fired facility at Pelican Point, which was idle and not maintained properly, hence, some parts of SA are still without power. Get your facts right or belt up.

JayB,

The SA government is, of course, Labor, in the grip of the Green menace. But, yes, the opposition would probably do the same. The opposition leader is also an idiot, without the outhouse rat cunning and sleaze of the premier, Wetherill.

Jayb,

If you had read either of my posts (which you clearly haven't) you would realize how irrelevant and silly your posts were.

As I mentioned above, the priority that ranks above anything is reliability. The black out cost the state from what I read upwards of $2bn, roughly 4x what a second connector was going to cost.

The basic thing about electrical networks is that transmission lines and cables fail for a variety of reasons. Insulators break, wind causes the lines to clash, lightning creates a surge etc, etc. All the major networks in NSW have built in redundancy and can lose one or more lines without interrupting power. So while the towers collapsing was the cause of the outage, that it did was a huge cock up.

The original network in the 80s had no connection to Victoria, and had in built redundancy. The interconnector provided addition supply and redundancy allowing for additional factories etc to be built. Recently, the highly reliable base load coal supplies have been shut down to be replaced by unreliable renewable power supplies and the redundancy and stability have been whittled away.

So while renewables didn't directly cause the blackout, if money had been spent where it should have on the interconnection rather on renewables, then SA would not have had a complete shut down courtesy of Labor.

ttbn, before you dismiss me as "wrong as usual" and go shooting your mouth off, you should try getting your information from sources other than the Murdoch Press!

Pelican Point is SA's ONLY gas fired power station... APART FROM those at:

• Mintaro
• Hallett
• Dry Creek
• Ladbroke Grove (near Penola)
• Osborne
• Torrens Island (three different ones)

There are also several that run on diesel, though due to the higher fuel cost they're only used infrequently.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

In the pre-Keating era, everything was state owned and there was plenty of redundancy as governments built things in anticipation of future needs. But then there was a change of ethos, and infrastructure owners were encouraged to sweat their assets. Then under Howard there was more pressure to privatise, especially as after Victoria had built powerless to near the SA border, SA took the opportunity to link up the grids. But privatisation created new problems, as shareholders and customers often have conflicting objectives.

Many SA people despise the state Liberals for the problems that electricity privatisation caused, but have almost as much animosity towards the state Labor party. Still, trying to lay the blame with a political party is at best futile.

[sorry about the autocorrect error: where it says "powerless" it should be "powerlines"]

Aidan,

I live in Adelaide, and know where the power comes from. I don't have to rely on Murdoch or any other totally wrong source, as you do. You proved your weakness long ago with your 'sovereign borrowing' crap. You believe any bulldust you read or hear because you have no personal knowledge of anything. You are just another left wing twit who doesn't know his backside from his elbow.

PS, Aidan (not that it sill sink in) the piddling little extra stations you mention are separately owned, and their COMBINED output is well below demand, and Pelican Point was taken offline 12 months ago.

Aidan,

Trying to blame this on privatisation is silly. A privatised power company owns, manages and maintains the power lines in return for legislated fees that it can charge customers.

To cover the cost of new infrastructure, the government has to allow fees to rise, which they had yet to do.

SM: So while renewables didn't directly cause the blackout, if money had been spent where it should have on the interconnection rather on renewables, then SA would not have had a complete shut down courtesy of Labor.

I have no problem with that. In fact I completely agree with you there. It's got nothing to do with Renewables. It is entirely to do with State Planning over the past 75 years by successive Governments.

SM: courtesy of Labor.

Courtesy of what ever Government is in power when shy-it happens.

On the matter of the Transmission lines. What Government was in Power when the Lines were planed? What Government was in power when they were built? Governments change. Who built them? What wind speeds were they designed for? Was the material used in the Construction up to design specifications? Technical stuff that should be looked at due to the collapse at such low wind speeds.

I mowed my yard in 75kph wind speeds & thought nothing of it. I come from North Queensland (Ayr) Cyclones are a bit of a yawn in that part of the World. It's the Media beat up that makes them look bad.

Those Transmission Lines Towers should never have collapsed at the wind speeds recorded in SA during those storms. Something has to be wrong with the Specs for the Towers or their Maintenance. If there is the problem lies with the Maintenance crew & their Company Managers.

Yes there should have been a redundancy Transmission Route. Back sides need to be kicked for that going back at least 75 years.

ttbn,
"I live in Adelaide,"
As do I.

"and know where the power comes from."
Except that you've just proved you didn't!

You unwittingly told a lie, in an attempt to rubbish what I was saying. When I explained the facts, you proved yourself too stupid to admit that you were wrong!

And I didn't even mention the "piddling little extra stations" such as the one at the Coopers Brewery. The smallest one I listed, Ladbroke Grove has a capacity of 80MW, making a significant contribution to meeting SA's demand (which on a weekday is usually between 1 and 2GW). And together the the Torrens Island power stations have over three times the capacity of Pelican Point, though Torrens Island A has been offline for a while, and would've been mothballed had Port Augusta's coal fired ones not closed.

"I don't have to rely on Murdoch or any other totally wrong source,"
So where did you get your incorrect claim from?

"as you do."
On the contrary, I try to get information from multiple sources, and try to understand not only the figures but the reasons behind them and the relationship between inputs and outputs. Whereas you seem to take the Ancient Greek approach to facts – once you decide something is true, you stop questioning it. Worse still you ignore the evidence you subsequently see, and assume everyone who disagrees does so from ignorance.

And the stuff about government borrowing was no exception. Like you I once accepted that government borrowing was limited, they must eventually eliminate their debt, and that borrowing directly from the central bank could cause hyperinflation. But unlike you I questioned those conclusions, and discovered that there was no real evidence for any of those things, and their theoretical basis depended on demonstrably false assumptions.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

The problem is there was privatisation without proper competition. Infrastructure companies are already allowed to charge far too much, and will continue to underinvest unless they're allowed to charge even more.

From reports I have seen, there was significant output from the wind turbines.
When the towers went over it seems that something else happened in Adelaide.
Was there no output from the wind turbines ? Why not ?
Whatever it was more load was put onto the interconnector which
exceeded the maximum and it was tripped off.
Was there any generation north of where the towers fell over ?
Were the towers all on the one line feeding north ?
Seems like none of us has a map of the layout of the grid and a plot
where the towers fell over.

In any case the failure finally occurred because too much load was diverted onto the interconnector.
SA depends on coal power from Victoria to keep the show on the road.
That seems to be a contradiction of their policy.

Aidan,

I think you have entirely misunderstood the process of privatisation of monopoly infrastructure. The state sets the price of the power and the company makes its money from maintaining the existing lines to set standard at a cost less than the income. The cost of new infrastructure is either funded directly by the government or by an increase in fees.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/nick-cater/weatherills-green-ambition-puts-sa-in-the-dark-ages/news-story/967b0a585d40dfdc77825c8a01e25eea

"A sobering report from Del­oitte’s last year noted the irony: “Renewable generation is already challenging the sustainability of the South Australian system.” Adding more renewable capacity, it said, would destabilise the system further."

"Which raises the question: why would anybody invest in South Australia, except out of sympathy? The state’s extraordinary economic growth in the 1950s and 60s that produced jobs, built homes and bought cars was driven by cheap, reliable energy. Who would risk entrepreneurial capital in Weatherill’s energy-deficient jurisdiction? Even basketweavers need a reliable source of light."

"The same challenge is facing Europe, where a rapid growth in renewable energy in Germany has thrown the energy market out of whack. Last year Germany opened a new coal-fired power station, much to the distress of the Greens. Upgrading cross-border supply across northern Europe is a priority; how else is Germany going to be able to suck up French nuclear power, the production of which is banned within its own borders? The cost of bringing the entire European network up to scratch could cost as much as $500 billion."

