Solar Panels, Perth Australia
By Jo Nova
The government plays Santa Claus, but poor people paid for the “free” electricity a long time ago
It’s a very socialist solution to a socialist problem. Having screwed the free market, the government has to take desperate measures to limit the damage being done by the solar death spiral. The more solar panels we install, the more expensive electricity gets, which forces more people to install solar panels, etc and so on until “poof” we turn into Zimbabwe.
Last year, Jeff Dimery, the head of Alinta claimed that the “the rooftop solar glut” was so bad, the renewables transition itself had stalled. The solar surge in Australia has destroyed the profit margin for reliable generators. But it also killed the business case for new solar installations, and wind turbine parks too. With the national market bleeding negative prices at lunchtime, most generators would have to pay real money if they generate at lunchtime, but the household solar owners don’t. This created the perverse incentive where the only escape for households from rising electricity prices was to put solar panels on the roof. We’re reached the point where two thirds of Australia was subsidizing the other third to buy solar power. Like a dragon that eats it’s own tail, it couldn’t go on forever.
Since solar panels were always subsidized, we know they were not economic to install. They were never really cheaper than mass coal fired power — not on a 24 hour system. So we’re added 4 million inefficient generators that wouldn’t have been installed without the subsidy, and we’ve paid the subsidy too. Now we’re putting bandaids on top of bandaids so we can pretend that it will get cheaper, maybe, one day.
“Free” electricity will slow solar sales, increase batteries, shift the load, and get more people on smartmeters
Within the confines of a crazy grid, it makes sense. It also makes the government look like heroes, until the people realize they were tricked.
The Labor Government wants to force the retailers to give some customers three free hours in the middle of the day. (Those with smartmeters, and in certain areas). They’re hoping:
1/ This will reduce new sales of rooftop solar panels. Fewer people will want to pay thousands to install solar panels when their best working hours are already free. This is good for a grid overflowing with energy at noon. It’s bad news though for solar panel installers, and will leave a nasty taste in the mouths of people who are still paying off their solar panels.
2/ It will increase battery sales. People who can charge their batteries free may find it appealing to sell electricity back to the grid at peak prices at 6pm, or to just avoid the evening price spikes themselves. This assumes that batteries are still subsidized, which means they still don’t make sense, and the country is still be getting poorer, but it will keep the Labor government out of hot water a bit longer.
3/ It will shift demand to noon (somewhat) to match the sun. Grid managers will be hoping that they can shift some demand from breakfast and dinner to the middle of the day. The new market intervention gives an incentive to people to spend hours figuring out how to rearrange their lives to match the “free” energy. It will help retirees who are at home and can do their washing and make their pot roast at lunchtime. But dual income families struggling to make ends meet won’t be home to use the free gift they paid for. It will take some effort to reprogram their hot water systems, and set their air conditioners and washing machines to run at noon while no one is home. They may not bother. It won’t help those who need to charge their electric car at night.
4/ It will increase the uptake of smart meters (not that people have much choice in that). But Big Government loves that control. It means they can turn off poor people’s air-conditioners on the hottest days of the year.
As an unwanted side effect retailers may have to charge more during the rest of the day. Like all government finagling, it will raise prices in ways the government didn’t see coming.
There is no free lunch — the poor already paid for a share in these solar panels
For years the unwashed masses have been quietly forced to pay for wealthier people to install solar panels in Australia. It was all so well disguised. Solar installers would sell panels below their real cost and then collect the SRES carbon credits as a rebate the cover the difference. But on the other end of that deal, electricity consumers paid for those carbon credits as an unlisted extra on top of their rapidly rising bills. This charge hit the poor who didn’t have solar panels harder than those who could afford them. It means, then that part of the cost of installation of solar panels was paid for by neighbors who got nothing in return.
Solar Panels Perth Australia
It makes sense in Renewable Crash Test Dummy Land
At the moment solar power is being wasted in the middle of the day, so this is an improvement in a system overloaded with generators that are supposed to make it rain in 2100 AD and which no one would have bought otherwise.
Right now, the government doesn’t want to tell Australians that don’t have solar that they can’t install it (“you missed the boat”). They don’t want to tell people with solar panels to pay back the subsidies and rebates to help reduce electricity prices (“We said it would be cheap, but it isn’t”).
The government needs a lot of batteries to keep the renewable fantasy alive a bit longer, but they can’t afford them, so they need some carrot-and-stick-tricks to get Australians to do it for them. Thus we arrive at the “three free hours of electricity” plan that was suddenly announced this week in a move that shocked the retailers.
