Tasmania Is Now 100% Powered By Renewable Electricity (reneweconomy.com.au) 133
Tasmania consists of the 26th-largest island in the world and its surrounding 334 islands — an island state of Australia with a population around 540,000 people, according to Wikipedia.
Friday the Tasmanian government "declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity," according to one news report: Tasmania joins the Australian Capital Territory as the only two Australian jurisdictions sourcing all of their electricity from renewable energy sources, and places Tasmania alongside countries like Scotland, Iceland and Costa Rica which have also made the transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity. The milestone was welcomed by environmental groups, saying that it was another example of what is being achieved by state and territory governments that are stepping in to show leadership on energy policy in a vacuum left by ongoing conflict both between and within political parties at a federal level...
Tasmanian energy minister Guy Barnett added that the Tasmanian government would continue to support an expansion of the state's renewable energy capabilities, as the state looks to grow its role as a supplier of zero emissions energy to both mainland Australia and of green hydrogen into international export markets. "But there is more to do, which is why we have set a target to double our renewable generation to a global-leading target of 200 per cent of our current needs by 2040 — which we recently passed into law following the passing of legislation through both Houses of Parliament," Barnett added.
Friday the Tasmanian government "declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity," according to one news report: Tasmania joins the Australian Capital Territory as the only two Australian jurisdictions sourcing all of their electricity from renewable energy sources, and places Tasmania alongside countries like Scotland, Iceland and Costa Rica which have also made the transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity. The milestone was welcomed by environmental groups, saying that it was another example of what is being achieved by state and territory governments that are stepping in to show leadership on energy policy in a vacuum left by ongoing conflict both between and within political parties at a federal level...
Tasmanian energy minister Guy Barnett added that the Tasmanian government would continue to support an expansion of the state's renewable energy capabilities, as the state looks to grow its role as a supplier of zero emissions energy to both mainland Australia and of green hydrogen into international export markets. "But there is more to do, which is why we have set a target to double our renewable generation to a global-leading target of 200 per cent of our current needs by 2040 — which we recently passed into law following the passing of legislation through both Houses of Parliament," Barnett added.
Better keep the old stuff too (Score:2)
Re:Better keep the old stuff too (Score:5, Funny)
As a backup! Wind, solar can be hampered just as coal, oil/gas, nuclear can. Always good to have a reliable backup.
Not to worry. The backups are a couple of Tasmanian Devils [wikipedia.org] chasing [youtube.com] bunnies on a treadmill ...
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You're probably better off harvesting power from their spinning directly
Re:Better keep the old stuff too (Score:5, Informative)
About 75% of generation is hydro, which itself is a more than sufficient backup. No coal, oil, gas or nuclear is needed (indeed there never has been coal or nuclear in Tasmania, and there hasn't been oil for a couple of decades.)
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About 75% of generation is hydro, which itself is a more than sufficient backup.
What if there's a drought? Huh? What happens then?
(Yes, I'm being silly. This is a variation of the "What happens when it's dark?" for solar power...)
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What if there's a drought? Huh? What happens then?
(Yes, I'm being silly. This is a variation of the "What happens when it's dark?" for solar power...)
I don't know why you consider this "silly". Droughts do happen, and they can have a large impact on the ability for a hydroelectric dam to produce power.
A drought will affect all hydro capacity in a region with relative equality. Night will cause all solar power in a region to stop producing power. Calm winds in a region will make all windmills stop. Too great of a reliance on any one of these will leave the affected region with energy shortages. Some regions of the world can't rely on any of them in a
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Unlike wind, hydro, and solar this shutdown will not affect all nuclear power plants in a given region at once
I feel it's worth pointing out that a drought severe enough to prevent hydro generation from working in a region is probably going to significantly reduce flow in the rivers in that region as well. That means that all the nuclear power plants in that region probably will be affected since they typically rely on rivers for cooling water. If the power plant has a fully closed loop cooling system, then that won't be an issue, but they generally don't
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I feel it's worth pointing out that a drought severe enough to prevent hydro generation from working in a region is probably going to significantly reduce flow in the rivers in that region as well. That means that all the nuclear power plants in that region probably will be affected since they typically rely on rivers for cooling water. If the power plant has a fully closed loop cooling system, then that won't be an issue, but they generally don't
Using once-through river water for cooling a nuclear power plant was an engineering decision to save on costs. This was done knowing in advance that high temperatures and/or low river flow would require short term limits on the power plant power output. There is no reactor design that requires this choice to operate and in the future this will likely be deemed no longer viable as there's new controls on the allowed heating of river water as well as lower costs in closed loop cooling now.