Aidan,

Bless you. You make up for my longtime inability to catch fish; one flick of the rod, you take the bait, and come up with yards of bumf from Wikipedia. You might even be putting the stuff there yourself, Wik being open to anyone.

You are also an Adelaidean: so it is possible that it was you I heard on talkback radio, propounding your lunatic theory of borrowing to a gullible fill in for Leon Byner. I would love to hear you trying such rubbish on the man himself.

Shadow,

The most efficient way to provide the infrastructure would be something based on the pre corporatization model, where the state provides the infrastructure (contracting individual projects out to the private sector if the private sector can complete them more efficiently). Rather than trying to make a profit, the state utility would merely aim to break even, and pass the savings on to the customers. But federal government policy has made the states cash strapped and fearful of debt so the states decided they wanted better financial results instead of better serving the economy's long term needs. They started skimming profits off. The profits were increased until the utilities became cash cows for the state governments. Then they sold off the utilities; effectively they were selling off a licence to rip off electricity consumers. And the regulators have been too weak to stop any of this.

Renewable energy is not challenging the sustainability of the SA system at all. Adding more capacity doesn't destabilise the system; it merely creates minor technical challenges that can easily be overcome.

Getting investment in SA is indeed a significant problem. The boom of the 1959s and 60 was driven by more than cheap reliable energy; it was mainly driven by a lower award wages, largely due to a lower cost of living that was the result of plenty of cheap land. That's gone now, though land here's still much cheaper than interstate capitals.

But the energy deficiency of last week was a one off. Normally SA does have a reliable electricity supply, and costs for business are competitive despite the Federal takeover of the industrial relations system.

And FWIW I agree that Germany would be better off retaining nuclear power. It's far less sunny than SA, and has a much greater population density, so the cost of renewables would be far higher there than here.

Aiden said;
Germany would be better off retaining nuclear power. It's far less sunny than SA,

Hmmm, yes they would be better with nuclear as the sun does set in
Germany and right in the middle of the afternoon in winter.
Doesn't get up till about 10am.
Even the school kids go to school in the dark.

Adelaide today. Sunny, slight breeze, no 'storms'. No so happy in the Happy Valley area, where 20,000 houses are without power.

'Adelaide today. Sunny, slight breeze, no 'storms'. No so happy in the Happy Valley area, where 20,000 houses are without power.'

get use to it ttbn. The alarmist have been proven wrong with almost every prediction and now they have destroyed a perfectly good electricity system. Denial and deceit is all part of the course for the dumbed down renewables supporters.

ttbn,

So you were just trolling? I guess that explains a lot, though I really can't see the point.

FWIW Wikipedia wasn't my first source of information about the gas turbines, although it was where I found out about the one at the Coopers Brewery. Despite Wikipedia's reputation it is usually very accurate - you should try using it more often.

And no, I was not on talkback radio.

Where did you get the 20000 house figure? According to the SA Power Networks website, it's 159 at Happy Valley, and it's due to equipment damage. A further thousand are without power in the hills due to storm damage.

These sorts outages are unremarkable, and occur in every state.

Aidan,

Seriously, have you ever seen a state government run something without taking money out? Besides I was commenting on what they do rather than what they should.

Getting back to the topic, as pointed out Germany is having to commission new coal fired generators to replace the nukes because renewables just can't cut the mustard.

Aidan,

Got it from the media. You, of course, will believe SA Power Networks, even though are the problem and the gougers. Watch out for the Irish 'house painters' who could be offering you cheap painting soon.

Bazz,
I haven't paid a lot of attention to the problems in SA, but I'll try to hazard a guess as to what caused the problems, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the situation on the ground.

Wind turbines have an operating range of windspeed. I suspect that the conditions in SA at the time in question were well above that, so prudent operators would have already taken steps to shut them down well before the wind hit, leaving the state dependent on imported supplies, as is the normal procedure. When the towers blew over, it took out a large amount of demand in a great rush, leaving the network with an oversupply of input power and causing the current and voltage to move well out of phase, probably well beyond the planned capacity of the network to deal with it. As a result, circuit breakers tripped in order to prevent damage to the network caused by trying to deal with very high transient power.

In other words, the network didn't fail because there was too little power, but because there was too much for the reduced demand. The Whyalla and Port Augusta industrial works, which were cut off, are more than likely a significant part of the power-conditioning system as well, causing a double whammy for the network.

The gas turbines are only there to provide top-up power when there are short-term shortfalls in renewable output and to help to stabilise the network. They are not and cannot be effective at replacing the entire grid supply.

I suggest that those who can't bear the thought of ever having to go without power to install their own power supplies, such as solar PV with a good backup generator. I'd be happy to recommend an excellent supplier if you live in Brisbane. Large scale grids can and do fail and unless people wish to pay exorbitant amounts for "gold-plating" the networks, that will always be the case.

Aidan,

I overlooked your 'unremarkable' weather. Yes, it was for all except people defending renewables. But, if the weather was unremarkable, how do you explain the toppling of pylons supposed to withstand 200kph winds, when we had winds not topping 100kph?

Have you lowered your bet on wind power, now that they have been stopped dead by unremarkable weather, immediately taking 900MW out of the system?

How do you explain the fact that Qld regularly has true cyclones, but the entire state isn't blacked out like SA was - under unremarkable circumstances?

No, Craig. The windmills are not there to provide "top up power". In Green/Labor SA they are their to provide 40% of our power - all the time because we only have a bit of gas and charity from Victoria for the rest. The reason for the blackout was that the outhouse rat expected to get near the maximum of one Vic power station. He was told time and time again that this couldn't happen, and it didn't.

Wind power is now reality in SA - not a fad toy we can play with and retreat to coal. The maniacs are even going to close down two more gas-fired plants next year, and coal is only a memory.

Craig,
Thanks for the reply. Contrary from what you said I have read/heard
that the wind turbines were on line at the time and producing power.
When the towers went over the line would have been dead within a few cycles.
Load in the network on the supply side of the towers must have been
increased by something going wrong and the load on the interconnector
increased above rating so it disconnected.
It raises a question what happens when the Victorians close their Hazelwood plant.

All this is guesswork and we must wait to see what the control centre
computers logged timewise.
It is to be hoped that politicians have no input.

That's interesting Bazz, I'd have thought that sort of wind would be a definite overspeed problem. The turbines down there must be well designed.

You're tight that everything would have happened in just a couple of cycles. As I said though, it's not too much load but too rapid a drop in demand that was probably the issue. All that energy has to go somewhere and you don't want it going places it's going to cause trouble.

ttbn,

I didn't mention unremarkable weather.

What I described as unremarkable was small outages due to equipment failure, like the one that affected part of Happy Valley yesterday. These sorts of problems occur in every state, and usually get fixed quickly.

I have no reason not to believe SA Power Networks rather than a second hand report on unspecified media (talkback radio?) and I don't think SA Power Networks has anything to lose from the truth being known, but they have much to lose if they're caught lying.

I don't understand your "outhouse rat" comment. Was it another pathetic attempt at trolling? And do you actually have any evidence that two more gas-fired plants are slated for closure next year?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,

That makes a lot more sense, but why would the closure of Hazelwood make any difference?

I would expect the amount of power an AC interconnector can handle would be limited by heat, thus able to greatly exceed its continuous rating for a short period. Is that not the case?

No Aidan, it's not the case. There are several ways that a high voltage main can fail, but by far the most certain is to suddenly change the load.

Collapsing support towers on a line servicing a high, extremely reactive load like a steel works is a very good way to do that.

I've just read the press versions of the analysis of the SA power problems.

The official line is that the loss of the lines caused “significant voltage dips and loss of load,” which is precisely what I suggested. That was exacerbated shortly after by a series of wind turbine shutdowns, which I have to think was a management problem. As I said in an earlier post, the turbines should have been already shut down if the wind was so high.