If it becomes a reality…i will be instslling a heap of subsidised batteries, charging them during the free 3 hour power period, and then running my house from an inverter for the next 21 hours !
….but somehow i forsee some conditions being imposed to make that impratical or impossible !
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“People who can charge their batteries free may find it appealing to sell electricity back to the grid at peak prices at 6pm”
Danger Will Robinson. So it is intended that 300,000 households draw down on the grid to charge their batteries at once. What might happen to all those very long delivery time transformers?
The grid will become uneconomic in the next two years but it will surely fail completely long before its too expensive to be connected.
No power => No business => No taxes => No government services => No country
Looks like we are “saved”.
Can’t see a way out of this. Its cooked in by idiots.
Government has destroyed us.
Have they sold us to China or are we stupid?
Treason or utter incompetence & greed.
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And what are the implications exactly of all those batteries putting say 2-3kW each, into local consumer 240 volt networks And trying to make it back up through the 33kV distributor sub stations , on to the 300+kV grid transmission lines for State and National usage.?
Are those existing systems capable of dual direction energy transfer, ..or is there another upgrade/ spend necessary ?
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“Have they sold us to China or are we stupid?”
Sadly there are many thousands of people who do indeed appear to be stupid and will see this latest government announcement as a good thing, just like there are many thousands who seem to think that since “they” have a solar system saving them some money on their electricity bill, it can surely work to run the entire grid / country that way.
The biggest issue is most of these clueless individuals appear to be on the business social network LinkedIn with large audiences/followers and with titles like “Energy Expert” or CEO of some “renewables” grifting company applauding these announcements from Chris Bowen and the many grifter departments like “Smart Energy Council” etc.
The real issue is a lack of understanding of the grid, the biased and corrupted electricity market and the destruction these decisions are creating for current and future Australians.
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Geoff asks, “Treason or utter incompetence & greed.”
The answer is “Yes”.
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net zero is treason
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Network providers will just give free power for 3 hours and increase the price for the other 21 hours.
Utterly bizarre that clown Caro thinks physics and chemistry are on the side of the Climate Cult:
Only the truly ignorant could be so smug.
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Actually Blackout Bowen is a slow learner just following trends.
Similar “free power periods” have been avalable for some time, but only in cerain areas.
I just wonder why he didnt simply adjust the “Off Peak” times and rates under the Base Offer system ?
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Fiat Lux!
Let there be light!
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Even though a perverse incentive, I think I will take up the battery offer if made as I can’t get anyone to install solar for a reasonable price at my house because the roof is at 45 degrees and the house is three stories tall. I am in Melbournistan so already have a smart meter. I will install the battery as far from the house as possible.
Obviously I would rather run my house on coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro power but if that is not allowed, available or too expensive (due to government policy), I might as well run it on neighbours’ home-generated solar.
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There is still a huge glut of solar. And a lot of wasted capacity. Solar panels age but do not wear out. So having them on a roof doing nothing is wasteful.
So far rooftop has mostly impacted the demand accessible for grid solar because they produce at the same time. Installing batteries to homes will further increase the loss of demand that can be met by wind generators. The batteries will not have a huge impact on coal generators. They remain the essential source of electricity and the grid will crash without them. Adding more gas to replace coal accelerates the economic demise.
The current NEM bidding rules lock in de-industrialisation. Your purchase of a battery will only hasten that realisation. And the sooner it gets realised, the sooner it gets changed.
Matt Canavan has not called out the climate scam but he does realise that you need to have your best batter batting. His analogy was coal is the Adam Gilchrist of the power generators. The game winner should be first out of the sheds. Not left in the sheds until the game is lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBUm7bHaLRs
6 minutes in for the Gilchrist analogy.
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Back in the day when Australia was efficiently and cheaply run by mostly coal power stations, “surplus” power was used to perform useful tasks such as heating hot water at cheap off-peak rates and running aluminium smelters. This enabled the power stations to run at maximum load.
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There were over 200 premature deaths every year due to pollution from Victoria’s coal-fired power stations. The Hazelwood fire killed 11 people from smoke exposure. The estimated annual cost in Australia from coal is $2.4 billion every year due to higher rates of childhood asthma, heart and lung disease, and some cancers with premature deaths estimated at 785 per year.
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The Latrobe Valley coal plants are still there burning coal so no longer an issue I gather.
Low rank coal and peat fires have been around since Adam was in sorts.
