You need to add moving hot water heating from nighttime to day time, then municipal water transfer, (Melbourne Water is the tenth biggest energy user in Victoria). then irrigation and ice making. then smart EV charging, Smart appliances will do washing, clean pools, preheat/precool buildings, when power is available.
Many years ago, it was said that if automatic telephone exchanges had not been invented, we would need all the girls in the world to be telephonists to handle 1970's telephony volumes. Usage patterns change to suit the technology. Train travel declined as most people could afford cars. Factories moved away from city centres when workers had cars etc etc etc.
Then the generation technology is changing. Wind turbines were originally focused on achieving peak power from available blade technology, then they started to increase tower height to access better winds and then increase rotor area more than power so the turbine could spend more hours near rated power maximising Annual Energy Production (AEP). This trend is accelerating focusing on annual revenue so output at low wind speeds can be double or more than that of a twelve-year-old turbine. When wind speeds are low prices are higher so even if the turbine turns off at high wind speeds but gets good yield at 6m/s (light breeze) it will make more money and need less storage. The latest turbines ordered in Australia will have annual output over 20 GWh. McArthur then the biggest wind farm south of the equator, with the latest technology turbines installed only 12 years ago generates 6 GWh/y per turbine
It is highly unlikely that Australia's power demand would double in twenty years. We currently use roughly 50% more electricity per person than Europe and electrifying 85% of all land transport within the NEM represents only 20% of current electricity demand, water and space heating about 20%. I did a rough calculation that if we replaced all electric immersion and gas water heaters with heat pumps there would be no net increase in demand
If we used electricity as efficiently as Italy, we could electrify all commercial, domestic and institutional gas use as well as land transport with no increase in demand.
Moreover, some of the tasks aren't as hard as you think. There are half a dozen batteries being built now that are 10-20 times as big as the Torrens Island BESS. The latest batteries are 7MWh. The original 109 MWh Hornsdale Battery needed 436 battery cabinets wired and connected. The same capacity today needs 16 battery cabinets
We can easily add 4GW/16 GWh of batteries every year and half that again behind the meter. This year we will add sufficient renewable capacity to produce 15 TWh/y and pushing that up to 20 TWh/y is not difficult as the technology improves so that would take us to almost 500 TWh/y by 2044
I'd be fascinated to see more info on some of the topics you mention: I look forward to receiving links to same.
Especially those bigger battery facilities you mention: where are the BESSs with capacities 10-20 times Torrens Island, and what are their capital costs and delivery dates?
Because as I keep saying: directionally, better Wind turbines will just be curtailed more and more unless there is reliable schedulable extra Demand available... especially in those sunny days.
Collie battery, which will form part of the country’s biggest battery – a total of 560 MW and 2240 MWh when complete in late 2025.
The Chinese-based solar giant Trina Solar has submitted plans to build what would be the biggest battery storage facility in Australia, at Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth.
The proposal is for a facility hosting up to 660 megawatts (MW) of capacity, and 2,640 megawatt hours (MWh) of storage,
The third stage of the Eraring battery will add 700 MWh to the 460 MW / 1,070 MWh first stage already under construction, increasing its dispatch duration to approximately four-hours. With the 240 MW / 1030 MWh second stage of the project also under construction, the combined energy storage of the Eraring battery will be 700 MW / 2,800 MWh, making it one of the largest battery energy storage systems in the world. Since 2021 Origin has tripled the size of that battery
The trick with the new turbines is that the generation profile is different, both due to location and technology. Queensland wind is poorly correlated with Victorian/SA wind so as Queensland has only just started its wind build out that will mean that some Queensland wind can flow south, which it has not done in the past.
Victorian wind is creeping East so that peak wind in Victoria is stretching by an hour or two now. Someone will take a punt in the next couple of years and build a big wind farm either in Bass Straight or onshore East of Sale which will take advantage of Easterlies during the summer fall of prevailing Westerlies.
