Instead of the gas plant, Saddler wants to see the government back solar thermal with storage, even if existing proposals sit at a significantly higher price bracket, such as the $1.2 billion 170MW solar thermal tower proposal for Port Augusta
Renewables and South Australia’s power policy, The Saturday Paper, Max Opray , 18 Mar 17 “……Weatherill said the Frydenberg announcement of a reinvigorated Snowy Mountains hydro scheme showed the federal government was in a “white-knuckled panic” about energy policy. “It is a $2 billion admission that the national energy market has broken and there needs to be public investments to actually fix it up.”
And later, in the same answer: “It is a disgrace the way in which your government has treated our state.”
The showdown came after a week in which the Weatherill government had broken ranks with the National Electricity Market in declaring a “South Australia first” energy policy.
The state has endured a cursed run when it comes to keeping the lights on……
Most of these issues were not the fault of the South Australian energy grid’s high level of renewable energy penetration, but that hasn’t stopped the Turnbull government and other clean coal cheerleaders using the state as a cautionary tale about green energy. Continue reading →
At least there is a plan in South Australia, albeit one that will place its drive for self-sufficiency in conflict with the operation of the National Electricity Market.
Provided there is decent backup power generation there shouldn’t be an issue with developing VPPs and new forms of energy storage so that they can be refined and more affordable in time.
Role of batteries provides aspirational charge to energy debate , The Australian, 16 Mar 17 CHRIS GRIFFITH Technology reporter Sydney @chris_griffithCall it battery fetishism if you must, but batteries are going to play an even bigger role in power sources being tested in Australia. Take for example the virtual power plant concept which has gone live in South Australia.
A VPP comprises hundreds, maybe thousands, of homes each with solar panels where excess energy is stored in batteries. Instead of operating as separate entities, energy stored in those batteries is made available in unison to the grid at times of peak load or an outage.
An outside body such as an energy retailer co-ordinates the flow of battery power back to the grid. For the rest of the time, consumers self-manage their stored solar power. Continue reading →
The South Australia government has pressed the fast-forward button on its 100MW battery storage tender, announcing that expressions of interest for the country’s biggest battery storage installation are now open, and will close within two weeks. Continue reading →
SA power: ‘World’s largest virtual power plant’ switched on at West Lakes in Adelaide, ABC News By Matt Coleman, 16 Mar 17, What is being called the world’s largest residential virtual power plant (VPP) has gone live in suburban Adelaide, where reliability of power supply is the dominant public policy issue.
The VPP is an initiative of power company AGL and involves solar panels and battery storage at hundreds of properties being linked together to form a five-megawatt virtual solar power station.”Our South Australian VPP demonstration is a practical example of the new energy future,” AGL’s managing director and CEO Andy Vesey said.
“We believe the VPP will deliver benefits … .by providing another source of generation to deploy into the network.”
He said the environment would also benefit from reduced emissions.
AGL said the Federal Government, through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), was providing up to $5 million to support the $20 million project.
The project is different to standard home battery storage because the batteries’ operation can be directed remotely.
The Department of Premier and Cabinet’s 10 March 2017 email edition of ‘Nuclear News’ (‘Next steps on nuclear discussion’) states:
‘The Consultation and Response Agency (CARA), which delivered the state’s largest engagement program on record last year, and the CARA Advisory Board, have now provided their final advice to Government and will be closed.’
Given the importance for transparency in these key public policy issues, could you please advise us when and where this final CARA and CARA Board advice will be made public?
South Australia’s new energy plan released http://www.transcontinental.com.au/story/4529329/south-australias-new-energy-plan-released/?cs=4180A $550 million energy plan unveiled by the South Australian government will aim to improve the reliability of statewide power.Premier Jay Weatherill released details of the plan on Tuesday, March 14, saying the goal was delivering “reliable, affordable and clean” power.
The state government expects the plan to create 630 new jobs in South Australia. South Australian Power for South Australians will ensure more of the State’s power is sourced, generated and controlled in South Australia.
The plan will include:
Building Australia’s largest battery to store energy from the wind and sun, part of a new Renewable Technology Fund that supports clean, dispatchable and affordable power
Building a government-owned 250MW gas-fired power plant to provide emergency back-up power and system stability services for South Australians, in the meantime procuring temporary back-up generation if necessary
Introducing new Ministerial powers to direct the market to operate in the interests of South Australians
Incentivising increased gas production to ensure more of our State’s gas is sourced and used in South Australia
Introducing an Energy Security Target to ensure our power system uses more clean, secure energy generated in South Australia
Using the Government’s purchasing power through its own electricity contract to attract a new power generator, increasing competition in the marketThe new gas-fired power plant is budgeted to cost $360 million, $150 million will be committed to the SA Renewable Technology Fund and new PACE grants are worth $24 million.