And Australia could not do without essential electricity from coal fired plants,
I gather you or your parents home, wherever you live, does not have a grid connection. If you do then you are using coal power and always will while you live in Australia.
Basically what it gets down to its that you are happy for kidies in China to have health issues from burning coal because they do not have the particulate standards of Australian coal fired plants but we get all solar panels and wind turbines from China made from buring coal.
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Simon, and what year was that premature-deaths study done, and was it before they cleaned up the coal plants, or was it a recent study where they pretend that warming is awful and CO2 is the cause of temperature changes and ignore all the benefits and lives saved from people raising indoor room temperature in winter, and using air conditioners in summer?
How many Congolese kids die mining cobalt, or don’t you care? How many Chinese prisoners die from pollution in Xingjiang making your solar panels? Don’t know? Because you don’t give a damn?
How many people did coal burning save because wood fires made the air in London a travesty of pollution? What cleared the smog, – coal did.
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Peer reviewed literature and government sources:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351225179_Requirements_to_substantially_better_control_air_pollution_emissions_from_coal-fired_power_stations_in_Australia
https://environmentvictoria.org.au/yallourns-toxic-air-pollution-a-danger-to-health/
https://environmentvictoria.org.au/hazelwood-faqs/
https://envirojustice.org.au/press-release/coal-fired-power-stations-top-biggest-polluter-list-again-as-toxic-emissions-from-oldest-power-stations-soar-national-pollutant-inventory
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Nice collection of faked up reports that dont use real evidence. Nice group of pals to do buddy buddy peer reviews in the Greenslime academic pigstys.
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As you probably know China aside from its focus on Thorium has developed a new generation of efficient coal power stations that apparently have emission standards that are better that CCGT power plants. Additionally, over a hundred coal plants have been converted to gas to adhere to emission standards and leverage existing generating assets rather than demolish the assets as has been the case in the UK and Germany.
https://www.powermag.com/chinas-pingshan-phase-ii-sets-new-bar-as-worlds-most-efficient-coal-power-plant/
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Care to provide proof that the deaths were 100% linked to the coal power station? This furphy has been raised many times before. But the local health experts have pointed out that the region has many other issues that impact the region’s health. So unless you have positive proof, it would seem alarmist to make this very dubious claim.
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Guesstimates, assertions and unsupported conjecture.
Of course we ignore child and slave labour content of our favoured toys.
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You have the number of premature deaths from cancer all wrong. And I’m pretty sure the EMF-induced premature deaths due to solar inverters mounted on walls adjacent to bedrooms and additional transmission lines to wind farms has now been estimated at 785.63 per year. Uncited attribution research is so amazing – you can say any ol’ sh-eye-t these days and no one need believe a word you say. Tell me I am wrong.
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Simon, what a load of crap, have you lived near a coal fired power station? I doubt it, there would be more risk of poor air quality in our cites, but this too is greatly reduced thanks to major advancements in automotive emissions reductions.
I lived in the Latrobe Valley for 4-5 years in the early 90’s and my first 27 years in Greater Gippsland area and I doubt asthma rates or other health disease rates are any higher there than anywhere else in the state, if the rates are higher it would be more due to poor lifestyle and eating habits than the air quality.
The stench from the Maryvale paper mill was a much more noticeable “pollutant” than any emissions from the 3 power stations and it’s also closed down now due to our uncompetitive economic industrial environment.
I’ve also worked in an open cut black coal mine and processing plant for 15 years in Qld and the mandatory 10 years lung x-rays showed no evidence of black lung despite working in very dusty conditions at times.
You figures are rubbish , no doubt from some leftist think tank (an oxymoron if there was ever one).
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Imagine…more “free stuff”…
What could possibly go wrong?
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We’re going to go broke on free stuff.
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That’s how Mamdani won the New York election. We will soon see “what could possibly go wrong”.
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I can be an optimist at times.
I like to think that nobody believes that anything is free, especially when it’s coming from the government.
However a lot of the media seem to think it is free. Are they gullible, stupid, lazy or maybe the PR firm for the government?
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It’s now two+ generations, people old enough to now vote, of the dumbing down of the education system after the Left started to infiltrate it from the late 1960’s.
Yes, they really are stupid enough to believe in “free stuff”.
Nothing is truly free, not even freedom itself which has to be constantly fought for otherwise we lose it as most thinking people in the West may have observed.
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David, the NYC Mayoral election just shouts out your above comment re the dumbed down generations 100%.
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Mamdani says he is going to introduce FREE government run grocery stores amongst lots of other free stuff.