The past mistakes
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Using once-through river water for cooling a nuclear power plant was an engineering decision to save on costs
Right, and it's an engineering decision to save on costs that is in place in many, many nuclear installations that actually exist currently. You point out that they may be forced to change that due to environmental regulations. So, in fifty years, maybe a severe drought might not curtail nuclear power generation across a whole region, but it certainly might today. The reality is that economics is king. If they can make use of a cheap environmental resource then they will. If there's a chance that the enviro
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A catastrophic situation that takes out solar, wind and hydro across a wide enough area that power can't simply be brought in from a region where that's not happening is possible, but it falls under the category of happening so seldom that they're not going to abandon renewables for it. Frankly, that kind of event is probably flirting with extinction level. It's not like we're set up to grow our crops with nuclear power.
Imagine you are Israel, Japan, or South Korea. All your neighbors want you to disappear from the map or be their slaves. Now, your job is to create a grid that spans enough territory that there is no possibility for a calm, cold, dry, winter night that prevents you from keeping warm. How does that work?
Can you run power lines through these hostile regions to a friendly region on the other side? No, they will either deny the ability to run these lines or demand crushing fees for the electricity to get to
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Tell that to the people of Caracas, whose power came almost exclusively from hydro. Then they had the worst drought in over 150 years and there were blackouts, brownouts, and rationing.
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Like how us in the United States, get Blackouts, Brownouts and rationing when it gets too hot. or when there is a major weather event that takes out power lines, because in America we still want to put them on telephone poles.
What about the diesels? (Score:2)
Wow, I guess that old ABC is lying through its teeth https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
They've been used since then as well.
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That was dated 2016. The current year is 2020.
Perhaps the Fake News is article from the 1950's about Small Pox being a problem was fake too, because we don't have it anymore.
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They've been used since then as well.
No, they haven't.
https://opennem.org.au/energy/... [opennem.org.au]
That tiny orange-red square in 2016 is the diesel usage.
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It is much harder to hamper Solar and Wind than Fossil Fuels and Nuclear.
While we should always focus on having energy diversity. It doesn't mean needing to keep the boil water technology.
Wind and Solar are not prone to Economic and Geo/Political issues. The wind will still blow, and even during a Great Depression the Sun will always come up tomorrow. I bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there will be Sun.
Now they probably should be storing excess energy via batteries, flywheels etc... To deal with a p
Huge amount of Hydro, small population (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been about 100% for decades. Nothing to do with global warming.
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Hydro have a lot more advantages than just "it's ecofriendly".
You don't need to fuel it, you probably need a less lot workers to keep it running and it just works (tm).
Everything would be hydro if was possible, but sadly it's not.
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Tasmania consists of the 26th-largest island in the world and its surrounding 334 islands â" an island state of Australia with a population around 540,000 people,
... all of whom are very closely related, if you get my drift.
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used to live in the ACT (Score:5, Informative)
Hydro storage options in Tasmania (Score:2)
"Tasmania could cost-effectively provide an additional 1500 MW of firm supply by extending our existing hydropower system with deep storage pumped hydro." [pv-magazin...tralia.com]
Defintion of 100% renewables (Score:2)
There are a few issues with the 100% renewable definition. What does it actually mean? Does it mean that Tasmania still buys dirty coal power from Victoria , their neightbouring state? And does it mean that they can do this in the dry years, 2020 has been very wet in Australia however Australia is drying out due to global warning with Hadley cells moving further south, this will make droughts in Tassie more common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis
The real issue with most renewables
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Does it mean that Tasmania still buys dirty coal power from Victoria , their neightbouring state?