Then the newest wind turbines eg https://www.envision-group.com/en/windturbines.html 4 MW wind turbines with 190m diameter rotors on 140m diameter towers might well be curtailed when wind speeds at ground level are over 40 knotts, but at 15mph ground wind speed (fast run) they will be at half power when the older turbines are at 10% or less so most of the time they won't be curtailed. Even then as strong winds rarely last more than four hours a wind farm with storage rated 25-30% of peak rated capacity for 4-5 hours would avoid most cutailment.
The Kemerton battery mentioned above is expected to cost about $1bn Australian dollars but would support at least $4bn of wind projects probably adding around 20-25% to the average revenue per MWh
Just to show I'm paying attention, "Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth" is in SWIS not the NEM. "expected to cost about $1bn Australian dollars but would support at least $4bn of wind projects probably adding around 20-25% to the average revenue per MWh" all in SWIS, and exactly who benefits from that extra revenue per MWh, the Chinese, or Western Aus bill-payers?
Going back to your "We can easily add 4GW/16 GWh of batteries every year and half that again behind the meter."
- Behind the meter = individuals' spending decisions. I've seen some commenters saying they expect 5-10 years' payback times, which I have to say seems boldly optimistic with relatively novel technology, and in such a changeable world, too. But it's their money and their decision... provided they aren't benefitting from regressive higher energy prices levied on people who cannot afford them.
- You've mentioned a project in SWIS, doesn't count for the NEM which is the topic of this post.
- Collie battery - total of 560 MW / 2240 MWh when complete in late 2025.
- Eraring battery + 700 MWh to the 460 MW / 1,070 MWh first stage already under construction... + 240 MW / 1030 MWh second stage also under construction, eventually Eraring battery will be 700 MW / 2,800 MWh
5,000 MWH is a loooong way short of your 'we can easily' claim.
All your claims about Wind turbine improvements? I'll believe them when I see them show up in the data. As you're possibly aware, the UK has quite a large fleet of Wind *capacity*, On- and off-shore: per DUKES 6.2, by the end of 2023: 15,418 MW and 14,745 MW respectively.
DUKES_6.3 "Load factors for renewable electricity generation" shows pretty constant values across the last five whole years 2019-2023:
Onshore 26.5 28.3 23.4 27.6 24.6 5-year average 26.1%
Offshore 40.4 45.8 37.6 40.9 39.5 5-year average 40.8%
No upward trend visible there, certainly none that I'd like to stake people's lives on.
[For the avoidance of doubt, DUKES defines Load factor as "Percentage of how much was generated compared to maximum possible generation - based on the average of capacity at the start of the year and capacity at the end of the year."]
You used the Torrens Island battery as a reference. I pointed out much larger batteries are being built. Erarring, the biggest of all, is on the NEM as is Waratah, Melbourne Renewable Energy hub etc. Libra Energy has unveiled its first major Australian renewables project, announcing plans to build an 850 MW / 3,400 MWh battery energy storage system in southeast Queensland. etc etc etc. almost 50 times the Torrens Island battery
Just to illustrate how fast things are changing, the 1,890 MWh figure you listed is only a couple of months old. The current figure is 4,263 MW/6,173 MWh
There is over 11 GW of batteries in the AEMO connection queue some of which have eight hours storage and the median is probably around three hours. i.e. when it is all connected over the next three years or so we will have 160 Torrens Island batteries
Re Kemmerton, it doesn't really matter who gets the revenue as long as the cost of power to the consumers is lower than coal and gas which it clearly is. Further your claim that more wind will just lead to more curtailment is simplistic to say the least. If there was no storage or flexible demand that may be the case, but even then, as I have pointed out, low wind turbines will only have output curtailed at relatively high wind speeds which is a very small part of their revenue base.
Re customer batteries, with the combination of declining battery prices and declining feed in tariffs means that paybacks of 6-8 years are common. This is an after-tax return, far better than most people get on their other investments. It isn't really a novel technology; we had a battery powered system on the farm when I was a kid 65 years ago. And to the extent that customer batteries reduce peak demand they save everyone money in reduced generation, transmission and distribution capacity, reduced peak load I2R losses and limiting the magnitude and duration of high-priced events.