There are plenty of clowns in voter land who believe this is a viable plan.
It makes me wonder whether the voters stopped their education at primary school level.
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Government supermarket opens
Commercial supermarkets close
Government supermarkets close, because government
Everyone wails food desert and blames the commercials for leaving.
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Yep.
They’ll also blame Orange Man Bad as well though.
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The voters who went on to higher education got more of the rot pumped into them.
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It makes me wonder whether the voters stopped their education at primary school level.
Much more likely that they have never visited any (rural) areas were farms are actually producing food…
Or a farmers’ market where unprocessed food is sold.
Or even a cannery (now big freezers) where the food is converted into something a grocery store can sell.
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Lots of stuff is free – air to breathe and sunshine to warm are the ones I appreciate most. Birds chirping, the freshness after rain and so on.
We have a few fruit trees. Some years they produce really well. We can only eat and store so much. We often give excess to neighbours rather than returning it to compost. There is no extra effort involved and you get a chat and earn good will.
I have solar panels on my roof and, before my battery went in, there were many days when the street voltage limited my solar production. I have a neighbour who has massive trees blocking his northern aspect. He can afford solar/battery but the solar would be useless. If he installs a battery, he will use neighbours’ solar that would not even be produced if he was not storing the output. The solar panels or inverter are not going to wear out by making more electricity. On the other hand, battery life is affected by cycle frequency and depth.
Rooftop solar with battery is borderline economic – certainly in South Australia. With the current state of coal generators, it provides a bridge to a sensible grid.
The problem with the grid is not rooftop solar with battery. It is the bidding system and subsidies that result in coal plants being under-utilised. They have almost fixed cost so the grid unit price just goes up for essential generators because they have to recover their costs or go out of business and that will crash the grid.
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If they think a man can be a woman or visa versa.
they can believe in free stuff and the disinterested
benevolence of government.
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Free stuff. In the USA, the government is shut down; parts thereof, because some people want continuation of free stuff – – especially health care and food. We are currently indebted at $300,000 per household, $111,600 per person and that’s increasing rapidly. I’ve always paid my bills on time, but on this, I think not.
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Federal and state elections in the last 4-5 years show far too many believe in “free” stuff from our governments.
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So far I’ve got enough money to pay my electrical account and more than enough money to live on.
My age doesn’t help but I could think about a well sited battery away from my house if I wanted to change in the future.
I just hope the Liberals wake up and quickly ditch their net zero fantasy and then take up the fight against the unscientific Labor, Greens and Teals loonies.
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No point hoping for LNP they are a lost cause on the climate scam. Way too much baggage to back out of it.
Vote One Nation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogtq3UgUXLM
Malcolm Roberts in the only present politician calling out the climate scam. All sensible Australians should vote for One Nation.
When was the last time their ABC interviewed Malcolm Roberts? This is the political party in Australia that has the fastest growing support in the country and globally their ABC did not even report that Trump hosted Pauline at Mar a Lago last week.
Their ABC is a far left propaganda machine. Their only interest is keeping their fat salaries. Smug incompetent reporters that make me want to throw up.
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Joanne mentions this:(my bolding here)
Three free hours in the middle of the day.
You know ….. when everyone is at home.
Umm! Wait a minute!
Aren’t they all at work and school?
And isn’t Peak Power consumption that hour or two after 5.30PM? (you know ….. when EVERYONE ….. IS actually at home!)
Tony.
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Far too much sense in that comment Tony…………!
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During summer, dogs will love it. Their owners can leave their A/C on for their beloved pets while they’re at work or school. Then, I suppose all those WFH employees may benefit as well. The rest of us, bad luck.
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oh,you have pets, do you? Can’t be having that.
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In an ideal world, all the solar excess would be stored and would be made available for sale to the consumer as it is required. Ultimately, the whole demand being met by the solar panels and the battery storage.
Now here’s the problem.
Household batteries are small and discrete, they are managed by people who have varying degrees of competence. It is unlikely that the distributed batteries would be connected to provide power back to the grid based on grid demand. This would require the battery to be under the control of external agencies. The last time I checked, when an asset was owned by one party, (the home owner), but operated by a second, (grid operator), with no skin in the game, then the asset quickly became damaged, broken or rendered inoperable. The asset fails before it’s time and no replacement is provided now that the grants have run out. At best this battery scheme will put the real crunch back by 5 years.