Does your JAQing off mean you didn't bother reading the article which addresses just this very point?
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The article glosses over the fact that tas ran out of water not long ago and ended up running big diesels for a year
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How much do you want to bet they still have gasoline or diesel cars, trucks, heavy machinery, including electricity generators on various properties? I'm not sure what the 100% renewable means, but I'd be willing to bet they are still selling petroleum based fuels there. Or are they claiming oil is renewable?
How the (Score:2)
See the wikipedia page about the franklin below Gordon [wikipedia.org] protests for the 80's and think about how the ecological point of view has evolved since
D.
Not especially ingenious (Score:2)
South Tyrol (Score:2)
So what?
South Tyrol (in Northern Italy) with a similar number of inhabitants (532.000) uses not only 100% electricity from renewable sources (mainly hydro), but is exporting it to the rest of Europe. South Tyrol produces twice as much it needs. And this since ever.
No heavy industry (Score:2)
I'll bet that there is no heavy industry there which tends to have much higher demands for energy than your average home.
The devil you say! (Score:4, Funny)
(sorry, had to).
Silver bullets (Score:2)
Hey, this silver bullet killed a mouse. Surely we can use it to go after that herd of elephants.
They can't do it!!! (Score:2)
No, no, it's not possible.
And besides, it's going to make the value of my buggy whip stocks drop....
Try it without hydro (Score:2)
The more interesting case is the Canary Island of El Hierro, which doesn't have much hydro, but does have a lot of wind, leaving the "storage problem".
But El Hierro noted that it had God's own pumped-hydroelectric storage facility, in the form of a volcano with pits in the side, nearly half a mile up.
https://www.livingcircular.veo... [veolia.com]
We need to start looking for concave spots up in our mountains...
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buying dirty energy
They get it from the mob?
Re:Usually (Score:4, Informative)
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Depends on location. Places like Sweden and Norway are top of the world in terms of hydro available and hydro utilized, and they still need burners for some of their grid for stability. Seasonal droughts are a thing and can do a number on your grid if you don't have at least some backup and interconnects to import electricity from in case of one.
Re:Usually (Score:5, Insightful)
Another solution is to stop looking at the demand curve as a constant that must be met by adjusting supply.
Demand can be curved (up or down) by flexible pricing.
I live in San Jose, and I have a smart meter. The price depends on demand, with the highest prices between 2 pm and 7 pm.
I have an auto-cutoff on my home's central AC compressor. When the price surges, the compressor turns off.
Widespread use of smart meters and flexible pricing means that when supply falls, demand falls. So no need for expensive batteries or other backups.
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Sorry, I don't have mod points.
You're 100% right. We've been so conditioned by legacy energy providers into viewing energy usage around "baseload". But we must realise that electricity exists in a market. And in a market, there's always two forces, not one. Supply AND demand.
We're so used to thinking about bringing sufficient supply onto the grid to meet demand. And indeed, currently the renewable energy sector is scaling out to address the supply issue.
But everybody is starting to become aware of the
Two classes of suppy and demand in power grids. (Score:4, Interesting)
We've been so conditioned by legacy energy providers into viewing energy usage around "baseload". But we must realise that electricity exists in a market. And in a market, there's always two forces, not one. Supply AND demand.
You should also realize that there's another class of "supply and demand" in a power grid: The moment-by-moment supply of available generated power versus the moment-by-moment demand of loads consuming power. That supply must always meet or exceed that demand, on a fractional second time scale, or the grid (all or pieces of it) goes down.
There are a number of failure modes, some of them to degraded modes like brownouts (voltage reduction), or rotating blackouts, others to one or more types of cascading failures that take out large regions unexpectedly.
A part of the point of the smart-grid style pricing and load shedding is to get customers to voluntarily lower their load when the aggregate is approaching the supply, to avoid having a crisis moment when it exceeds the supply somewhere on the grid, and the utility must suddenly drop power to some customers or have the grid quit on them all.