Commenting on the plan, Mr Weatherill said coal-fired power stations closing across Australia, no “coherent” national energy policy and “ideological attacks on renewable energy” had led to under-investment in new energy sources.
“The privatisation of our state’s energy assets has placed an enormous amount of power in the hands of a few energy companies,” he said. “These factors, together, have led to too little competition in our national energy market. It is a market that benefits the owners of the privatised assets, rather than the people and businesses who depend on this essential service.” He said the plan’s goal is to make the state more self-reliant. “Our plan will make our power supply more reliable, put downward pressure on prices and create jobs,”
“In the longer term, South Australia will become more self-reliant for its power supply. “As a state that has built its reputation on its clean green environment, this plan recognises that clean energy is our future.”
The South Australian Liberal party has not responded to the plan yet.
ZEN Energy and Santos push new solar, gas power station in Upper Spencer GulfDaniel Wills, State Political Editor, The Advertiser March 13, 2017 CLEAN solar power would be backed up by reliable gas energy in a cutting edge, dual-fuel power station for SA that could be operating in the Upper Spencer Gulf region within months.
SA energy titans ZEN Energy and Santos say the new joint venture will deliver 100MW of power. SA was yesterday using about 1000MW, but can hit more than 3000MW in summer. The plan requires development approvals, but the companies say the gas component of the plant could be up and running by winter this year and the solar installation would follow soon after.
Santos also says it has the gas required to run the plant, despite a broader national shortage. Under the power station model, solar panels would run during the day and pump clean energy into the grid. Gas would fire up to cover the balance and ensure supply when the sun sets. It would also have a battery bank included to further safeguard continuous supply……
ZEN Energy chief executive Geoff Titus said preparatory work on the “grid-level battery integration technology” had been completed and the project could be implemented in time to play a major role in the stabilisation of SA electricity supply next summer……
“The partnership also opens up exciting opportunities for Santos to introduce solar energy into our gas processing and transport operations in SA and Queensland, lowering our production costs and freeing up gas for release into the domestic market.”
Clinton Pryor’s Walk for Justice comes through Port Augusta http://www.transcontinental.com.au/story/4516323/big-crowd-for-justice-walk/Matt Carcich@MattCarcich8 Mar 2017 The Joy Baluch Bridge and parts of Port Augusta were shaking under the loud voice of Clinton Pryor’s Walk for Justice on Wednesday March 8. Starting outside the Standpipe Motel at 10am, the walk went up the Augusta Highway and across the Joy Baluch Bridge. The group then travelled down Mackay and Young Street, before finalising with speeches and a community barbecue on the Port Augusta foreshore.
The crowd included kids under 10 to retirees, all of whom were supportive of achieving justice for Aboriginal people. Chants heard during the walk included, ‘When your rights are under attack, stand up, fight back!’ and ‘Always was, and always will be Aboriginal land!’.
It left Clinton speechless, and thankful for all the help and support he’s received from Port AugustIt was amazing to see the community backing me up in this walk I did over the bridge– Aboriginal Activist Clinton Pryor“It was unbelievable and I’m really proud of Port Augusta and seeing everyone together in one group is really good,” he said.
In September 2016, Clinton left from Matargarup, near Perth, to Uluru, Coober Pedy, on his way to Canberra.Along the way he’s spent time in Aboriginal communities; meeting with elders, hearing their stories, talking with school kids and community groups.
The walk centres around holding governments to account over their treatment of Aboriginal communities around Australia and bringing justice for non-Aboriginal Australians too. Port Augusta Barngarla man Stephen Atkinson was part of the walk across the bridge and said he, and many others in Port Augusta, are proud of Clinton’s efforts. “Hopefully we’re all equally proud of walking across the bridge with Clinton as you should be, we should be really proud of ourselves,” he said. “Port Augusta, we all know is the crossroads of the country, we got that many different mobs here, and 30 odd different languages spoken in this town.
“We’re all different tribes, we’re all different language groups, we’re from all different parts of the country, but when something like this is on we all come together and we’re one people.”
For more information and photos taken during Clinton’s Walk for Justice, make sure to visit his website, www.clintonswalkforjustice.org.
Battery-makers on Turnbull’s Tesla chat: ‘Give Australian companies a fair go’
Industry wants more support from federal government now prime minister has ‘taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire’, Guardian, Melissa Davey, 13 Mar 17, Malcolm Turnbull should encourage Australia’s battery energy storage industry now he has “taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire”, Zen Energy chairman Ross Garnaut says.
Garnaut was referring to Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, who tweeted that Tesla could solve the power shortage issue causing price spikes and blackouts in South Australia within 100 days by installing 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage.
Turnbull subsequently tweeted that he had phoned Musk and enjoyed a “great, in-depth” conversation.