All this will do is drive up prices. Regardless of how much free energy that the grid provides at lunchtime, there will always be a need for supply at night and during the morning and evening peaks. And this demand must be regulated and stable, undertaken by large thermal power stations, (and similar). If you have to pay for these power stations, (for their stability provision) but now the domestic consumer is no longer paying a power bill then only those without a battery including industry will have to pay. Less and less people paying for all that spinning reserve. How long before that small cohort pulls out of the game? For industry, being too big for batteries, they simply close.
The long term outcome of free power to the domestic market is no employers. If that’s the solution, then what was the problem?
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Maybe that’s all part of the plan?
Bowen’s “merely” stupid but the Dark Forces (Deep State) who tell him what to think and do aren’t.
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The only thing that has to change is for a battery without solar to be set to charge from 11am to 2pm. My heat pump hot water already does that. So it stores solar energy when the solar panels are usually producing and the energy is delivered mostly late at night.
The batteries do not have to be under control of the grid. A timer to charge them from the grid – that might need a software change. Still restricted to prevent export from the battery as my battery already is. So charging from the grid 11am to 3pm and discharging only to the property 3pm to 11am next day.
Those who really want to benefit from this will need a good size inverter and a battery able to provide power for oven, toaster, jug and washing machine at the same time. Maybe air-conditiuoning as well. So the battery systems will gradually adapt to this new incentive.
It will not make grid power cheaper. In fact it will make it more expensive under the existing NEM bidding rules but that is good because it highlights the stupidity of not running coal generators at capacity. This is something Matt Canavan understands. He is on board with the climate scam but understands why grid power is so expensive. The only politician I have seen who appreciates that.
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Does someone want to do the maths? Rick?
Here is a randomly selected house battery price and at 13.5kWh certainly not big enough for me as I use 30kWh per day in winter.
Thus I would need at least 2 of these.
Even with “free” electricity, it would take a long time to get pay back unless heavily subsidised by taxpayers.
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Don’t forget the Opportunity Cost. This varies, depending on the selected payback time and the interest you would have normally received from your investments. For a 10-year payback period, this can add 25-33% additional cost. Even though I don’t have batteries, I selected 10-year payback period on account of my age. I expect the inverter to last at least 15 years, and the panels 20-25 years.
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You might want to chose a different battery, the last time I checked, the Tesla powerwalls were based on Lithium Ion cells, the type that suffer from thermal runaway. You should probably be looking at the LiFePO4 based battery packs instead.
At least you will sleep at night knowing that you would be unlikely to contaminate your land, and your neighbours, with lithium salts. A product that is sufficiently hazardous to warrant hazmat suits and breathing apparatus when the products could be airborne.
https://www.ecoelectric.com.au/shop/tesla-powerwall-3-tesla-14kwh-battery/ Confirming lithium Ion.
An alternative, using LiFePO4, https://zyc.energy/products Plenty of others exist.
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E Ian, … The Solar Choice data site DM linked to states the Powerwall 3 uses LFP cells .
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No point doing the sums without a full system costing. You need to be certain that the battery can be configured to charge from 11am to 2pm and then discharge only to the property from 3pm to 11am the next day.
To get an indicative quote, you will need to provide photos of the internal of your meter box and the location for the battery. The closer it is to the meter box, usually the lower cost, Biut avoid locations with full sunlight and without good air flow.
Once you have a price you do the analysis. You know you can charge every day and it will cost nothing. Look at you usage or each month. If you are only using 30kWh one day a year and 10kWh every other day then it does not make much sense to go for 30kWh battery.
My neighbour recently installed a 10kW solar and 27kWh battery for a cost of $14,000. The installed cost was $21k but he got $7k in handouts. I think your household income has to be under $300k to qualify for that full subsidy.
You should be able to get an installed battery cost around $300/kWh of your money. OPM will be around $150/kWh in Victoria.
So once you have the battery price and your usage data, you do a cash flow comparison. The energy component of your bill will almost disappear but you still have the connection fee.
So the choice in front of you is to use say $10k of your capital to save say $2,000 a year (about $5.50/day) (or 13.6kWh @40c average) on your energy cost. Lets say your investment horizon is 10 years. Guaranteed life of the battery and maybe your time in the house. There is some prospect of the battery still having value after 10 years. In fact my off-grid battery is now 13 years old.
You would need $15500 in the bank now earning 5%pa to enable you to draw down $2000 a year over 10 years. A 5% TD is not easy to get these days but you need to think ahead and 5% is reasonable. If you have other zero risk investment earning more than use that as the basis for comparison..