As a result of all that, the network couldn't maintain synchronisation and failed.

It's a great chance to learn.

It is beginning to look like Renewables had a direct role in the SA blackout.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/south-australia-blackout-interim-report-makes-renewables-defence-look-foolish/news-story/f3ea0e20ed6e6fce83e405f4ad48e47d
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/south-australia-blackout-jay-weatherill-insists-outage-caused-by-severe-weather-not-renewables/news-story/58f63d1d4502b34fcceb3ee8773d67c1

There is enough in the interim report to make the rush to defence of renewables mounted by special interest groups and conflicted state governments since the lights went look foolish.

Certainly, the power would not have been lost were it not for the big storm. And seven big towers were damaged in the lead up to the blackout. But AEMO said data currently available indicates that the damage to the Davenport to Brinkworth 275 kV line on which 14 towers were damaged “occurred following the SA Black System”.

The big event was a 123 MW reduction in output from North Brown Hill Wind Farm, Bluff Wind Farm, Hallett Wind Farm and Hallett Hill Wind Farm at 16.18.09. Seconds later there was an 86 MW reduction in output from Hornsdale wind farm and a 106 MW reduction in output from Snowtown Two wind farm. No explanation was given for the reduction in wind farm output.

But the loss of wind farm production put too much pressure on the electricity interconnector with Victoria which cut off supply. This in turn led to a shut down at the Torrens Island power station, Ladbroke Grove power station, all remaining wind farms and the Murraylink interconnector.

AEMO says a lot of work is needed to fully explore what happened.

But definitely there are lessons here for putting high levels of intermittent renewable energy into the electricity system. The speed with which renewable energy spruikers rushed to argue otherwise is a measure of their ideological self interest.

ABC news came to the opposite conclusion, so I had a look at the report itself, which is at http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/-/media/BE174B1732CB4B3ABB74BD507664B270.ashx

It clearly explains the loss of power from the wind farms was the result of multiple transmission system faults (due to damage from the weather).

So it looks like the ABC's right and The Australian is wrong. No surprise there; after all that's the paper that's so against wind power that once had a front page story proclaiming that Victoria's wind turbines had failed to reduce that state's CO2 emissions... but failing to mention that this was because they were exporting more power to NSW!

And surely an ideological self interest in limiting environmental damage is something that everyone should have?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Craig, why does a sudden change in load cause a high voltage main to fail?

No, it's not beginning to look like renewables had a big role at all, Shadow Minister. It's still looking like it was poor network management and a couple of catastrophic failures of support structures for transmission lines.

With all due respect, this is a highly technical subject, which is very difficult for trained people to understand let alone lay people the FUD being spread by political mischief makers like yourself. You should stick to things you understand, like...erm...never mind, there must be something.

The wind turbines should have been shut down pre-emptively, allowing the central generation network time to adapt, assisted by the gas turbines which exist for that purpose. That way, even if the transmission lines had collapsed, the network was in a stronger position to cope, although I suspect it would still have failed.

Aidan, the problem is synchronisation. In an ideal 3 phase network current is 30 degrees out of phase with voltage, which is a necessary function of the way that synchronous machines work. However, when a load is suddenly changed, whether increased or decreased, the current and voltage change their phase relationship. If it moves too far out of whack, the generation plant will stop working and if it isn't protected, it may fail catastrophically.

The protection systems are designed to stop that from happening, as well as to protect all the power conditioning equipment along the way, which includes inductors and capacitors.

The transmission lines are in some ways the least concerning part of the network.

To give you an example of the sort of thing involved, Dreamworld at the Gold Coast has a ride called the Tower of Terror or similar, which uses a linear induction motor to rapidly accelerate a train of cars to about 100km/h in around 2.5s. It has a maximum draw of about 7.5MW and is powered by its own 11kV supply. In order to prevent it from causing catastrophic substation failure Energex installed a huge capacitor bank at the local substation which cost Dreamworld several $million.

Imagine what several hundreds of MW of load taken out in a split second can do...

Craig, the weather bureau was quoted as stating that the wind was
about 85km/hour. That does not mean that the wind that pushed the
towers over was not higher as a local cell I think they call them.
The big blow in 1991 here just missed me by 200 yards and was almost
nothing at my home. So it can be quite common I think that in any storm
one area can get very high winds and other parts quite ordinary.

Australian reports are behind a paywall so not much point in quoting it.
I have just read that AEMO report and it seems clear that increasing
load caused the wind turbines to disconnect although it is possible
that one generator may have changed frequency.
Such an event would I think shut everything very quickly.
Does anyone know if the wind turbines are DC and use choppers to
produce AC ?
It is all very interesting and will I think keep us all arguing for ages!

Bazz, 85km/h is a very high wind speed for turbines, but it may be within the operating range of those in SA, I don't know.

The thing about wind turbines which is different to your roof at home, is that they can be shut down by feathering the blades, thereby minimising the power being delivered to the generators by the blades. If there was a storm approaching, this is standard procedure. I can only assume that there was some imperative overriding the judgement of the engineers in charge and the most likely one is financial: gas turbines cost a lot to run; coal power stations ditto. The operators might have been OK and been regarded as heroes within their firms if the wind hadn't also taken out the distribution network feeding some big loads.

The trick is to minimise the rate of change of both demand and supply.

Aiden said;
That makes a lot more sense, but why would the closure of Hazelwood make any difference?

At present SA relies on feed from Victoria.
They can only get that if Victoria has plenty of spare capacity.
Take Hazelwood out of the picture and the surplice is reduced significantly.
That must increase the risk of problems for SA.
It is all a matter of resilience.

Craig said;
In an ideal 3 phase network current is 30 degrees out of phase with voltage,

That comment staggered me, surely in a resistive load the current
MUST be in phase with the voltage. We go to all sorts of expenditure
with power factor correction to save a bit of money.
Like Dreamworld every fluorescent light has a capacitor installed to correct the power factor.
In a 3 phase system each phase is 120 deg different.
How does 30 deg into the picture ?

You're confusing DC with AC power, Bazz.

In all seriousness, without a comprehensive discussion of "real" vs "complex" power based on a good understanding of phasors, there is simply no point trying to discuss the technicalities.

Suffice to say that power distribution systems are a 3rd year subject in any electrical engineering course, simply because it takes that long to become competent with the maths required.

Craig said;
You're confusing DC with AC power, Bazz.

No I am not. A transmission line is a transmission line no matter what the frequency.
Presume a bank of resistors as the load. Why would the current not be
in phase with the voltage.
I think I have just realised what you are saying, but 30 deg surprises
me, I would have thought 60deg with in a 3 phase system.

Bazz,

It wasn't just the wind turbines that the increasing load caused to disconnect - it was the gas turbines too.

Does "choppers" have another meaning I'm not aware of? Do you mean inverters?
AFAIK in an electrical context, choppers were devices to rapidly interrupt DC so that thyristors could be used (and are obsolete now GTO thyristors are available).

There are two main kinds of wind turbine: synchronous and asynchronous. The former turn at the same speed all the time (and when the wind's not blowing, normally consume a small amount of power to keep them turning as that's cheaper than restarting them). Asynchronous ones run at varying speeds. AIUI synchronous turbines used to be more common but aren't any more. I don't know what kind are used where in SA.

The load in a transmission network is inductive rather than resistive.

Victoria has plenty of spare capacity due to its connections to NSW and Tasmania.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Craig, there's no advantage to shutting wind turbines down preemptively, though with hindsight it would have been sensible to put some gas turbines on hot standby.

I'm surprised a sudden change could stop the generation plant from working. Doesn't that mean a sudden shutdown of the interconnector would have the same effect?

ISTM the real problem is that the rapidly increasing load forced everything into an automatic protective shutdown when it really should have been counteracted by load shedding instead. Could load shedding be implemented sufficiently quickly? If not, to avoid a repeat of the problem, SA will need to install something to give the system more time to react. Asynchronous flywheel storage, maybe?