As for wind capacity factors you are looking at the wrong data yet again. Firstly, if capacity has expanded 15% and the last 15% has a 35% CF and the earlier turbines 26% that would only increase fleet CF to 27.3% assuming no increase in curtailment. That is lost in the noise.
You need to look at the not only the CF of individual wind farms but the commercial arrangements. Some plants in Australia have take of pay arrangements so it is up to the retailer to take all the power and manage all his other sources. In other cases the wind and solar is obliged to turn off if prices reach zero, so clearly the former plant would have a higher CF. However in Victoria you could look at McArthur, 23% lifetime CF state of the art 12 year ago and Stockyard Hill 33% since reaching full power
Tripling hydro will not happen. The Snowy Mountains scheme took 25 years to build from 1949 to 1974. Community opposition to more dams in Tasmania means there will be no more hydro there. The only concevable possibilities are the tropical North of Queensland or WA, but they are a huge distance from population. Not only will a tripling not happen, water levels at the Snowy Dams were down below 10% in the last major drought 2007-2009. Hotter temperatures due to climate change will increase evaporation rates, so there is a real danger the Snowy will generate and store no energy for months or years at a time when we are next in a major drought. So rather than tripling hydro, hydro could be constrained to close to zero. After spending $14 billion on Snowy Hydro 2, this could also be its fate.
This from the Melbourne Age Newspaper at the time. It is behind a pay wall but highlights the dam levels at that time.
It would be quite possible to triple hydro power capacity, if we focused on pumped hydro projects with 8-12 hours storage. There are about 1,500 suitable sites in Australia where an existing dam or lake can form the upper or lower reservoir. So, 50 of those sites with 600 MW each plus the existing pumped hydro projects gets you there. However excess solar and batteries are cheaper so in my guess we won't add more than a couple of GW of pumped hydro after Borumba, Snowy II and Oven Mountain and Cethana. It would not surprise me if even one or two of those projects fall over.
Further, although off river pumped hydro is less affected by drought than normal hydro, Goronwy Price is right, a future grid has to be designed for less than 1% of annual demand coming from hydro
Re: "There are about 1,500 suitable sites in Australia ... So, 50 of those sites with 600 MW each plus the existing pumped hydro projects gets you there. ... Goronwy Price is right, a future grid has to be designed for less than 1% of annual demand coming from hydro"
So Hydro / Pumped Hydro is a non-starter.
Also
50 sites x 600 MW = 30,000 MW power capacity. That could comfortably cover smoothing of actual December 13 Solar, but would seriously under-achieve when set against maximum 2044 power flow into storage of ~82,000 MW.
It is highly unlikely that there will be 82,000 MW to be delivered to storage, that would imply about 250 GW+ of renewables on line, because real time demand, batteries, smart charging of EVs and other discretionary loads will be drawing about 50 GW, hydro would be turned off and the best combined wind and solar will do is about 50% of combined capacity. For example record combined wind and solar output on the NEM is 12.6 GW from about 25 GW of utility capacity
You seem to have difficulty swapping between peak and annual demand and be overly concerned with curtailment.
Currently there is 2.1 TW of coal capacity on the global grid which according to the builders has 95% availability and yet it only generates 10,600 TWh i.e 37% of coal potential is curtailed. 97% of the potential of the average private vehicle is curtailed, more than 70% of the potential of the average private residence is unused.
Pumped hydro, however much there is of it will be used like gas is now. Gas supplies less 2% of demand in NSW and less than 3% in Victoria, but it is still an essential part of the system. So, saying pumped hydro is a non-starter because it can only absorb half the potential generating excess is just a complete misunderstanding of how power systems work
If demand increases by 50% and wind+solar are increased by a factor of eight there will a) be plenty of energy and b) about 15% curtailment, big deal.
You need to add moving hot water heating from nighttime to day time, then municipal water transfer, (Melbourne Water is the tenth biggest energy user in Victoria). then irrigation and ice making. then smart EV charging, Smart appliances will do washing, clean pools, preheat/precool buildings, when power is available.