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You should also realize that there's another class of "supply and demand" in a power grid: The moment-by-moment supply of available generated power versus the moment-by-moment demand of loads consuming power. That supply must always meet or exceed that demand, on a fractional second time scale, or the grid (all or pieces of it) goes down.
On the scale of a few seconds, power supply is traditionally maintained using the rotational inertia of turbines in thermal power plants. If there's a sudden drop in supply (e.g. a power station goes offline), the remaining stations can bleed energy from their turbines to make up the shortfall, at least until a replacement can be brought online. PV Solar doesn't have this backup (and I don't think wind does either, despite having big spinny things), so this is somewhere where grid-scale battery storage can
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the remaining stations can bleed energy from their turbines to make up the shortfall, at least until a replacement can be brought online.
No, they cant. They simply keep it up, but can not provide "replacement" or additional energy, definitely not a shortfall. However the kinetic energy is the reason the grid does not fail immediately.
Serbia and Kosovo in 2018 resulted in mains frequency linked clocks all across Europe slowing down by 6 minutes as the grid struggled to compensate.
That article is fake.
To los
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That article is fake.
This was widely reported in reputable media. For instance, Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Or you can read the press releases from the grid operator organization: https://www.entsoe.eu/news/201... [entsoe.eu]
To lose 6 minutes, you need to lose 6 * 60 seconds aka 360 seconds. To lose that you need to to drop from 50Hz to 45Hz for ... how many days or weeks?
Using your numbers, a 10% slowdown of the grid would cause 6 minutes of deviation in one hour. That would be unbelievably bad.
Plugging in some more realistic numbers, slowing the grid by 0.01Hz (0.02%) would cause 6 minutes of deviation in a bit under 21 days.
And the rest of the european grid would compensate locally anyway ...
It's a synchronous grid, so they can't unl
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It's a synchronous grid, so they can't unlock their frequency locally.
Yes, they can. That is how a synchronized grid works.
like many millions of people across Europe. Newer clocks, battery-powered clocks, and phones were not affected since they aren't synced to the grid.
That is true.
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It's a synchronous grid, so they can't unlock their frequency locally.
Yes, they can. That is how a synchronized grid works.
To quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], "In a synchronous grid all the generators must run at the same frequency, and must stay very nearly in phase with each other and the grid."
To adjust your frequency locally, you have to disconnect all synchronous links first, making your region an island. At that point you are no longer part of the synchronous grid. This is normally only done following a blackout, until things can be synced up again.
If you don't agree with that, can you explain what you think "sy
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Sorry,
you simply don't grasp it.
No, you do not have to disconnect and maker your local grid an island.
First of all: all countries have a local grid, roughly speaking divided into 2 layers. The lowest layer is the distribution grid, which connects the actual customers. The layer on top is the transport layer. This are point to point interconnects either used inside of the country or cross border.
Secondly: many countries are divided up into "control zones", that is the area where the power plants focus on to
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That supply must always meet or exceed that demand, on a fractional second time scale, or the grid (all or pieces of it) goes down.
That's not how it works at all.
When there is more demand on the grid than there is supply the frequency starts to drop. If it gets really bad you might get brown outs, most of the time it just causes a tiny fraction of a Hz frequency deviation. You can see the UK's current and historical grid frequency here: https://gridwatch.co.uk/freque... [gridwatch.co.uk]
Over time the grid operators like to make sure that the average frequency is always 50Hz (or 60Hz in some regions) by over-supplying a little when needed, and to keep it
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on a fractional second time scale, or the grid (all or pieces of it) goes down.
Actually it is far more than ten seconds, and no: the grid does not go simply down.
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Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? This is government rationing.
We've had government rationing before, during times of war. This was deemed necessary because if there were not enough resources to fight the war then people died. If people want to equate global warming to a war then that is fine by me. What this means though is we need to consider options we might not consider in times of peace. This means considering nuclear power.