Yes Aiden, choppers is slang for inverters because that is how they work.
Yes same job as thyristors. Before that they used Ignatrons.
They must be old my Libra dictionary does not know the word.
What are GTO Thyristors ?
I was presuming that the turbines could be DC generators and the
synchronisation could be done from the mains supply and drive the
inverter into sync. Alternatively if they generate AC then the mains
could synchronise the m/c before putting it on line.
I also presume the AC ones have gear boxes.
Should be able to google all that anyway.
I recollect that the railways had mercury vapour, not ignatrons
another name, and they switched both ways so that trains coming
down the mountains could feed power back into the three phase mains.
Very impressive blue glowing light.
Must have been very dirty AC !

Yes Craig, I surrender, 30 deg.
Just been chasing three way rotor graphs.
Bit of revision on Google.

Aidan,

The AEMO (not the Australian) report clearly agreed entirely with the article in the Australian.

Wind power by its nature has far longer and exposed transmission lines than coal or gas power stations, and unsurprisingly it was those lines that failed first, this then overloaded the inter connectors which tripped, and the entire network collapsed.

If the coal power plants been running the inter connector trip may have been averted.

Bazz,

No, it wasn't very dirty AC, though ti may have been very dirty DC. Regenerative braking came early to some DC electrified railways, but AC electrified railways had to wait for thyristor based equipment to be developed.

GTOs are Gate Turn Off thyristors. Normal thyristors, once they're turned on by applying a voltage to the gate, stay on until the voltage across them drops to zero. GTOs can be turned off by applying a reverse polarity voltage to the gate.

____________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,
"If the coal power plants been running the inter connector trip may have been averted."
LOL!

While it's true that most of the gas turbine power stations don't have to rely on long transmission lines (as they're located in the Adelaide area) the coal fired power stations were both at Port Augusta. So they'd have exactly the same problem as the wind turbines.

Aidan,

The coal generator at Port Augusta were not only situated close to load at Port Augusta and Whyalla, but were joined to Adelaide by not one but several large independent power lines.

http://nationalmap.gov.au/renewables/#http://static.aremi.nicta.com.au/cec1.json&activeTabId=Legends

That transmission lines to wind farms tend to be more vulnerable was borne out in the report that clearly shows that the blackout was triggered by the loss of wind generated power.

No need for surrender Bazz, a truce is fine :).

Aidan/Bazz, thanks for that info on GTO thyristors and trains, it was new to me. They're not a device I'm familiar with. These days the big work is on high electron mobility transistors, some of which are now capable of carrying currents in the low thousands of amps, which makes them candidates for use in electronic power transformers, not unlike your computer's switch mode power supply on steroids. They're also useful in HVDC, which is growing fast as the technology improves. It's much more efficient in that role than its AC cousin.

Load shedding would not have been an option in the time frame available. It's got to be well planned and precisely carried out or it can cause problems of its own, not to mention that it's highly charged politically. Like the Brisbane floods, I suspect this will have some people in high places looking to "blame" people who were just doing their jobs to the best of their ability, as we're already seeing from one political operative on this site. Also like the Brisbane floods, I suspect it will turn out that what is needed is better decision making at a high level with regard to critical operating choices. The margins of operating safety may need to be increased a little to ensure similar events don't recur.

Wise people learn from events like this, lesser minds run around in circles looking for someone to take the fall and chattering pointlessly about things they don't understand.

Shadow Minister, you're looking increasingly out of your depth. Neither of your last two posts have had any basis in reality.

Now I know you can read and with all those degrees you claim to have I'm sure you're capable of understanding the words you read, so presumably you are deliberately choosing to be misleading and dishonest.

That is why I said you have a "shabby reputation" in an earlier post.

Sorry Aidan, I neglected to answer your question about synchronisation and generation. I was a little overdramatic in saying the plant could fail, it could certainly lose sync and require time to be brought back to speed though, and possibly propagate the power failure through other parts of the network it serves. Having thought a little more about the SA situation, the biggest threat would have been to the major substations on the interconnector. If the problem was able to propagate back to the generator it would have been exceptionally poor engineering.

You're right to suggest that the interconnector suddenly failing has the same potential. When it's shut down, there is an orderly process of switching excess power to load banks while the generator output is reduced being reduced. There is a fair amount of resiliency in the system, it takes a really catastrophic event like the toppling of a major transmission line to cause the sorts of problems in SA.

CM: Wise people learn from events like this, lesser minds run around in circles looking for someone to take the fall and chattering pointlessly about things they don't understand.

You are so right. Unfortunately it's the Lesser Minds that usually call the shots.
<highly charged politically. Like the Brisbane floods, I suspect this will have some people in high places looking to "blame" people who were just doing their jobs to the best of their ability,>

I once a Military Meme that said, "Always remember the weapon you are supplied with was provided by the lowest bidder." & so it is with all the infrastructure we have in Australia. Substandard Materials, Shortcuts & Minimum Specifications & all done at the cheapest price.

Bazz,

Since I replied to your post I realised that we were slightly at cross purposes; I referred to what happened on the trains, you at the substations. So I guess a bit of further explanation is required:

Regenerative braking in trains isn't always able to feed power back into the grid; sometimes it can only be used to power other trains. In the In the pre thyristor era, that situation was the norm. AFAIK no ignitrons fed the grid; instead the few exceptions used rotating equipment.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Craig,

IGBTs (insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have started to replace GTOs in the rail industry. IGBTs have the advantage of being faster and not needing such sophisticated control equipment, but GTOs still have the significant advantage of being smaller.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

There are indeed multiple transmission lines linking Adelaide and Port Augusta. Three of those that do are the ones that brought the wind power to Adelaide and two of those failed in the storm. The fourth one does not have nay wind farms along its length, but it also failed in the storm.

Thanks for that Aidan, another technology I wasn't aware of, but with familiar operating principles.

Do you work in the rail industry?

The latest news from the still-running enquiry is that the blackout occurred BEFORE the towers toppled. There was too much wind for the windmills, so that meant their 900MW was lost and the unrealistic demand on Victoria sank the boat. The renewable energy disciples probably won't have much to stay about that.

Aidan,

'Outhouse ' polite-speak for 's..thouse', which is unacceptable on OLO, and I don't like using abbreviations. Yes. I do have evidence of the closures, as you would if you were the researcher you claim to be.

Nothing new for today. I hope there is nothing wrong with Graham&Co, or that contributors have been put off by some of the remarks made to them.

Aidan,

At the time of the black out not all lines were down. AEMO report is clear, the network collapsed when the interconnectors openned, at which point Port Augusta was not completely islanded from Adelaide. 200 MW of Base load generation here might very well been enough to keep the interconnectors in play until load shedding could have balanced the load and allowed a controlled ramp down instead of a collapse.

Craig,

I've avoided pointing out your factoids sprinkled with BS because of your minimalistic understanding of electrical engineering and your failure to read the report to which I referred. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Your attacks on me are completely unsubstantiated which I assume is because the subject is beyond your grasp.

To clear up some of your whoppers:

- a 30 degree phase angle would give a power factor of 0.87 and reduce the transmission lines capacity by about 15% while increasing losses by about 30%. The closer the power factor is to unity the better.

- When supply on the SA side dropped below demand, the remaining generators for a short time (seconds) can supply the additional power from the inertia of the turbines, which slows the generators, and eventually the phase angle differs too far between ends of the interconnector and the interconnector trips.

-IGBTs have been in use for the vast majority of AC variable speed drives installed since the 90s, and while there are new technologies being developed, IGBTs will dominate probably dominate for at least another decade, while thyristors and GTOs are predominately used for DC which is fading into obsolescence.

Shadow Minister, of course you must be right, after all, you said so...