Many years ago, it was said that if automatic telephone exchanges had not been invented, we would need all the girls in the world to be telephonists to handle 1970's telephony volumes. Usage patterns change to suit the technology. Train travel declined as most people could afford cars. Factories moved away from city centres when workers had cars etc etc etc.
Then the generation technology is changing. Wind turbines were originally focused on achieving peak power from available blade technology, then they started to increase tower height to access better winds and then increase rotor area more than power so the turbine could spend more hours near rated power maximising Annual Energy Production (AEP). This trend is accelerating focusing on annual revenue so output at low wind speeds can be double or more than that of a twelve-year-old turbine. When wind speeds are low prices are higher so even if the turbine turns off at high wind speeds but gets good yield at 6m/s (light breeze) it will make more money and need less storage. The latest turbines ordered in Australia will have annual output over 20 GWh. McArthur then the biggest wind farm south of the equator, with the latest technology turbines installed only 12 years ago generates 6 GWh/y per turbine
It is highly unlikely that Australia's power demand would double in twenty years. We currently use roughly 50% more electricity per person than Europe and electrifying 85% of all land transport within the NEM represents only 20% of current electricity demand, water and space heating about 20%. I did a rough calculation that if we replaced all electric immersion and gas water heaters with heat pumps there would be no net increase in demand
If we used electricity as efficiently as Italy, we could electrify all commercial, domestic and institutional gas use as well as land transport with no increase in demand.
Moreover, some of the tasks aren't as hard as you think. There are half a dozen batteries being built now that are 10-20 times as big as the Torrens Island BESS. The latest batteries are 7MWh. The original 109 MWh Hornsdale Battery needed 436 battery cabinets wired and connected. The same capacity today needs 16 battery cabinets
We can easily add 4GW/16 GWh of batteries every year and half that again behind the meter. This year we will add sufficient renewable capacity to produce 15 TWh/y and pushing that up to 20 TWh/y is not difficult as the technology improves so that would take us to almost 500 TWh/y by 2044
Thank you for your comments Peter.
I'd be fascinated to see more info on some of the topics you mention: I look forward to receiving links to same.
Especially those bigger battery facilities you mention: where are the BESSs with capacities 10-20 times Torrens Island, and what are their capital costs and delivery dates?
Because as I keep saying: directionally, better Wind turbines will just be curtailed more and more unless there is reliable schedulable extra Demand available... especially in those sunny days.
Collie battery, which will form part of the country’s biggest battery – a total of 560 MW and 2240 MWh when complete in late 2025.
The Chinese-based solar giant Trina Solar has submitted plans to build what would be the biggest battery storage facility in Australia, at Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth.
The proposal is for a facility hosting up to 660 megawatts (MW) of capacity, and 2,640 megawatt hours (MWh) of storage,
The third stage of the Eraring battery will add 700 MWh to the 460 MW / 1,070 MWh first stage already under construction, increasing its dispatch duration to approximately four-hours. With the 240 MW / 1030 MWh second stage of the project also under construction, the combined energy storage of the Eraring battery will be 700 MW / 2,800 MWh, making it one of the largest battery energy storage systems in the world. Since 2021 Origin has tripled the size of that battery
The trick with the new turbines is that the generation profile is different, both due to location and technology. Queensland wind is poorly correlated with Victorian/SA wind so as Queensland has only just started its wind build out that will mean that some Queensland wind can flow south, which it has not done in the past.
Victorian wind is creeping East so that peak wind in Victoria is stretching by an hour or two now. Someone will take a punt in the next couple of years and build a big wind farm either in Bass Straight or onshore East of Sale which will take advantage of Easterlies during the summer fall of prevailing Westerlies.
Then the newest wind turbines eg https://www.envision-group.com/en/windturbines.html 4 MW wind turbines with 190m diameter rotors on 140m diameter towers might well be curtailed when wind speeds at ground level are over 40 knotts, but at 15mph ground wind speed (fast run) they will be at half power when the older turbines are at 10% or less so most of the time they won't be curtailed. Even then as strong winds rarely last more than four hours a wind farm with storage rated 25-30% of peak rated capacity for 4-5 hours would avoid most cutailment.