Australia has a self imposed ban on nuclear power. An energy source t
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Sounds like private sector rationing.
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Sounds like private sector rationing.
That's like saying that it's the gas station taxing you for buying their gas. The gas taxes are there because the government imposed the tax on the gas station, they simply pass that on to you.
There's an energy shortage in Australia because the government imposed restrictions on the utilities that left them in a place that they are passing this energy shortage on to their customers. I saw a very interesting talk on YouTube from someone in Australia that pointed to a utility forced by the government to dem
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Why would the private sector, which makes money selling energy to people, have any desire to ration energy? ... price increase. Option for black mail etc.
For the same reason drugs on the street are rare
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Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? This is government rationing.
1. It isn't being done by the government.
2. Market pricing is the exact opposite of rationing.
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1. It isn't being done by the government.
That's technically true. The government is not mandating people time shift their electricity usage but it is the direct result of the government imposing policies that make electricity generation capacity artificially scarce.
The government could remove the need to ration energy by allowing the construction of nuclear power plants, allowing utilities to burn more coal or natural gas, or perhaps other policies that could lower the costs (and costs aren't always in the form of a monetary expense) of utilities
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The public and the press are telling the politicians to ban nuclear power, the scientists are telling the politicians, the public, and the press to shut down fossil fuel use. One of these things is not like the other.
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What has "baseload" to do with Supply AND Demand?
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Places like Sweden do not have that kind of luxury. Much of their consumption is industrial, where cutting off technological processes leads to days and even weeks of downtime. And heating needs do not go away because you're not there. Unlike getting hot, freezing inside a residential home tends to kill a lot of things that are needed long term, from electronics that fail to survive condensation to house plants to house structures that harden and become brittle over time.
Things you're talking about are abou
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And heating needs do not go away because you're not there.
Does it really matter if your heat pump runs now when there is a surge of demand because everyone is microwaving a snack during halftime, or five minutes from now when the game resumes?
Peak power is expensive. If you really, really need to run your heater in the middle of a demand surge, you should pay the full cost of providing the electricity.
Re:Usually (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it matters, because unlike Californian wankery where it is indeed about "comfort for game time", people actually freeze to death in -30 celcius in Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway, which is when peak consumption in NordPool occurs. Power is not a luxury as it is for Californians. It's a basic requirement for survival.
And as a result, peak power can be as expensive as you push it, it won't do anything to consumption. You can't reduce consumption when your survival depends on consuming. "Let them eat cake" types such as yourself historically get a free trip to guillotine for a good reason when they try to enforce their life-threatening ignorance upon others.
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>The Fins, Norwegians and Swedes do not have houses that cool from 25C inside, to -30C outside during one hour of power outrage. Or one hour of less heating. And they do not heat with electricity anyway.
Because rivers start flowing like it's spring in an hour in winter, because electricity prices go up. Just like you think that Germany controls wind, you now appear to think that Sweden controls snow melt. In winter. What is wrong with you?
>Ah, thanx to global warming, the last -30C winter was how long
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In areas like yours, where the AC is the biggest energy consumer, that's easy. ACs need to work hardest when the sun shines and they can be turned off for a while. Their demand can easily be pretty much in sync with energy production.
It's vastly different in the areas that use the most energy (for heating); their energy consumption peaks during winter nights. Their peak demand is driven by temperature and is very inflexible.
Widespread use of smart meters and smart appliances (and smart energy storage) is a
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To a certain degree you are right, however San Jose isn't known for single digit Fahrenheit temperatures. To say that one can just turn off the heat for a week until prices go down is not practical, nor safe.
Here there is no natural gas service, so the source for non- electric heat is propane, oil, or wood. As the wood in that quantity would have to be trucked in, all three options would increase CO2 emissions.
Heat pump, on heating mode from October to April inclusive. AC mode used for 11 days scattered ove
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Demand can be curved (up or down) by flexible pricing.