On the first point, I suggest you look up how 3 phase systems work before you embarrass yourself further. Alternatively, take my word for it and save yourself the time.

Well done on getting the explanation of why the system tripped right though. Where did you crib that from?

I have no idea whether you're right about the third point, I have already said I wasn't familiar with that technology.

In all seriousness matey, you're not doing your reputation any good, but then, it would be hard to do it much harm at this stage...

Here you go, shadow Minister, a pretty straightforward explanation of balanced 3 phase systems.

http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/electrical/courses/power/notes/three_phase.xml

Craig,

Point 1. Are you trying to look like an imbecile, 'cause you're doing it very well. Try reading this otherwise you have no hope of qualifying as an electrical engineer.

http://www.schneider-electric.com.au/documents/electrical-distribution/en/local/electrical-installation-guide/EIG-L-power-factor-harmonic.pdf

Point 2. I read the report with the timeline, which you clearly didn't otherwise you wouldn't have made such dumbass remarks. I also understand the physics behind it which clearly you don't.

Point 3. An electrical engineer that hasn't heard of IGBTs is like a teenage girl that hasn't heard of iphones.

Hi SM,
I'm pleased you took the trouble to do some research instead of just blurting out the first politically expedient thing that came to mind, as you usually do.

Of course I know that voltage and current are in phase. I should apologise to Bazz, who did catch my lie, but was then bamboozled by some gobbledegook. I was hoping for a little more argument, but my apparently authoritative confidence was enough for him to accept my completely erroneous claim.

Does any of that strike you as familiar?

Hmmm Craig, are you trying to be a technical troll ?
The difference between phases is 120 deg, which was why I suggested
the current phase difference 60 deg. However I forgot the third phase.
Then the pages you referred to had formulae which is now beyond my
comprehension and gave a result of 30 deg.

Anyway, your last offering means that even in technical discussions
you can not be trusted to be honest and from now on anything you post
simply must be ignored.

I'm sorry you feel that way Bazz. I guess I was being a "technical troll" and I'll offer a mea culpa, but I'd like to think it was for a good purpose.

I would hope that you would check whatever anybody says that sounds dodgy, rather than simply "ignoring" it. I do and if I care enough about the subject I'll offer a correction. That's the way knowledge advances. It's not the way that this site has worked for some time though, with group-identity being the main driver.

Anyway, I do apologise for picking on you, there was nothing personal in it. You should have realised something was up when I brushed off your query with the comment about it being very hard to understand. Distribution networks are complex, but phase relationships aren't.

I will always try to give a proper explanation if questioned, or acknowledge if I can't in general.

Lacking knowledge isn't a crime, but claiming knowledge you don't have to support a case that is simply wrong, as is so often the case on sites like this, should be recognised for the dangerous tomfoolery that it is.

Craig,

When you have sunk to the bottom, stop digging. You are all too quick to rubbish the posts of others whilst not bothering to check your facts. I note that you have yet to successfully challenge a single post of mine.

I never post technical or other information without some reading and if I do get it wrong I readily admit it. Similarly, I don't blurt out the first political expendient thing that comes to minds as you so dishonestly suggested. While you might try and baffle people with BS, I don't. I don't have the mendacious reputation that you clearly do.

I have designed, installed and commissioned co generation systems, transmission lines, protection and auto synch controls, (mostly more than a decade ago) and am more than familiar with the stability problems that intermittent supplies cause.

If you want a genuine debate on the merits, I am happy to oblige until then I request that you keep the trolling to a minimum.

SM, your posts aren't often worth fact checking, because you will draw the same conclusions whichever facts are presented. Your argument is derived from advocacy for a predetermined ideological/partisan political position rather than on improving understanding or exploring an issue to arrive at a best solution.

Therefore, there's no point in getting into a slanging match about facts - they're simply not relevant to your arguments.

On the other hand, you love to try to nitpick tiny flaws in other people's factual statements and try to pretend that this invalidates their entire argument, because what you really can't risk is an argument on fundamental principles.

I will take your claims to expertise at face value, but with a grain of salt. Your initial post in this thread was quite good and to a large extent I agree with it, but then you discovered that there was a political witch hunt being launched on renewables (what a shock) and changed your tune accordingly.

If you genuinely understand the problems of grids under large transient load variations, then you have a responsibility not to mislead people by giving them bad information, as you did. That was the point of this exercise.

Anyway, I think my point has been made. Try to do better.

Craig,

I'm primarily a transport planner, but there's a lot of overlap between that and rail engineering.

In railcars and LRVs, IGBTs have, as Shadow said, been dominant since the 1990s. But until the 21st century they weren't regarded as a practical replacement for GTOs in locomotives because the amount of power they could handle was too small, so a lot of them were required in parallel. But improving technology has decreased the number required.

I originally took your phase discrepancy comments to mean that current is 30º out of phase with voltage because the load's inductive not resistive. But now it appears that's complete rubbish, and you may have been clumsily trying to make the point that (voltage and current) between two phases is 30º out of phase with one of the phases. Was that what you were trying to say?

'Tis best to keep trolling to zero, otherwise not only will you get flamed, but your arguments will lose all credibility in the eyes of most readers.
_________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn, I'm well aware what "outhouse" meant, but the "outhouse rat" nickname seems to be used exclusively by you, and it wasn't clear who you were referring to (though I presume you mean Weatherill) or why. What does your (almost certainly fictional) allegation of expecting to get "near the maximum of one Vic power station" have to do with anything?

If the problem originated at the wind farms themselves rather than on the powerlines they connected to, I wouldn't've expected the shutdown to be anywhere near that rapid. And we do know that faults in the powerlines started to occur before the supply droopy. But I guess we're going to have to wait for the final report for a definitive answer.

If you really do have evidence of the closures, perhaps you'd like to post a link to it?
Otherwise I remain skeptical, as earlier this week you were denying the gas plants even existed!

And SA certainly doesn't rely on charity from Victoria for our power. It's business, not charity, and Victoria has similar arrangements with NSW and Tasmania.

Hi Aidan,
Thanks for the info on high power switching technologies. I haven't encountered that in my studies as yet. I've only done one 3rd level power eng course and my main knowledge of transistors, mosfets etc is around signal processing. I was fascinated to go and read up on IGBTs though. It makes a lot of sense to combine a mosfet switching a BJT in a single package. I'd hate to be the one working out how to do the doping of the semi-conductors though.

On the subject of phase relations, I was simply spouting deliberate but superficially plausible sounding rubbish, hoping to illustrate the general point that very little of what is discussed here, despite the huge numbers of links provided, is based on any genuine understanding, especially when the topic becomes remotely technical. The phase difference between line-line and line-neutral being 30 deg meant that anybody superficially skimming a web site would see the number and that would lend credence to the story.

I thought that my rather transparent avoidance of Bazz's question would have prompted further questions. I'm quite sorry for doing that to Bazz, I thought he would have picked up on it. Hopefully he'll forgive me.

In general I try not to troll. If I'm wrong, I'm more than happy to say so and if I have an opinion, I try very hard to explain it so it's crystal clear. If it's speculative, I try to ensure I say so.

The problem here is that there are some who go out of their way to confuse otherwise readily understood topics.

One of my interests is game theory and behavioural science, which are intimately related. A major lesson of GT is that cooperation is the only way to create a positive sum outcome. Some of the rhetorical tactics and strategies I use are derived from GT.

Aidan,

I assure you that my comments about near capacity of one Victorian power plant are fact. Your trouble is that you only look for information that suits your one-sided views.

If you knew what I meant about the outhouse rat expression, and assumed (correctly) that it applied to Jay Wetherill, it seems that your demand for explanation was merely vexatious. I could ask you want you meant by "before the supply DROOPY",but I knew what you meant.

By all means remain sceptical, even if you do use American spelling. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You will never accept that the outage occurred before the pylons collapsed, because it doesn't fit in with your your personal bias. No skin off my nose, mate.

