Why have you limited hydro to 6.4 GW? There is currently 11 GW of hydro on the NEM and in the past it has run at over 7 GW. By the end of this year, with Kidston on line and the Clover upgrade complete, maximum hydro output will be close to 8 GW. It is irrelevant that the peak flow is higher than the last years average flow because on most days hdro use will be lower than it is now, because there is enough wind and solar to supply all the load
With Humelink complete it will be closer to 8 GW, because currently transmission limits output from the Snowy Scheme. With Marinus built that is another 700 MW from Tasmania to the mainland and with Snowy II, Borumba and other pumped hydro projects there is another 5 GW+ of capacity, so before we have Davids 4.2 x wind plus 2+ x solar we will have around 15-17 GW of hydro/pumped hydro capacity. Obviously it will never run at 100% but 10 or 11 GW is entirely feasible.
Of course it is possible that some of these pumped hydro projects won't be built but there are proposals for about 30 GW of projects across the NEM of which 4.2GW is actually under construction so 4-7GW of new capacity is not exactly stretching credibility.
However by the end of next year there will be about 23 GW of batteries in front of and behind the meter and there is another160 GW of proposals + probably 10 GW of customer batteries + another 10GW of V2X by 2030 we may not need much pumped hydro
Peter, re: "Why have you limited hydro to 6.4 GW?"
Simply because when designing a new society-critical complex power system, it would be irresponsible / grossly negligent to assume more optimistic availability than is proven. Design margin.
Also, I am offering a critique of David Osmond's posts.
In his Renew Economy article he sets out the basis of his "simulation":
QUOTE:
... to maintain consistency with historical generation, hydro generation was also subject to the following constraints:
– Hydro generation was kept between 200 MW and 6,000 MW
– Weekly hydro generation was kept above 168 GWh
– Annual hydro generation was targeted at between 6% and 9% of demand, though ideally closer to 15,000 GWh, or about 7.5% of demand.
UNQUOTE.
As to your further witterings which don't (AGAIN) address the energy balance issue, IRRELEVANT OBFUSCATION, immaterial.
1. I agree annual hydro generation should be limited and I would use an even lower figure due to droughts. The system should probably be designed to run on less than 7,000 GWh in extreme cases and then thermal generation might grow by 7-8,000 GWh (3-4% of demand) and reach 5-8% of supply for that year. On wet years when hydro used to produce 18,000 GWh we would probably be better to reduce that somewhat to maintain storage levels
Being very conservative, David has limited existing hydro below what has already been achieved. However, within a year hydro capacity will be increased by a further 300 MW. After that there is another 2,000 MW under construction and about 15,000 MW proposed of which probably less than 4,000 MW will be built.
At the moment transmission limits output from the Snowy to Sydney and from Tasmania to Victoria mean that the highest recorded output is around 7,100 MW. To which can safely be added the 250 MW at Kidston. Then with Humelink and Marinus there is at least another 1,200-1,800 MW available just due to easing of transmission constraints.
As for output on a daily basis the presence of almost 20 GW of battery storage on the grid will mean that on a day like today where wind and solar would have only supplied 50% of demand but at midday 90-95%, hydro could have continued running at 6-7 GW so maximising utilisation over the day and allowing batteries, 4X wind, existing hydro and say 4 GW of pumped hydro providing 24-26 GW of the 30 GW peak demand. From Sunday to Wednesday David's wind and solar capacity would have supplied 140% of demand, so storages would have been full
You claim there will be 23 GW of batteries in front of and behind the meter by the end of 2026:
Is that 23 GW of Power Capacity? If so, what is the storage capacity in GWh? Because although power capacity is important, the critical measure is the actual storage capacity.
Currently on the NEM there is 6.1 GW / 10.3 GWh of storage.
You are claiming this will increase by a factor of 3.8 by the end of 2026.
That infers that if you assume 4 hrs storage per BESS facility you would install 82 Gwh storage. Using a standard BESS size of 400 Mw, this would be adding 32 BESS facilities or one every 17 days.
