Great work. I am curious: can you can find evidence of any decommissioned coal plants in Australia that were completely replaced by electricity generated solely by solar + wind + batteries?
A few months ago I threat out this challenge, and so far no one has been able to find one example:
Why would anyone be so silly as to try to replace a coal plant with a wind/solar/storage combination. The coal plant was located next to an energy and cooling water resource, why would we not locate wind/solar/storage in the optimum position
What we do know is that the coal plants which closed since 2014 had an annual output in their heyday of 24 TWh while wind and solar output has increased by 57 TWh. We also know that there is 43 GW of dispatchable capacity on the NEM with 7 GW of batteries in service or under construction and peak dispatchable output over the last 5 years was 30.6 GW and it is falling
Where have you been for the last 20 years?!? It is the Green goal to get to global Netzero by 2050 by replacing all fossil fuels, including coal, with renewables and batteries.
My challenge is to prove it has been accomplished once out of the 6000+ coal plants in existence.
I never said that the new plant had to be immediately adjacent to an old coal plant
None of those other numbers you gave are relevant to my comment. If you think that solar + wind + batteries has replaced all the electricity from a decommissioned coal plant 24/7/365, then take the challenge at the link above.
It would be really good if you had half an idea what is happening in Australia before going off on frolics like this.
a) Australia already uses twice as much electricity per person as France/Italy/Spain even though it is less industrialised. The only reason electricity demand in Australia will double is that it is displacing fossil fuels in transport and heating. With the current mix that would mean that if renewable output remains the same we would need 360 TWh/y from fossil fuels/nuclear, where is that in your calculations
b) Australia isn't all in on batteries. As wind and solar increases, hydro increasingly becomes a gap filler, so even in a drought year, existing hydro will be able to supply 7-8 GW/2,000 GWh in a bad wind+solar week. In addition there is 2.2 GW/360 GWh of pumped hydro under construction and 10 GW/200 GWh undergoing feasibility as well as about 1-2 GW of potential capacity enhancement at existing hydro such as Shoalhaven, Tarraleah, Hume, Dartmouth etc. Australia will probably have 20-25 GW/60-100 GWh of battery storage by 2035, trivial compared to hydro/pumped hydro, let alone thermal storage, biofuels etc.
c) How is curtailment an issue. Every grid in the world curtails coal, gas and even nuclear. Way back in 2008 Australia's gas plants ran at less than 10% capacity. Peak utilisation of Germany's coal plants was 62%. France has 61 GW of nuclear of which about 55 GW is operational. Output has been as low as 21 GW this year. The US has 720 GW of thermal plants that average 40% CF
Curtailment is a far less important issue for wind and solar than for coal and gas.
i) The non fuel costs per day/MW of coal capacity are about double those of wind, gas almost double those of solar so the opportunity cost of operating below capacity is higher for thermal plants than wind and solar.
ii) If someone has an application for power that is only economical at $10-20/MWh, wind and solar can make a contribution to overheads at that price, coal and gas can't so they earn no revenue. If the opportunity is only there for 20-30 minutes even at A$60 wind and solar can jump in coal and gas can't
iii) in short periods of low demand nuclear, coal and to a lesser extent, gas plants have to pay customers to take their power, wind and solar plants just shut down, because they can ramp back up in seconds and they don't suffer from thermal fatigue
c) Wind and solar plants can actually earn FCAS revenue when there is excess generation even if they are stopped or running below their available output, because they can inject power almost instantly or their inverters can inject VARs even if the plant is not supplying power. Coal and gas plants have to burn fuel to earn that revenue.
What straw man are you claiming that he is making? This article is mainly an analysis of electrical grid supply and demand and how increased solar and wind might change it.
You are way off on a number of points. Bond’s analysis is far better than yours.
For example, you do not even understand basic concepts like the difference between curtailment and load balancing. Load balancing is a reaction to consumer demand, it is absolutely essential, and solar and wind cannot do it. Curtailment is when too much electricity is being produced because of nature. It is a bad thing, because it represents wasted investment. Fossil fuels don't need to do it.
Well you put up silly scenarios and prove them wrong.
That is a straw man argument.
1. He has completely omitted the use of hydro/pumped hydro and biomass to support wind and solar. i.e left out 90% of the backup energy
2. So we should never have built gas plants that are curtailed to 10% of capacity, many of them to 2%.
3. Hydro plants should be built at only the 10% percentile flow of the catchment so we can get 90% CF .
Fossil fuels don't need to do it, what a joke. Way back in 2010 the US had 770 GW of fossil fuel plants that never produced more than 450 GW and averaged less than 350 GW. On a spring day when demand was 250 GW, what were the other 520GW of plants doing. They were curtailed.
Australia had 49 GW that maxed out at 36 GW and averaged 24 GW and often dropped to 13GW
Re: your "completely omitted the use of hydro/pumped hydro and biomass to support wind and solar. i.e left out 90% of the backup energy"... I included it. Also
for whole-year 2023, Biomass + Hydro was 15.5 TWh out of total Demand 207.7 TWh. Less than 10%. So how can something so minor be "90% of the backup energy"?