I was very happy to hear that the government intends to make the Labor states realise that decisions on RET should be made for the entire nation, and not by tinpot state premiers vying for the title of Biggest Idiot.

Craig,

Your complete failure to even find one fault in my posts shows up your mendacity. You don't check any facts, let alone mine, and then to claim that facts are irrelevant is the highest order of BS.

I have been stating the same position on the expansion of renewables since I started on this site in 2007, and the reason that it becomes political is because labor and the greens continually hop on the media to BS the public that there no risk when patently there is, as the blackout in SA so eloquently demonstrated.

I am perfectly happy to debate the fundamental principles, but I fear that you won't grasp them.

I support the reduction in greenhouse gases and have done so for years, however, without a viable renewable base load in Aus the only real alternative is nuclear power. The perfect implementation would be to replace Hazelwood with a nuclear power station of equal or greater magnitude.

SM, maintaining a position in the face of changing evidence may be regarded as a desirable trait in political circles, but it doesn't make a strong argument.

The argument around greenhouse reduction is a red herring. It was once a significant extra motivator for change, but these days the economic argument makes it redundant.

I don't hold a particular view in either direction vis a vis nuclear power. It may be a useful intermediate technology, but TBH I can't see any real need to retire coal as backup while renewables are rolled out, given sufficient will to do so rapidly. The use of nuclear power will simply muddy the waters here in Australia. We already have a mature coal and gas industry and as renewables enter the market the demand for them will naturally decline. Within a couple of decades the amount of coal being used will be so small as to be negligible.

In some other parts of the world nuclear undoubtedly makes sense.

Instead of fighting technological progress for short-term political advantage, we should be embracing it as tightly as possible.

Craig
Please excuse me going of topic , but I thought you might be interested to know SM was on a thread regarding TPP and its effect on the Australian economy till four days ago. He left that thread rather suddenly claiming to have a degree in economics, and also to work for a company that had a brand new factory.

So I think you have every reason to question his/her qualification/expertise.

Chris

Craig,

I have yet to see any evidence change, and neither have you pointed out any. In fact your posts are devoid of facts and are entirely political.

Secondly, I don't believe you were lying to prove that no one understood the technology, rather that you displayed your ignorance. That you eschew nuclear for a 100% renewable power mix demonstrates clearly that you lack the mental horsepower to grasp the concepts behind the risks of renewables.

Until a reliable renewable baseload is found, 100% renewable energy will be just a pipe dream.

Lefty,

I abandoned the thread on TPP because having shown that your original claims against the TPP were incorrect the thread veered way off the original topic, and as far as I am concerned has run its course.

The plant I helped build is very high tech with a huge capital cost and low numbers of highly qualified staff whose wages, though high, count for a small proportion of the cost of output. However, due to confidentiality requirements I can go no further.

If you take my lack of interest as a slight I apologise, but perhaps you would care to contribute to this thread?

SM, baseload is a concept that only exists because of the need to keep generators spinning, which is not the case for renewables.

In other words, it will die even more rapidly than coal power with the rise of renewables and with the change to more efficient lighting and industrial technologies.

You're about 10-15 years behind the curve mate.

LEFTY ONE, thanks for that. I've no way of knowing what his qualifications are, of course, since he doesn't have sufficient courage of his convictions to identify himself...

Craig,

And there we have it, the concept that separates the ideologue from the engineer. "baseload is a myth" is the cry of the greenie that wants the inconvenient facts airbrushed from reality.

Base-load is just that, the load that is always there, and always needs to be supplied, and base load generators are the large super efficient machines that keep spinning and making a profit from the very low prices of power off peak. Peak load generators are able to switch on for a few hours to meet the high peak demands, produce power at a much higher cost but sell it at the much higher prices.

Without base load generation you are left with intermittent renewables and essentially peak load back up. The consequences can be seen when the interconnector was down for maintenance, and the renewables didn't produce. The main source of power were the gas peak load generators, and the electricity price shot up to 4x the normal cost for several weeks.

Without cheap baseload to back up the renewables, the alternative is very expensive gas peak load generators or darkness.

SM, you have cause and effect arse backwards, which pretty much sums up your world view in a nutshell.

Craig,

So you are right, and all the electrical engineers are wrong?

Power demand has to be matched by power supply. The problem with renewables is that supply is based on wind and sun and not the demand profile. Germany now gets 30% of its power from renewables, but it varies from 100% to less than 5%, and when it is high, it pays France to shut down its nukes and take power, and when it is low, it pays France a fortune to supply power. The cost of this means that Germany has had to commission new coal fired base load to replace the nukes it closed and its emissions are climbing again, and it has one of the highest power costs in the EU.

Just like SA!

If you don't have base load generation, you need to connect to someone that does.

No, you're wrong and you're no engineer or you'd understand why you're wrong.

Ok Craig,

This is your chance to show why you are right and the rest of the engineering community is wrong.

http://www.aemc.gov.au/getattachment/5615bb69-f5b5-4afe-bc49-6c1a7ea89727/Net-system-load-profile-2012.aspx

Here is a typical scenario,
Given the load profiles given in the above link, the load demand is at peak between 5pm and 8pm, and given that there is little to no solar generation, how will the peak demand be met if there is little to no wind as occurred in SA in July?

You're not real good at reading for comprehension, are you SM?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18569#330712

and from this thread:

"baseload is a concept that only exists because of the need to keep generators spinning, which is not the case for renewables.

In other words, it will die even more rapidly than coal power with the rise of renewables and with the change to more efficient lighting and industrial technologies."

Do try to keep up.

Craig,

What an ideological pile of crap. So you plan to load shed everyone at dinner time because your renewable supply is not available.

You really are a joke. Dinner time is peak demand because people need power to prepare food, shower etc. Efficiency can reduce power demand, by maybe 25% not 99%.

God save us from well meaning idiots.

Nobody said anything about load shedding old fella, that's your idea.

You're not very good at this whole thinking about things, are you?

Craig,

You still haven't managed to find a solution for meeting peak demand when there is no wind or solar.

You little theory has fallen into a heap.

Well, of course, you must be right SM. After all, you said so...

Of course I'm right,

You haven't shown otherwise

Oh, haven't I? Oh dear...

No, not a jot.

All I hear is rhetoric. Not one shred of technical explanation.

You are a liar through and through.

Never mind, perhaps you can ask someone to explain it to you offline.

Come on you two, this is getting boring.

You noticed that too, Jayb?

Unfortunately, the standards of behaviour of a couple of those on this site who are capable of better are such that things always become "boring".

Craig,

Unfortunately you've effectively shot yourself in the mouth with your deliberately false claim. There's no point your continuing on this thread.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

The need for dedicated baseload generators is a myth, as there is no reason why any of our power supply has to come from constant output sources. As long as we have the infrastructure to supply the peak load, we'll automatically be able to supply the base load. And when the interconnector was down for maintenance, the peakload generators charged more not because they're so much more expensive to run, but because lack of competition allowed them to get away with it.

The question of nuclear v renewables is primarily an economic one, and there's no definitive answer. Due to Australia's latitude and low population density, we're much better suited to renewables than Germany is. But if we do opt for nuclear, the LaTrobe Valley is a good place to put it.

At the moment the existing gas generators can be used when there's no wind or solar. If we do go to 100% renewables, we'll probably need something else (though not necessarily, as it is technically possible to synthesise gas). But right now that's moot, as most of Australia could easily double its renewables output without running into that problem.

ttbn,

If you have proof that it's fact, why don't you post a link to verify it? Then we'll be able to judge its accuracy. I've a strong suspicion you're basing your opinion on the old plan to mothball one of the Torrens Island power stations, even though that plan was abandoned when the Port Augusta power stations closed.