If you leave $10000 on 5% TD now you can pay $2000 a year for 5 years before the money has gone.
Under the scenario that I have described here, the battery obviously makes financial sense.
But it is not risk free. You have to find a reputable battery supplier and, preferebly, one who will harvest the subsidies without much input from you. Expect a delay in having the system independently inspected (maybe 2 weeks) before it gets powered up permanently. Electricity prices could come down (and pigs might fly). You need to verify the availability of the free energy tariff in your location.
If One Nation get in then grid prices could come down quite fast. However One Nation will face the same issues as Trump did first term with a very hostile deep state and most of the State governments. South Australia gets cross border income from its wind and solar farms.
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My on-grid battery is an Alpha -ESS. I think they are the high volume seller is Australia now. They use LiFePO4 cells. Their design looks good and I think an Australian firm involved in the battery development.
This is not my installer but it gives an ideas:
https://www.solarminer.com.au/alpha-ess-battery/
I just look for who has been doing work in my area on the stuff I have had installed. I have recommended my neighbour’s installer to my son. That installer was better than the one I used for the battery but all that started prior to Sleezy’sa gift of OPM.
More on Alpha-ESS here:
https://www.alphaess.com/alphaess-ranks-no–1-in-australia-s-energy-storage-installations-with-23–market-share-in-2022
I have not had a call yet this week but it is rare to go a week without someone cold calling on Solar/battery to heat pump.
Pert of the test is how easy they are to contact and then how responsive they are. I have had some never call back. If you can find someone active in your location and get local recommendation from neighbours, that can be a good place to start.
Both Binnings and Aldi have solar/battery marketing links. The Aldi solar/battery looked to be well priced.
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.
If you’re not – Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold coast/ Sunshine coast, ACT, forget it.
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Its a complex choice, there are many offers currently, you could pay the $15-20,000+. for a 25+kWh battery only installation from what is reported to be a proven system , installed by a reputable supplier and assume your warrantees and guarantees are sound..
Or you could pay <$6,000 for a similar capacity system from lesser known ? Supplier with similar warranty etc, and accept a risk for a saving or $15,000 ?
But there is NO guarantee that any of these manufacturers or supplier/installers will still be around in 10 years(or even 5yrs!) so i would not put too much faith in paper promisses !
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This free three hours lunacy is just the clueless Labor govt tying itself in knots and certainly isn’t connected to the available Scientific data.
Can anyone point out the data that proves that co2 levels are dangerous to our weather or climate safety or our way of life?
Don’t forget to link to the data that you’re referring to, so we can check it out.
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Well I don’t live in a house so I can’t install solar or a battery and I certainly don’t want a smart meter. Does this mean I’m screwed?
Looking in the meter room for this building with 26 apartments there are only 5 smart meters, the rest being the old type.
I had an argument with a solar installer years ago about why I should subsidize people wealthier than me who could afford a house and how it would all eventually turn to s**t.
Didn’t realize it would happen so soon.
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Victoria has a schema for body corporates.
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Maybe they do but most of our roof is glass, plus corrugated color bond and a small flat section, plus where are they going to put the batteries. It would be totally unpractical for my building. Besides we are not in Victoria we are in NSW.
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Man made climate change is a scam and the decarbonisation process is wildly non-economic. So in order for both to be perpetuated by governments the people need to be bribed and subsidised. The whole process is intentionally made to be complicated and semi-secretive to enlist people to promote it. They become boosters for solar and wind because they know “stuff” and enlist like people who think they are smarter than everyone else. They think they’e getting an advantage over their neighbours. Then there is the “off grid” demographic who have a technical background and like tinkering. Probably already cashed up, so having solar/battery systems is like a hobby, a shipload of money invested to achieve maybe some savings. Meanwhile the rest of us are paying for this largesse. Also, there’s the likes of Malcolm Turnbull and Simon Holmes a Court who as green investors, are making money mostly as subsidy harvesters. When will this madness stop? Only when the majority of the people believe in my first sentence.
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Rooftop solar has been a crock. Many of us ‘chose’ to get it installed to get some short term relief from alarming electricity bills. It has been a false economy for most Australians. We’ve ended up appeasing the big government-energy companies cartel which was deliberatly incrementing the cost of electricity to help pay for the wind-solar renewable energy scam. Now the excess energy is an embarrassment and we’re expected to fork out for solar batteries to hide the embarrasing surplus electrons. All this in order help crazy Chris Bowen keep knackering our once decently efficient power grid which gave us much cheaper electricity for domestic and industrial purposes.