Re: your "gas plants that are curtailed to 10% of capacity"
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "curtailment". Applying "curtailment" to dispatchable power generators is wrong. The applicable word in this context is "control". The output of dispatchable power generators has been *controlled* lower and lower because Govt. policy dictates that they must give way to Wind & Solar if those sources are available. But if too much Wind + Solar *could* be available *that* surplus has to be curtailed.
Re: your point 3 and the rest of your mini-rant: design margin. Design for worst-case, accept it's over-designed for best. Can readily be done if you have dispatchable power generators whose maintenance intervals hence technical availability can be reliably predicted. Can be done but with significantly greater uncertainty for Wind + Solar. Hence in the UK we're waiting to see if the lights go out this winter now our last 4 coal plants (which were deemed by National Grid ESO to be necessary to keep the lights on thru winters 2022-3 and 2023-4) have been closed.
Especially after the interconnector trip of 08Oct.
The fact that you keep harping on hydro so much, means that you understand that hydro is essential for replacing coal plants and other fossil fuel plants, but yet on another page you claim that wind and solar have replaced coal without hydro in many nations.
So which is it?
Is hydro necessary or not? You cannot have it both ways!
Great work. I am curious: can you can find evidence of any decommissioned coal plants in Australia that were completely replaced by electricity generated solely by solar + wind + batteries?
A few months ago I threat out this challenge, and so far no one has been able to find one example:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/prove-that-solarwind-replaces-fossil
I also recently wrote another article debunking some cases reported in the media:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-solar-wind-cannot
Why would anyone be so silly as to try to replace a coal plant with a wind/solar/storage combination. The coal plant was located next to an energy and cooling water resource, why would we not locate wind/solar/storage in the optimum position
What we do know is that the coal plants which closed since 2014 had an annual output in their heyday of 24 TWh while wind and solar output has increased by 57 TWh. We also know that there is 43 GW of dispatchable capacity on the NEM with 7 GW of batteries in service or under construction and peak dispatchable output over the last 5 years was 30.6 GW and it is falling
Where have you been for the last 20 years?!? It is the Green goal to get to global Netzero by 2050 by replacing all fossil fuels, including coal, with renewables and batteries.
My challenge is to prove it has been accomplished once out of the 6000+ coal plants in existence.
I never said that the new plant had to be immediately adjacent to an old coal plant
None of those other numbers you gave are relevant to my comment. If you think that solar + wind + batteries has replaced all the electricity from a decommissioned coal plant 24/7/365, then take the challenge at the link above.
Ok I stand corrected on location.
What bit of 57 TWh/y from solar and wind replacing 24 TWh/y of lost coal output is hard to understand.
Peak winter coal output in 2015 when coal supplied 75% of energy was 21.6 GW. This winter it was 18.9 GW
Combined with 1.5 GW of rarely used gas and 6 GW of new batteries under construction why will we not be able to cover the 2.7 GW GW difference
If you are correct, then it should be easy for you to win the challenge.
What a crock.
Britain has closed all its coal plants and gas +nuclear generation has fallen from 190 TWh in 2016 to 120 TWh this year.
France has closed 5.7 GW of coal since 2015 and reduced nuclear and gas output
Australia has closed 30% of its coal plants and gas usage for power generation is 45% less than it was in 2008 despite 15% population growth
Spain, Texas, Germany, Ireland etc etc etc.
There you go done.
Then if they did that exclusively via wind and solar, it should be easy for you to win the challenge.
If you are so sure that you are correct, why do you keep evading?
You seem to specialise in Straw man arguments.
It would be really good if you had half an idea what is happening in Australia before going off on frolics like this.
a) Australia already uses twice as much electricity per person as France/Italy/Spain even though it is less industrialised. The only reason electricity demand in Australia will double is that it is displacing fossil fuels in transport and heating. With the current mix that would mean that if renewable output remains the same we would need 360 TWh/y from fossil fuels/nuclear, where is that in your calculations
b) Australia isn't all in on batteries. As wind and solar increases, hydro increasingly becomes a gap filler, so even in a drought year, existing hydro will be able to supply 7-8 GW/2,000 GWh in a bad wind+solar week. In addition there is 2.2 GW/360 GWh of pumped hydro under construction and 10 GW/200 GWh undergoing feasibility as well as about 1-2 GW of potential capacity enhancement at existing hydro such as Shoalhaven, Tarraleah, Hume, Dartmouth etc. Australia will probably have 20-25 GW/60-100 GWh of battery storage by 2035, trivial compared to hydro/pumped hydro, let alone thermal storage, biofuels etc.
c) How is curtailment an issue. Every grid in the world curtails coal, gas and even nuclear. Way back in 2008 Australia's gas plants ran at less than 10% capacity. Peak utilisation of Germany's coal plants was 62%. France has 61 GW of nuclear of which about 55 GW is operational. Output has been as low as 21 GW this year. The US has 720 GW of thermal plants that average 40% CF
Curtailment is a far less important issue for wind and solar than for coal and gas.