The Kemerton battery mentioned above is expected to cost about $1bn Australian dollars but would support at least $4bn of wind projects probably adding around 20-25% to the average revenue per MWh
Hello Peter,
Just to show I'm paying attention, "Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth" is in SWIS not the NEM. "expected to cost about $1bn Australian dollars but would support at least $4bn of wind projects probably adding around 20-25% to the average revenue per MWh" all in SWIS, and exactly who benefits from that extra revenue per MWh, the Chinese, or Western Aus bill-payers?
Going back to your "We can easily add 4GW/16 GWh of batteries every year and half that again behind the meter."
- Behind the meter = individuals' spending decisions. I've seen some commenters saying they expect 5-10 years' payback times, which I have to say seems boldly optimistic with relatively novel technology, and in such a changeable world, too. But it's their money and their decision... provided they aren't benefitting from regressive higher energy prices levied on people who cannot afford them.
- You've mentioned a project in SWIS, doesn't count for the NEM which is the topic of this post.
- Collie battery - total of 560 MW / 2240 MWh when complete in late 2025.
- Eraring battery + 700 MWh to the 460 MW / 1,070 MWh first stage already under construction... + 240 MW / 1030 MWh second stage also under construction, eventually Eraring battery will be 700 MW / 2,800 MWh
So that's about 5,000 MWh being added to the NEM on top of the existing 1,890 MWh listed by Open Electricity - Figure 3. https://chrisbond.substack.com/i/149558259/figure-all-australia-battery-energy-storage-systems-operating
5,000 MWH is a loooong way short of your 'we can easily' claim.
All your claims about Wind turbine improvements? I'll believe them when I see them show up in the data. As you're possibly aware, the UK has quite a large fleet of Wind *capacity*, On- and off-shore: per DUKES 6.2, by the end of 2023: 15,418 MW and 14,745 MW respectively.
DUKES_6.3 "Load factors for renewable electricity generation" shows pretty constant values across the last five whole years 2019-2023:
Onshore 26.5 28.3 23.4 27.6 24.6 5-year average 26.1%
Offshore 40.4 45.8 37.6 40.9 39.5 5-year average 40.8%
No upward trend visible there, certainly none that I'd like to stake people's lives on.
[For the avoidance of doubt, DUKES defines Load factor as "Percentage of how much was generated compared to maximum possible generation - based on the average of capacity at the start of the year and capacity at the end of the year."]
You used the Torrens Island battery as a reference. I pointed out much larger batteries are being built. Erarring, the biggest of all, is on the NEM as is Waratah, Melbourne Renewable Energy hub etc. Libra Energy has unveiled its first major Australian renewables project, announcing plans to build an 850 MW / 3,400 MWh battery energy storage system in southeast Queensland. etc etc etc. almost 50 times the Torrens Island battery
Just to illustrate how fast things are changing, the 1,890 MWh figure you listed is only a couple of months old. The current figure is 4,263 MW/6,173 MWh
There is over 11 GW of batteries in the AEMO connection queue some of which have eight hours storage and the median is probably around three hours. i.e. when it is all connected over the next three years or so we will have 160 Torrens Island batteries
Re Kemmerton, it doesn't really matter who gets the revenue as long as the cost of power to the consumers is lower than coal and gas which it clearly is. Further your claim that more wind will just lead to more curtailment is simplistic to say the least. If there was no storage or flexible demand that may be the case, but even then, as I have pointed out, low wind turbines will only have output curtailed at relatively high wind speeds which is a very small part of their revenue base.
Re customer batteries, with the combination of declining battery prices and declining feed in tariffs means that paybacks of 6-8 years are common. This is an after-tax return, far better than most people get on their other investments. It isn't really a novel technology; we had a battery powered system on the farm when I was a kid 65 years ago. And to the extent that customer batteries reduce peak demand they save everyone money in reduced generation, transmission and distribution capacity, reduced peak load I2R losses and limiting the magnitude and duration of high-priced events.