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It is the opposite of that in Australia. Rooftop solar is the only serious threat to the lunacy in Australia.
It is already apparent the grid scale wind and solar are stranded assets. Rooftops have prevailed as I predicted back in 2016.
The only way out of the mess is to change the NEM bidding system by removing the semi-scheduled category.
Rooftop solar and battery will always outperform grid scale solar and battery.
Blackout is clutching at a straw. It just hastens the demise of the grid.
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I agree with StJohn. Ask the question, would we have cheaper electricity if we had never subsidized a single solar panel? On a 24/7 nation-wide basis the answer is “yes”.
The subsidies made it possible for people to buy a generator that doesn’t make economic sense. We, as a nation, have wasted billions of dollars to make electricity that is not as cheap as it used to be with coal fired stations.
Solar is not a benefit except in remote grids where they have no access to mains electricity. Nearly every panel on a roof out of the 4 million is a bad thing for the country. Solar helps when it competes with diesel gens, otherwise it is a pox on the nation.
Blackout is delaying the collapse with his latest move. It’s sort of smart in a nasty, selfish, way. We will just pour in more money buying batteries that also need subsidies because they don’t make sense without them.
The way out of the mess is to value CO2 emissions at zero or a net positive. Drop the subsidies for solar, wind, and batteries. As you say Rick, change the bidding to value 100% dispatchable power. If a solar-battery or wind-battery farm can compete with a brown coal plant, let em.
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This madness has now got a self-perpetuating life of its own.
It’s almost unstoppable, especially as Australia has no effective opposition party (Liberals) who in any case are fully committed to the scam. We are a One Party State.
The worse it gets the more crazy and expensive are the “cures” that are applied.
For what purpose other than the deliberate destruction of Western Civilisation (except the United States under TRUMP) because we know advanced industrial and military powers like China have no CO2 emissions restrictions?
And as Eng_Ian suggests, what happens when the coal power stations are finally driven out of business or the Government decides to blow them up?
Finally, why aren’t professional bodies like Engineers Australia complaining about politicians like Turnbull and Bowen making destructive and expensive engineering decisions?
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Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I was a secretary of a regional IEAust group, (prior to EA renaming). We had an excellent local group and between the committee and others, were able to offer at least 10 good quality engineering tours each year. Some were new builds, others, reworks, and others demolition, etc. All offering different viewpoints on the engineering topic. In those days you could easily earn 30+ hours of continuing professional development from attending hese sessions.
And the IEAust went, in my interpretation, silly. They watered down the entrance requirements, enabling anyone to use a title that would confuse the layperson about their engineering credentials and they started to make all IEAust applicants apply through a central registrar and paperwork rather than through the local branch. It was not unusual for the best local candidate to be denied whilst an unknown local, (never attended a local session), was often granted membership. Often to the disgust of those that knew them through their career experience(s).
That was one of many straws, the final one was related to the continuing dumbing down of IEAust policy, seemingly to chase every government woke scheme that was thrown before the elites in the capital cities. It was global warming, CO2 is toxic, the ice is meting, industry is evil, power stations should be closed, you name it, nothing was too green not to be supported. Concrete was even deemed evil because it had cement in it.
So, I left. I could not sign myself to their charter each year when I didn’t believe it. I wonder how they are going now? Well not really, I just don’t care to look.
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Engineers Australia are just another blob organization that are fully onboard with the Climate crisis scam and NetZero, they even dumped a nuclear expect from doing a presentation because Simon Homes a court has a sook about it.
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If the solar power is almost free (excluding capital cost), why not simply construct relatively simple smallish pumped storage systems to utilise the surplus midday output. Pumped storage will require over 100 metres of height difference between upper and lower reservoirs to work efficiently. Such locations are already known. Unlike Turnbull’s Snowy scheme the construction methods are known, straightforward, and costs ought to be reasonable-particularly if built during a recession, and not by the government.
Effectively the water reservoir created is a giant battery, and since the bottom reservoir may be dammed if fresh water, of infinite if it is located next to the sea there will be little degradation or loss of the water. You are simply consuming the midday surplus of electricity at more useful times.
Just keep projects simple and do not let politicians build monuments to their glory-or, more sensibly perhaps go back 30 years in time before the whole global warming hysteria surfaced.
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Or more simply, why not just spend the money maintaining or upgrading our present coal electricity generation fleet. Much cheaper, we know it works and the infrastructure is already built and paid for by previous generations.
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Some maths.