It can, but it isn't. The reality is your little compressor is the exception and if everyone was like you it would still only be a blip. What flexible pricing does do is curve up supply to suit. Demand is often quite fixed. I'm reminded of a day in Australia where the local refinery announced they made a $10million loss due to a 100x increase in the cost of electricity (45deg day with supply problems). Consumers saw none of that since those costs aren't passed all the way down, and industry isn't flexible e
Re: Usually (Score:2)
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Hey ruddk, aren't you too busy with your News Corp petition to be posting on slashdot?
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Vistoria will be buying Tasmania's cheap, clean hydro power. Hydro Tasmania's slogan is "Battery of the Nation".
Which is fine until there is another failure in the undersea power lines connecting Tasmania to the mainland.
I'm sure that many reading this can recall when the large Tesla battery installed next to a windmill farm saved many from a power outage from some failure in or near a large coal fired power plant. This battery was able to buy enough time to start up some natural gas turbines to fill in for the lost generation capacity. This was a gap in electricity generation that lasted seconds, or maybe minutes.
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Of course.
Regions with the geography and climate favorable to construct fresh water reservoirs for hydro power also have a favorable geography for fresh water reservoirs that can provide a heat sink for a nuclear power plant, stable exposed bedrock for a foundation to build this same nuclear power plant, readily accessible pumped hydro energy storage to manage changing electrical demand to the base load supply that nuclear power is (in)famous for, and this same pumped hydro storage can bring back up power g
Re:Usually (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct that they sell renewables into Victoria, and buy fossil fuel energy back, but this is more to do with a desire for profits than a flaw in their network design. Turns out it is more profitable to sell power into Victoria during high price periods, and buy fossil fuel power back at low price periods.
So they do, and they are putting those profits into building out their system so that they can reach 200% of their power needs, and sell the other 100% into Victoria.
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You are correct that they sell renewables into Victoria, and buy fossil fuel energy back, but this is more to do with a desire for profits than a flaw in their network design.
Failure to keep costs lower than the competition is a failure in their network design.
They can only claim to be "100% renewable electricity generation" by creative bookkeeping. If they had to pay for the energy storage that buying and selling to the mainland effectively provides then they could not afford to have this so called 100% renewable electricity supply. They are as reliant on fossil fuels as anyone on the mainland.
I've been a proponent for onshore wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power for a v
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Their costs ARE cheaper at all times than using fossil fuels, it's just more profitable currently to sell high into Victorian demand and buy low than it is to keep all the renewable power for themselves. This is due to the way the Australian power market works and due to costs Victoria would otherwise incur by having to bring additional power plants on line at peak. It has nothing to do with the
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Their costs ARE cheaper at all times than using fossil fuels, it's just more profitable currently to sell high into Victorian demand and buy low than it is to keep all the renewable power for themselves.
If their costs where always cheaper than the fossil fuels in Victoria then there is more profit in building more renewable energy to sell to Victoria than to buy high and sell higher. If they can produce electricity at a cost lower than Victoria ever could then the flow of electricity would always be in one direction. If they can sell electricity at a cost lower than what Victoria could sell it for then Tasmania is flushing money down the toilet buying Victorian electricity instead of using that money for
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If their costs where always cheaper than the fossil fuels in Victoria then there is more profit in building more renewable energy to sell to Victoria than to buy high and sell higher. If they can produce electricity at a cost lower than Victoria ever could then the flow of electricity would always be in one direction. If they can sell electricity at a cost lower than what Victoria could sell it for then Tasmania is flushing money down the toilet buying Victorian electricity instead of using that money for building more renewable electrical capacity to sell even more cheap energy to Victoria.
I can certainly see profit in selling electricity to Victoria. Claiming that Tasmanian electricity is always a lower cost than Victorian electricity conflicts with the claim that there is any profit in buying their electricity.
Your logic here is only correct if Tasmania can CURRENTLY generate infinite power. It can't - it only has limited generation capacity. So when there is a situation where the difference between buying high and selling higher is greater than the difference between buying high and it's own generation costs, then it makes sense to do so, and use those greater profits to fund building generation capacity faster than they could otherwise. So the flow is two-way.