I assure you my demand for explanation was not vexatious (the only thing vexatious appears to be your calling Weatherill an outhouse rat). The post I was responding to contained some apparent non sequiters, so I ask again: What does your (almost certainly fictional) allegation of expecting to get "near the maximum of one Vic power station" have to do with anything?

I apologise for the typo and autocorrect error that turned "dropped" into "droopy".

Who is it you are trying to convince?

This has got nothing to do with my personal bias, and claiming it does only highlights your personal bias. We know that damage to the lines occurred before the outage, and when I posted what I did, it looked more likely that the line damage was the cause of the supply drop. Since then there's been a report that there was a software problem with the wind farms, so it looks like they may be to blame after all, though due to an easily fixable control problem rather than any intrinsic factor.

Aidan,

It is theoretically possible to build a renewable energy system backed up with a huge number of peak load generators in the same way as it is theoretically possible to maintain a colony on the moon, but just as stupidly expensive and risky.

Just for a moment consider that the model of an island country where demand is a constant 10 terawatts and supplied only with wind, solar and standby gas generation.

1) Given that solar energy is not available after dark, for 3/4 of the day the only sources of power would be wind and gas.
2) Given the average output of wind power of 30%, one would then need to build in the region of 33 terawatts of wind generation to provide an average of 10 terawatts of generation. This would however, still require back up at some level for 50% of the time.
3) For low wind days, it would also require the construction of roughly 9 terawatts (there will always be some wind, but stationary turbines consume net power) of gas back up generation 1/3rd of which would only operate for less than 100hrs a year.
4) When the solar and wind generation is above demand, the generators need to feathered as there is no where to store the energy.
5) The life span of wind power is about 20yrs, so a continual re construction of about 1.6 terawatts or 1000 wind turbines a year is required.
6) Even under this model the gas generation provides at least 10 percent of total generation.

The maintenance and ongoing capital costs provide electricity at roughly 10 times the cost presently paid, and about 5 times the cost of nuclear generation.

Of course the costs per MWhr drop dramatically if the % renewable drops say to 80% or if peak generation such biofuels or hydro are available, or practises such as load shifting are employed, but experience so far is that 30% is the limit one can rely on renewables before one either has export surplus power or feather the wind generators.

Feel free to debate the model

Interesting SM,
Taking into account the need for 1000 new generators every year I just
wonder what the ERoEI of the system would be ?
Very poor I suspect.
Interestingly I had the feeling that the cost would follow an
exponential like graph as the system approached 100% at which the
cost would be an infinite number of dollars.

As an aside some propose batteries but it has been suggested that
if all the world's car batteries and mobile phone batteries plus
all the world's other batteries were connected up they would supply
the world's electricity for 9 seconds !
Hhmmm

Not at all, Aidan. I made the claim deliberately with a specific intent and made the fact known when it was challenged.

I'm sorry if you don't like that, just as I'm sorry that Bazz was offended, but I think the point was serious enough to warrant it. People who are blathering on about things they don't know anything about other than what a brief reading of wikipedia filtered through their politically-tinted glasses tells them are those who you should be chastising.

This has been a worthwhile discussion, but now is the time to stop the blame game and think of the one thing that has arisen: that is, irrespective of your thoughts on RET's, they are asynchronous in times of emergency, and their introduction, if necessary at all, needs to be revised, urgently. The willy nilly drive of politically-driven state governments must stop, and the whole thing handed over to a national body. One of the few good ideas to come from Malcolm Turnbull.

You realize that you two have opposite ends of the same stick. Don't you?

Bazz,
What's being missed in all the discussion of this topic is that the technology is improving so rapidly.

At present silicon is the solar PV model of choice because it has the highest energy density and the lowest cost. However, newer technologies, especially those based on perovskites and various forms of organics will supplant it during the course of the next generation or two of development. Then there are other technologies, such as dye-sensitised cells (in which Australia is a world leader) which are useful in applications that Si can't be applied to.

The same thing applies to storage technologies and to demand side technologies. On the demand side, the UK has already shut down some generation capacity because demand has reduced as a result of more efficient lighting and display technologies. My 24" LED/LCD monitor uses 30W max; an old 17" CRT monitor I have lying around uses 200. My house has LED lamps throughout that each use about 5-9W, compared to the 15-23W of the CFLs they replaced a year or so ago and the 60-100W of the incandescents they replaced about 3 years before that. My power bill has been almost constant for the past 5 years despite rising unit cost.

Any extrapolation to future situations has to include those developmental factors which change the whole picture. What I:'m hearing here is the same argument that was used to try to stop deployment of the automobile: building roads will ruin us; they're noisy and smelly and break down; horses are a proven technology that can never be replaced; cars cost too much; etc, etc, etc.

ttbn,
I agree that the blame game must stop.

Jayb,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

You might also check out the theory of martingales.

Craig,
"I made the claim deliberately with a specific intent and made the fact known when it was challenged."
Deliberately or not, you've burned your own credibility. And you failed to make your intention known as soon as you were challenged.

____________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

"Just for a moment consider that the model of an island country where demand is a constant 10 terawatts and supplied only with wind, solar and standby gas generation."
OK, but remember a constant demand is itself not a realistic scenario, 10 terawatts is enormous, and nowhere with a demand that big would have no pumped storage.

1) Solar thermal with molten salt storage could provide power after dark.
2) Because fo that ther'd be no need to provide quite so much wind power capacity.
3) Stationary turbines don't consume much power. And saying it would require the construction of that much gas capacity assumes there's none here already.
4) An alternative is to put the excess eanergy to productive use.
5) 20 years is an extremely pessimistic estimate for average wind turbine life. And if one does fail within that timespan, rebuilding it's a lot cheaper and quicker than building one from scratch.
6) Not if solar thermal with molten salt storage is used.

Aidan,
Perhaps you might tell me what else I've said that you think lacks credibility? I'm always keen to learn.

Craig, both you & Shadow are right, there is nothing wrong with either argument. Both arguments are different sides of the same coin.

I will say though, Coal fired Power stations can live with out renewables but not visa versa. I believe that getting the mix right is a job for the experts in the Heavy Electricity Field. The Politicians should stay right out of it & just give the nod when they have come up with the best possible solution without bickering. (Like that will ever happen) Some things are well above Politics & this is one of the most important.

Hi Jayb,
of course, that's the point I've been trying to make.

Whether coal is currently viable isn't at issue, what matters is planning for the future and it is clear that across the world hardnosed people who are doing that have come to the conclusion that we must move to a non-fossil fuel energy economy.

Craig Mimm: hardnosed people who are doing that have come to the conclusion that we must move to a non-fossil fuel energy economy.

I have no problem with that & I agree with the move. Unfortunately the World is still at the Model T Ford stage of development & the Greenies think we are at the Tesla stage. There-in lies the problem.

There are a lot of factors to consider apart from the Electrical side of the debate into renewables. The Greenies want to shut down every Coalmine in the World "NOW" & it can't be done. I that happened the entire world economy would cease within 6 months or less. The Greenies worry about people in 3rd. World Countries starving. The entire World would be starving. Of course, naturally, it wouldn't be the Greenies fault.

There is a lot of Technological progress needed & Money needs to be poured into Research & Development, not only from the Universities but from Private Enterprise & Amateurs. It's usually Amateurs that usually come up with the goods that work, but their efforts are usually dismissed by the Universities because of jealously & they might miss out on funding.

Remember it was Amateurs that built the first heaver than air aircraft when Experts said it could never happen.

Hi Jayb,
The problem is that the discussion, like so many discussions in which politics becomes involved, has been turned into a debate. That's no surprise, very few politicians have not grown up with debating as a part of their education.

In a debate, the question asked is deliberately narrow and the purpose is to make points that the opponent cannot easily counter within the terms of the question or if that can't be achieved, to try to discredit the opponent using rhetorical tactics. A few of those tactics have been illustrated in this thread. The purpose of a debate is not to arrive at a solution to a problem, having regard to a broad range of possible inputs and outputs, it is to produce a "winner" and a "loser".