To run a house through 21 hours a day requires say 20kWh wth 10kW max. You can reverse the 10kW and run for three hours to 30kWh minus losses stored to provide the 20kWh plus losses.
Stored energy is 30kWh times 3600s/hr times 1000w/kW = 1.08E8Joules
Water volume for 100m is 1.08e8/100/9.8 = 110,204kg. An olympic pool holds 2.5E6 kg. So two olympic pools with 100m difference in elevation will power 22 homes for a day. You would not get much change from $2M to buy two blocks of land and build basic concrete or plastic lined pools. Then you have to get a 250kW reversible turbine and plumbing between the two locations plus decent electrical switching gear. That could easily be another $250k in suburbia.
So roughly 10 times the cost of 22 lithium batteries the same storage capacity. And pools could not serve as swimming pools because they would be be filling and emptying every 24 hours.
By the time Snowy 2 is finished (assuming it is), it will be more expensive than batteries of the same power capacity. The B&R battery that Blackout has bought for SA will have similar power rating to Snowy 2. Less energy storage though. But the current issue is sucking up rooftop solar so power matters.
Snowy 2 has 239Gl of storage and 800m of elevation. So 95,000 olympic pools 8 times higher than you propose. So it has lots of energy storage but limited to 2GW generating.
There is already more rooftop solar then the average grid demand and it has only taken 10 years to get there. It is increasing at 3GW per year. So not long before the lunchtime operational demand across the grid is zero. It was as low as 10GW last quarter.
I do not see Australia building 500,000 olympic size pools any time soon.
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What do you think about ‘mechanical’ storage? Like very heavy rotating cylinders.
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“construct relatively simple smallish pumped storage systems”
Numbers please. Are there better alternatives? Special situations do work.
See the Wikipedia page: Seneca_Pumped_Storage_Generating_Station
I visited this site while it was under construction about 45 years ago. {My father’s family is from this area}
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Pumped hydro on any scale appears to be not simple, not cheap and not viable in most of Australia’s topography.
Kidston Dam Hydro in north Queensland was supposed to be a simple project with favourable topography of waste spoil heaps for the upper reservoir and an existing dam at the bottom, as well as existing infrastructure and transmission lines already there from the old mining process plant.
It was proposed about 8 years ago and is still under construction, it was in the news or social media recently with workers complaining of poor camp conditions and food hygiene.
I saw another post /blog etc that stated Australia had very little to no suitable Pumped Hydro sites, and mentioned Snow 2.0 is totally unsuitable. (which seems to be a reality under the current cost blow outs). The proposed “largest Pumped hydro in the world” Project by the former QLD Labor government in the Eungella Range west of Mackay was a totally unsuitable area and was apparently chosen by some bureaucrats from looking at maps!! Thankfully the current QLD Liberal Gov scrapped this before it caused more grief and destruction to the area.
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“…..and washing machines to run at noon while no one is home.” This sounds like such a good idea until one of those long taken for granted hoses on the back of the washing machine decides it’s time to fail.
Many moons ag we experienced thecexact reverse of free mid day power in a holiday house in Europe. The laundry had a timer switch on the washing machine and you could not use it between 11:30AM and 2PM, so people could come home for the cooked lunch.
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“hoses on the back of the washing machine decides it’s time to fail”
I had one fail at night when I was sleeping. The machine was not in use. My sister said, “Dummy, don’t you shut the valve after every use?” Hmm?
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This 3 “free” hours is nothing more than a gimmick. We already have several retailers doing exactly this and they make money by charging more for the rest of the day. Once the government legislates this change it will also create a mass rush of people moving their hot water from off peak to a timer set for 11:00am and that removes the ability for the utilities to use off peak to help manage the load during quite times. We’ll also see people try to maximise these hours by charging large banks of batteries and cranking up their appliances to maximum and on a dark cold and cloudy day in winter this will be a real grid killer. This is a dumb decision made by dump people and it will cause more harm than good. The extra load spike at midday will likely require more significant investment in the poles, wires and transformers and the net result will be more expensive electricity for the end user.
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Even the Soviets would not be this stupid.
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Australia, UK, Germany, etc. all being driven to energy poverty and deindustrialisation.
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In the UK insurers are apparently adjusting their policies to address the emerging risks from roof top solar with a solar panel fire incident occurring every two days. I wonder if insurers here will do the same.
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Economics for dummy’s — i.e. Bowen & Chalmers.
Renewable industries (any industry) built on subsidies will fail. They are unsustainable….who knew! –
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