Due to their geographical situation - Tasmania has
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This works when you can scam a community to produce dirty energy.
We have had cases were communities had suffered health and environmental problems because they produced coal energy for a neighboring City/State. When Natural Gas became cheaper and cleaner alternative a decade ago, as well the rise of other more clean energy. These Cities and States had dropped the contracts with those communities that made dirty energy. So now other than dealing with the health and environmental impact they are also suffe
Re:Usually (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the Basslink cable?
Re:Usually (Score:4, Informative)
Except that of course, there isn't. Underwater cables have been a thing for decades. In case of Tasmania, it's linked to mainland by a 500MW HDVC cable that's been operation for 15 years.
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HVDC is a thing now "champ".
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Just make sure it's a map with Tasmania on it, sometimes it gets left out. [wikipedia.org]
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I don't care that much
Hey champ (Score:2)
There's a long extension lead with bidirectional power handling. Sometimes tas delivers power to Vic, and sometimes it takes it. When the two-heads blew the link up they had to run on diesels. So champ, you learned something today. Chump.
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Thanks, I don't care that much. :)
Re: 100% (Score:3, Informative)
They are majority hydro.
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I was the tech supervisor at NYPA for Blenheim Gilboa (1.2GW, 16 GWh plant in New York), and I'm now a lead engineer for 5 - 30 MWh batteries, some BTM, many connected at 115kV. For applications that work on arbitrage or demand charges, PHS can't compete because the 75% round trip efficiency just never gets to operate with a market with a lot of batteries that are 85% or better in real round trip efficiency. Same issue for things like frequency regulation, voltage regulation, etc. PHS is a fast ramp once on
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But we're good until at least then.
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The Sun will expand and scorch the Earth in less than a billion years; we'll have too much solar energy.
No, stars like Sol burn for about 9-10 billion years. Sol is already around 4,5 billion years old which means it still has ~5 billion years of burn time left.
https://www.livescience.com/62... [livescience.com]
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Let me know when they're making 100% of they're renewable energy equipment using 100% renewable energy. I'll wait.
They'd have to work through every component of the supply chain and ensure that company was 100% renewable, and so on ad infinitum - essentially impossible until all generation world-wide is renewables based.
I think shooting for 200% generation capacity of renewables is a good target for the local government.
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Biofuel from daisies might require water as input.
Tassie does receive a heap of rain but not always. During drought the level of dam water was insufficient to sustain hydro at capacity.
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If an aluminum refinery can't be powered from wind and solar then this is not "sustainable".
I keep hearing people use the word "sustainable" but fail to consider what that actually means. It means that solar powered facilities to produce more solar panels will have to be proven to work. As it is now the making of silicon needed in PV cells requires burning a lot of coal.
I'm sure after Joe Biden closes all the coal mines in the USA that he'll be quite pleased when China raises the prices on solar PV panels
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What? There's never been a coal-fired power plant in Tasmania. They built one big hydro power station (Gordon) and the other (on the Franklin River) wasn't built, instead they a few smaller hydro power stations around other parts of the state.
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Nice rewrite of history. First, the United Tasmania Group, i.e. the basis of the Tasmanian green party, was formed in 1972. The Franklin River dam was proposed in 1978, and the main protests were in 1982. The Federal Greens Party was formed in 1992. Second, the "solution" to the Franklin River dam controversy was to build two smaller hydro plants in Tasmania, not to build a coal powered station. Not sure there has ever been a coal fired station in Tasmania, maybe some time before the Franklin River dam con
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The exporting and importing of energy to Victoria is purely economic. If the cable wasn't there, then they would be self-consuming all of their own renewable generation without a problem - hydro is great for this as it has built in storage. This is different to a house with solar (without a battery) as the house very clearly needs to use the grid power at night.
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The problem with pumped storage is the "pumped" bit. When the water flows downhill you get the energy. However you have to recharge the lake at the top so you need grid power to pump it back up again. That normally happens at night when coal/nuclear stations are still turning and burning but power is cheap because no-one is using it.
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If you use hydropower for the pumping, it's a win-win!