We need more discussions and fewer debates about a whole range of things.

The drum is from someone who knows the operators, and it was a deliberate
decision to disconnect the wind turbines to protect them.

Aidan,

That was a typo, as the calculation was based on 10 gigawatts. (note that Aus demand is 35GW) The calculation was based on developed existing technologies such as solar PV gas back up.

Pump storage is a wonderful peak clipping technology that widely used in the EU, and a fine example is the Snowy Mountains scheme. However, it does require hilly terrain and dams close by that are at significantly different heights, which is very limited in Aus. Note the Franklin dam hydro scheme was blocked by the greens.

1) Solar thermal CSP is an emerging technology but presently is struggling to compete against solar PV.
-CSP with storage has a few trial sites, but the costs of generation (without subsidies) is close to $400 per MWhr or about 4x wind power 5x gas, and has a way to go before becoming commercially viable,
2) Wind is far cheaper (and nuclear about the same price as wind)
3) They still consume some power, and much more gas back up would be needed.
4) Doing what? What can run on occasional power for a couple of times a week?
5) 20 years is standard for that type of rotating equipment. The most optimistic don't go past 25yrs, and many fail before that. There are over 100 000 obsolete turbines that have been abandoned. Rebuilds usually only reuse part of the foundation.
6) See 1)

Replacing large coal fired stations with Nuclear would be the cheapest, quickest, safest, and most reliable.

Large scale heavy industries such as the one I work for buy power at about 7c/kWhr (incl generation and distribution) and an increase to say 20c/kWhr would wipe out any profits and close not only our new highly efficient plant, but entire industries.

Ah, now I begin to understand your obsession with baseload, Shadow Minister, you're a huckster for a firm that is subsisised by generation providers (at the cost of all other users) to artificially maintain loads at a high level during non-peak times. Rio, perhaps, or is it BHP Billiton? Perhaps its GJames Aluminium; it can't be Comalco, the Geelong smelter is history.

Why didn't you say so earlier?

I ran a business that consumed quite a lot of power - we paid around $1000 a month. Of course, that was at a rate of 23 cents per kWh in 2011, that had increased year on year every year from a rate of 12.9c IIRC in 2005. I currently pay about 27c per kWh. It must be nice to be in a protected industry...

I'm sure you must have references to support your claim, perhaps you might be good enough to provide them. After all, I went to the trouble of downloading a document to email to you (which you didn't thank me for, unsurprisingly).

For those who are still reading, these are the standing offer prices for business from Energy Australia

https://secure.energyaustralia.com.au/EnergyPriceFactSheets/Docs/EPFS/E_B_Q_BSOT_EX_29-09-2016.pdf

Anyone is welcome to check that the best offered rate is 15.4c/kWh for a dedicated HV circuit (paid for by the customer at time of installation) from the substation.

For the majority of those in business the off-peak prices are approximately 22c/kWh, plus supply charges. Peak prices range up from 26.5c +/kWh

Craig,

The plant I work at pays about $1.3m per month and consumes 25 MW 24/7, imports power at 33kV and , and is not subsidized one iota. The large smelters which load manage get contract prices as low as 2c/kWhr to balance the load.

The smaller the amount of power you use, the greater the portion the distribution cost is. The present average generation cost is less than 5c/kWhr and domestic consumers pay 90% as distribution costs.

So if you increase electricity costs to 20c/kWhr you would happily add $2.5m /month or $30m p.a. to our operating costs. Aus already has one of the highest power costs in the world. Compare that to South africa where the cost for large business is less than 1c /kWhr and you should get some idea of the competition.

Of course it's subsidised - any discount to encourage higher levels of consumption is a subsidy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

The fact that your industry has a sunk cost in its investment in whatever technology it currently uses does not entitle it to expect the rest of us to pay for it to make higher profits. If the firm cannot make a profit at realistic prices for its inputs, it must look to change its business model or close. This is the reality of a competitive market.

Your argument about distribution is sound, but limited by its application to a rapidly obsolescing centralised generation model. A broadly decentralised model in which generation occurs as close to use as possible is inherently more efficient and reduces costs of distribution. The only reason for centralised generation is that at the time the current power models were put in place the only useful form of power generation was coal and the most efficient way to produce power from coal is to put the generators next to the mines.

As the paper I sent to you clearly demonstrates, that is no longer the case.

This report from the US EIA is instructive as to the future

http://www.eia.gov/conference/2013/pdf/presentations/namovicz.pdf

It's especially useful because unlike the simplistic self-serving analyses that hucksters try to pass off, it includes opportunity costs and projected future changes in both demand and generation technology.

Craig what twaddle,

From your link "A subsidy is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (or institution, business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy."

A bulk discount is a reflection of the lower costs of delivering power to big consumers on the typical user pays basis. The generators and distributors are still making a profit, and the company is busy lining the taxpayers pockets not the other way around. Unless you consider Kelloggs is subsidizing your purchase of a jumbo carton of cornflakes.

Secondly distribution is not an ideology, it is always a least cost model, and whilst minimizing distribution distance is a priority, so is the source of the generating power, the land etc, and transporting power via wires is generally cheaper than transporting coal, biofuel etc. Building Concentrated solar plant are better built in low rainfall areas, wind turbines in high wind areas etc, so the science behind the distribution has not changed one iota.

Yes, SM, and the "economic and social policy" that is being encouraged is the maintenance of a higher baseload.

There are no "lower costs of delivering power to big consumers", the unit costs are exactly the same, unless the consumer of the power is directly adjacent to the generator. In some cases, especially where the big consumer has large reactive loads, the unit cost of supply may be considerably higher than for consumer delivery. The generation provider provides power more cheaply to users who can guarantee to spread their consumption across the full diurnal cycle because it at least gets some revenue from the power it has to produce anyway and the alternative is to waste it to load banks. Transitioning to a renewables based model does away with that and, of course, to the subsidies that some businesses have come to think are theirs to demand as of right.

I'm not sure what you think ideology has to do with anything, this is a technical discussion, or at least, on my side it is, I'm not sure what you think you're talking about. You seem to be in furious agreement with me as to the way the distribution model works, so I guess that's something to be thankful for.

Craig,

What unmitigated bollocks. I have worked in several large industrial plants all of them a long way from the generation, not one of which was subsidised and all had similar rates.

The 2x 33kV lines (which we paid for) has nearly zero maintenance, compared to the roughly 100 000 homes that would require a vast network of HV and LV lines. The costs of supply are tiny fraction, and yes the 24hr demand does mean cheaper prices.

However the net result is that tripling our energy cost for large industries would wipe them out.

Jabber, jabber, jabber...

More of the same from a technoramus.

Give him away, SM he has demonstrated that he is a Tom head.

Bazz, all you need to do is ask if you don't understand something, although the explanation I've offered so far is pretty straightforward. What is it you need clarified?

I realise I hurt your feelings earlier, but I've had the grace to apologise. It's a shame you haven't had the grace to accept, but such is life, it's up to you.

Silly name-calling is no substitute for a reasoned discussion. I taught my kids that when they were about 5.

Craig, I wasn't offended, it was just one of those things.
It was not all that important.
It is surprising this whole discussion has gone so long.
Incidentally the wind farms were shut down by the operators.
Detailed reason not yet available.

Thanks for that, Bazz, I'm glad you've not taken it personally.

I'm not surprised the wind farms were shut down, what surprises me is that it wasn't done earlier. I don't know about the situation in SA, but here in Qld there are weather monitoring stations dotted all about the place and the BoM has an excellent doppler radar facility with 100+km range, so there's plenty of warning for those who care to look.

I can only assume there was a desire to maximise revenues that influenced the operators to push the envelope.

If the towers hadn't blown down they would no doubt have got away with it.

As an aside, what's a "Tom head"?