There is 21 GW in grid scale capacity in use, construction or commissioning now. In addition almost every new solar plant that is announced is paired with a battery as are a number of new wind farms and a few existing plants are also retrofitting batteries. Duration varies from 1 hour to 8 hours but I would think of the the 21 GW there will be around 50 GWh of storage. One new connection every 17 days is about right. I think 400 MW is a bit on the small side these days, Eraring is 700 MW, Warratah 860 MW etc. Then there are the 2m behind the meter batteries expected over the next few years which will be rated at about 10 GW but will probably never supply more than 3GW and the other 150GW of proposals that have been announced
On the worst wind and solar day this year, (12th of June) hydro only supplied 79 GWh or 30% of capacity, now clearly 100% is not possible but once transmission constraints are eased more than 50% should be, that brings it up to say 140 GWh. Now over the nine days from the 1st of June wind and solar would have supplied more than 100% of demand so storages would be near full. Thus Snowy II, Kidston, Lake Lyell and Borumba running at 60% add another 35 GWh.
Now on David's multiple, wind solar and hydro would have supplied 315 GWh, hydro 180 GWh leaving 160 GWh to be supplied by a combination of storage, demand response and residual gas. Now even on that day from about 9:30 to 2:30 wind and solar would not only have been supplying all the load but putting up to 1.5 GW into storage even if hydro had been constrained down to less than 0.5 GW so it would have been possible to partially recharge storage.
So lets say gas supplies half of that shortfall it would be supplying maybe 8 GW/80 GWh over the day or 12% of demand. Stretch it out over the week gas might have supplied 260 GWh around 6%. Over the last 30 days 3.5-4.5%.
The problem with economists is that they don't think like people. If economists had their way, most people would not buy cars because the average utilisation of the car is 5%, but in fact the occupancy of most cars is only 30%, so the car seats are only used 1.5% of the time. Worse still, when it is in use, the average output of the engine is about 25 kW from a 200 kW engine so the engine utilisation is .05* 25/200 << 1%, what an economic waste. Yet people go and buy second cars which have 1/3rd of the utilisation of the first one.
For the same reason people are now putting 10-12 kW of solar on their roof and buying 15kWh batteries, they buy stuff "just in case" not because they have worked out the economics to the last decimal place. Consequently I think David's estimate of 2X customer solar is way under estimated, it will be 4-6 X. We have space over roofs, carparks and other waste/paved areas for more than ten times what we have now
David Osmond's model is deeply flawed. It makes false assumptions and omits key issues and data. You can see my assessment of his model here: https://www.goinggreencanada.ca/David_Osmand_near_100pc_Grid.pdf
Why have you limited hydro to 6.4 GW? There is currently 11 GW of hydro on the NEM and in the past it has run at over 7 GW. By the end of this year, with Kidston on line and the Clover upgrade complete, maximum hydro output will be close to 8 GW. It is irrelevant that the peak flow is higher than the last years average flow because on most days hdro use will be lower than it is now, because there is enough wind and solar to supply all the load
With Humelink complete it will be closer to 8 GW, because currently transmission limits output from the Snowy Scheme. With Marinus built that is another 700 MW from Tasmania to the mainland and with Snowy II, Borumba and other pumped hydro projects there is another 5 GW+ of capacity, so before we have Davids 4.2 x wind plus 2+ x solar we will have around 15-17 GW of hydro/pumped hydro capacity. Obviously it will never run at 100% but 10 or 11 GW is entirely feasible.
Of course it is possible that some of these pumped hydro projects won't be built but there are proposals for about 30 GW of projects across the NEM of which 4.2GW is actually under construction so 4-7GW of new capacity is not exactly stretching credibility.
However by the end of next year there will be about 23 GW of batteries in front of and behind the meter and there is another160 GW of proposals + probably 10 GW of customer batteries + another 10GW of V2X by 2030 we may not need much pumped hydro
Peter, re: "Why have you limited hydro to 6.4 GW?"
Simply because when designing a new society-critical complex power system, it would be irresponsible / grossly negligent to assume more optimistic availability than is proven. Design margin.
Also, I am offering a critique of David Osmond's posts.
In his Renew Economy article he sets out the basis of his "simulation":
QUOTE:
... to maintain consistency with historical generation, hydro generation was also subject to the following constraints:
– Hydro generation was kept between 200 MW and 6,000 MW
– Weekly hydro generation was kept above 168 GWh
– Annual hydro generation was targeted at between 6% and 9% of demand, though ideally closer to 15,000 GWh, or about 7.5% of demand.
UNQUOTE.
As to your further witterings which don't (AGAIN) address the energy balance issue, IRRELEVANT OBFUSCATION, immaterial.