As for wind capacity factors you are looking at the wrong data yet again. Firstly, if capacity has expanded 15% and the last 15% has a 35% CF and the earlier turbines 26% that would only increase fleet CF to 27.3% assuming no increase in curtailment. That is lost in the noise.
You need to look at the not only the CF of individual wind farms but the commercial arrangements. Some plants in Australia have take of pay arrangements so it is up to the retailer to take all the power and manage all his other sources. In other cases the wind and solar is obliged to turn off if prices reach zero, so clearly the former plant would have a higher CF. However in Victoria you could look at McArthur, 23% lifetime CF state of the art 12 year ago and Stockyard Hill 33% since reaching full power
Merry Christmas, Peter!
Tripling hydro will not happen. The Snowy Mountains scheme took 25 years to build from 1949 to 1974. Community opposition to more dams in Tasmania means there will be no more hydro there. The only concevable possibilities are the tropical North of Queensland or WA, but they are a huge distance from population. Not only will a tripling not happen, water levels at the Snowy Dams were down below 10% in the last major drought 2007-2009. Hotter temperatures due to climate change will increase evaporation rates, so there is a real danger the Snowy will generate and store no energy for months or years at a time when we are next in a major drought. So rather than tripling hydro, hydro could be constrained to close to zero. After spending $14 billion on Snowy Hydro 2, this could also be its fate.
This from the Melbourne Age Newspaper at the time. It is behind a pay wall but highlights the dam levels at that time.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/drought-could-close-down-snowy-20070422-ge4pv4.html
Thank you, Goronwy.
I mainly included 3 x Hydro by 2044 just to demonstrate to any Hydro fans how little difference it might make to the NEM.
Especially those Hydro fans who look at the MWh storage (wow, big!) but don't take any notice of the MW power limit or other constraints.
It would be quite possible to triple hydro power capacity, if we focused on pumped hydro projects with 8-12 hours storage. There are about 1,500 suitable sites in Australia where an existing dam or lake can form the upper or lower reservoir. So, 50 of those sites with 600 MW each plus the existing pumped hydro projects gets you there. However excess solar and batteries are cheaper so in my guess we won't add more than a couple of GW of pumped hydro after Borumba, Snowy II and Oven Mountain and Cethana. It would not surprise me if even one or two of those projects fall over.
Further, although off river pumped hydro is less affected by drought than normal hydro, Goronwy Price is right, a future grid has to be designed for less than 1% of annual demand coming from hydro
Re: "There are about 1,500 suitable sites in Australia ... So, 50 of those sites with 600 MW each plus the existing pumped hydro projects gets you there. ... Goronwy Price is right, a future grid has to be designed for less than 1% of annual demand coming from hydro"
So Hydro / Pumped Hydro is a non-starter.
Also
50 sites x 600 MW = 30,000 MW power capacity. That could comfortably cover smoothing of actual December 13 Solar, but would seriously under-achieve when set against maximum 2044 power flow into storage of ~82,000 MW.
140 x 600 MW...
It is highly unlikely that there will be 82,000 MW to be delivered to storage, that would imply about 250 GW+ of renewables on line, because real time demand, batteries, smart charging of EVs and other discretionary loads will be drawing about 50 GW, hydro would be turned off and the best combined wind and solar will do is about 50% of combined capacity. For example record combined wind and solar output on the NEM is 12.6 GW from about 25 GW of utility capacity
You seem to have difficulty swapping between peak and annual demand and be overly concerned with curtailment.
Currently there is 2.1 TW of coal capacity on the global grid which according to the builders has 95% availability and yet it only generates 10,600 TWh i.e 37% of coal potential is curtailed. 97% of the potential of the average private vehicle is curtailed, more than 70% of the potential of the average private residence is unused.
Pumped hydro, however much there is of it will be used like gas is now. Gas supplies less 2% of demand in NSW and less than 3% in Victoria, but it is still an essential part of the system. So, saying pumped hydro is a non-starter because it can only absorb half the potential generating excess is just a complete misunderstanding of how power systems work
If demand increases by 50% and wind+solar are increased by a factor of eight there will a) be plenty of energy and b) about 15% curtailment, big deal.