i) The non fuel costs per day/MW of coal capacity are about double those of wind, gas almost double those of solar so the opportunity cost of operating below capacity is higher for thermal plants than wind and solar.
ii) If someone has an application for power that is only economical at $10-20/MWh, wind and solar can make a contribution to overheads at that price, coal and gas can't so they earn no revenue. If the opportunity is only there for 20-30 minutes even at A$60 wind and solar can jump in coal and gas can't
iii) in short periods of low demand nuclear, coal and to a lesser extent, gas plants have to pay customers to take their power, wind and solar plants just shut down, because they can ramp back up in seconds and they don't suffer from thermal fatigue
c) Wind and solar plants can actually earn FCAS revenue when there is excess generation even if they are stopped or running below their available output, because they can inject power almost instantly or their inverters can inject VARs even if the plant is not supplying power. Coal and gas plants have to burn fuel to earn that revenue.
In summary, not a pass mark I am afraid
Peter Farley:
"A straw man is a fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one under discussion."
I'm trying to *start* a discussion by presenting data in a way completely absent from the “Open Electricity” official source.
I'm being deliberately contrarian to provide a counterpoint to all the 'renewables' boosterism.
In other words, I'm trying to "red-team" the whole energy transition idea, using real data.
It seems to be working.
Being deliberately wrong more like it.
You are not using real data, you have left out a vital part.
You might as well say we can run a nuclear system without hydro/pumped hydro or gas backup therefore nuclear can't work.
Like your mates over at Energy Bad Boys with their fictitious analysis on Minnesota
Oh, so anyone who disagrees with you is using “fictitious analysis” and “being deliberately wrong.”
LOL
If you were correct, then you would not need to use hysterical language. Your panic betrays you.
And you still keep refusing my challenge.
What straw man are you claiming that he is making? This article is mainly an analysis of electrical grid supply and demand and how increased solar and wind might change it.
You are way off on a number of points. Bond’s analysis is far better than yours.
For example, you do not even understand basic concepts like the difference between curtailment and load balancing. Load balancing is a reaction to consumer demand, it is absolutely essential, and solar and wind cannot do it. Curtailment is when too much electricity is being produced because of nature. It is a bad thing, because it represents wasted investment. Fossil fuels don't need to do it.
Well you put up silly scenarios and prove them wrong.
That is a straw man argument.
1. He has completely omitted the use of hydro/pumped hydro and biomass to support wind and solar. i.e left out 90% of the backup energy
2. So we should never have built gas plants that are curtailed to 10% of capacity, many of them to 2%.
3. Hydro plants should be built at only the 10% percentile flow of the catchment so we can get 90% CF .
Fossil fuels don't need to do it, what a joke. Way back in 2010 the US had 770 GW of fossil fuel plants that never produced more than 450 GW and averaged less than 350 GW. On a spring day when demand was 250 GW, what were the other 520GW of plants doing. They were curtailed.
Australia had 49 GW that maxed out at 36 GW and averaged 24 GW and often dropped to 13GW
Peter F:
Re: your "completely omitted the use of hydro/pumped hydro and biomass to support wind and solar. i.e left out 90% of the backup energy"... I included it. Also
for whole-year 2023, Biomass + Hydro was 15.5 TWh out of total Demand 207.7 TWh. Less than 10%. So how can something so minor be "90% of the backup energy"?
Re: your "gas plants that are curtailed to 10% of capacity"
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "curtailment". Applying "curtailment" to dispatchable power generators is wrong. The applicable word in this context is "control". The output of dispatchable power generators has been *controlled* lower and lower because Govt. policy dictates that they must give way to Wind & Solar if those sources are available. But if too much Wind + Solar *could* be available *that* surplus has to be curtailed.
Re: your point 3 and the rest of your mini-rant: design margin. Design for worst-case, accept it's over-designed for best. Can readily be done if you have dispatchable power generators whose maintenance intervals hence technical availability can be reliably predicted. Can be done but with significantly greater uncertainty for Wind + Solar. Hence in the UK we're waiting to see if the lights go out this winter now our last 4 coal plants (which were deemed by National Grid ESO to be necessary to keep the lights on thru winters 2022-3 and 2023-4) have been closed.
Especially after the interconnector trip of 08Oct.
The fact that you keep harping on hydro so much, means that you understand that hydro is essential for replacing coal plants and other fossil fuel plants, but yet on another page you claim that wind and solar have replaced coal without hydro in many nations.
So which is it?
Is hydro necessary or not? You cannot have it both ways!
I have no idea what most of your points are (2 and3), and you already said point 1 previously.
Again you do not understand what curtailing is and how it is different from load-balancing. And I think, you do not want to know.
That is not a straw man argument. It is just neglecting certain factors, which you could have pointed out in a respectful and professional way.
Obviously, that is not your style.
Your hyperbole shows that you know that you are incorrect.