1. I agree annual hydro generation should be limited and I would use an even lower figure due to droughts. The system should probably be designed to run on less than 7,000 GWh in extreme cases and then thermal generation might grow by 7-8,000 GWh (3-4% of demand) and reach 5-8% of supply for that year. On wet years when hydro used to produce 18,000 GWh we would probably be better to reduce that somewhat to maintain storage levels
Being very conservative, David has limited existing hydro below what has already been achieved. However, within a year hydro capacity will be increased by a further 300 MW. After that there is another 2,000 MW under construction and about 15,000 MW proposed of which probably less than 4,000 MW will be built.
At the moment transmission limits output from the Snowy to Sydney and from Tasmania to Victoria mean that the highest recorded output is around 7,100 MW. To which can safely be added the 250 MW at Kidston. Then with Humelink and Marinus there is at least another 1,200-1,800 MW available just due to easing of transmission constraints.
As for output on a daily basis the presence of almost 20 GW of battery storage on the grid will mean that on a day like today where wind and solar would have only supplied 50% of demand but at midday 90-95%, hydro could have continued running at 6-7 GW so maximising utilisation over the day and allowing batteries, 4X wind, existing hydro and say 4 GW of pumped hydro providing 24-26 GW of the 30 GW peak demand. From Sunday to Wednesday David's wind and solar capacity would have supplied 140% of demand, so storages would have been full
Help me understand your comment...
You claim there will be 23 GW of batteries in front of and behind the meter by the end of 2026:
Is that 23 GW of Power Capacity? If so, what is the storage capacity in GWh? Because although power capacity is important, the critical measure is the actual storage capacity.
Currently on the NEM there is 6.1 GW / 10.3 GWh of storage.
You are claiming this will increase by a factor of 3.8 by the end of 2026.
That infers that if you assume 4 hrs storage per BESS facility you would install 82 Gwh storage. Using a standard BESS size of 400 Mw, this would be adding 32 BESS facilities or one every 17 days.
Have I got this correct?
There is 21 GW in grid scale capacity in use, construction or commissioning now. In addition almost every new solar plant that is announced is paired with a battery as are a number of new wind farms and a few existing plants are also retrofitting batteries. Duration varies from 1 hour to 8 hours but I would think of the the 21 GW there will be around 50 GWh of storage. One new connection every 17 days is about right. I think 400 MW is a bit on the small side these days, Eraring is 700 MW, Warratah 860 MW etc. Then there are the 2m behind the meter batteries expected over the next few years which will be rated at about 10 GW but will probably never supply more than 3GW and the other 150GW of proposals that have been announced
On the worst wind and solar day this year, (12th of June) hydro only supplied 79 GWh or 30% of capacity, now clearly 100% is not possible but once transmission constraints are eased more than 50% should be, that brings it up to say 140 GWh. Now over the nine days from the 1st of June wind and solar would have supplied more than 100% of demand so storages would be near full. Thus Snowy II, Kidston, Lake Lyell and Borumba running at 60% add another 35 GWh.
Now on David's multiple, wind solar and hydro would have supplied 315 GWh, hydro 180 GWh leaving 160 GWh to be supplied by a combination of storage, demand response and residual gas. Now even on that day from about 9:30 to 2:30 wind and solar would not only have been supplying all the load but putting up to 1.5 GW into storage even if hydro had been constrained down to less than 0.5 GW so it would have been possible to partially recharge storage.
So lets say gas supplies half of that shortfall it would be supplying maybe 8 GW/80 GWh over the day or 12% of demand. Stretch it out over the week gas might have supplied 260 GWh around 6%. Over the last 30 days 3.5-4.5%.
The problem with economists is that they don't think like people. If economists had their way, most people would not buy cars because the average utilisation of the car is 5%, but in fact the occupancy of most cars is only 30%, so the car seats are only used 1.5% of the time. Worse still, when it is in use, the average output of the engine is about 25 kW from a 200 kW engine so the engine utilisation is .05* 25/200 << 1%, what an economic waste. Yet people go and buy second cars which have 1/3rd of the utilisation of the first one.
For the same reason people are now putting 10-12 kW of solar on their roof and buying 15kWh batteries, they buy stuff "just in case" not because they have worked out the economics to the last decimal place. Consequently I think David's estimate of 2X customer solar is way under estimated, it will be 4-6 X. We have space over roofs, carparks and other waste/paved areas for more than ten times what we have now