But Australian companies had been working on large battery projects for years, Garnaut said, including one by Zen Energy in the upper gulf of South Australia which it had discussed with the market. Continue reading →
Greens say Elon Musk’s plan is a game changer Australian Greens Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young says Elon Musk’s proposal to solve South Australia’s energy crisis with battery storage is the game changer our state needs to switch back on.
“We live in the perfect state for wind and solar. Battery technology allows us to make hay while the sun shines, storing the power so we can use it when we want and need. While chairing a senate inquiry into battery storage, I’ve heard evidence that if 20,000 homes with solar panels had a battery as well, the load shedding that cut off the air conditioning when we needed it most last month wouldn’t have happened.
“This is the innovation Malcolm Turnbull promised when he declared he would be the ‘Innovation Prime Minister’
Elon Musk says his Tesla battery company could solve South Australia’s energy crisis in 100 daysLuke Griffiths, Lauren Novak, The Advertiser March 11, 2017 TECH billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday confirmed he’s spoken personally with Jay Weatherill to discuss his company’s plans to build a battery farm to help SA solve its power woes – amid support from the Australian Greens, who say his plan to build a batter farm could be “game changer”.
Michio Kaku – Musk & Game Changing Tesla Powerwall Battery
Mr has weighed into South Australia’s energy crisis, boldly claiming he can fix the problem for $33 million and in under 100 days.
Elon Musk on Friday said his US-based company, Tesla, could build a 100MWh battery farm less than four months after a contract being signed.
Such a system, he said, would go a long way to preventing a repeat of recent blackouts due to load-shedding. Tesla recently launched a similar, but smaller, system in California.
Today billionaire Mr Musk revealed he had spoken by phone with Premier Jay Weatherill, describing the State Government as “clearly committed to a smart, quick solution” to the state’s power woes. Continue reading →
Tesla’s offer: How SA’s power network could benefit from energy storage, ABC News, By Michael Collett 11 Mar 17 South Australia’s energy network has been struggling of late — there were forced blackouts for tens of thousands of homes during a heatwave last month because there wasn’t enough power to meet demand.
But Tesla thinks it has a solution. The company’s billionaire boss Elon Musk says he could install a battery farm capable of fixing the system within 100 days of signing a contract.
It’s a suggestion that the Grattan Institute’s energy expert Tony Wood says should be taken seriously, but it’s not the only electricity storage option that’s available.
What’s the advantage of electricity storage? The idea is that energy storage technologies can take power during off-peak hours and put it back into the grid when it’s needed.
As well, wind and solar are intermittent sources of electricity generation, so this power needs to be stored if the grid is to rely entirely on renewables. (Keep in mind that South Australia already gets about 50 per cent of its energy from renewables, mostly wind and solar.)
One storage technology that’s getting a lot of press is Tesla’s Powerpack.
Tesla says this battery is “infinitely scalable” — that means a business could buy a single Powerpack so that it still has power during a blackout, while a city, state or country could install hundreds, thousands or even millions of them in order to support an entire grid.
In 2015, Musk said you’d be able to transition the United States to renewable energy with 160 million of them, and the entire world with 900 million……
INSTALLATION of solar panels have surged in the wake of SA’s statewide blackout, despite a cutback in customer tariffs, as homes and businesses take power security into their own hands.
Figures released by Solar Citizens shows SA spent about $23 million on panels in the final quarter of last year, a more-than 17 per cent jump compared with the same period in 2015.
In the second half of 2016, after an incident in July when volatile prices almost forced the temporary closure of some of SA’s biggest employers, 6424 solar systems were installed in the state.
That lifted the overall number of solar systems in SA to a huge 205,068.
At the same time, diesel generator sellers are reporting a huge surge in interest.
Solar Citizens SA campaigner Dan Spencer said households were clearly looking to panels as a technology that could bring down prices as well as add some backup to the grid.
“While politicians attacked SA’s clean energy leadership, South Australians took action at home,” he said. “With solar and storage becoming cheaper and more affordable every day it’s no surprise that ordinary South Australians have looked to clean energy.”
The top five suburbs for solar installation since the blackout were located in regional or outer suburban areas with incomes below the SA average. The regional suburb of Waitpinga led the way and was followed by Smithfield Plains, Salisbury North, Angas Plains and Morphett Vale.
Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges , 11 Mar 17SA Response of the office of South Australian State Liberal leader Steven Marshall, to query about Liberal opinion on the plan to import nuclear waste.
The State Liberal Team is united in its decision not to proceed with a nuclear waste dump.We have carefully considered the Royal Commission Report. We have taken note of the outcomes of the community consultation. We have actively participated in the parliamentary committee process. We have visited Finland, France and the United States to consider the technical aspects and financial risks.
It is clear that Premier Jay Weatherill’s plan to make South Australia the world’s nuclear dumping ground exposes taxpayers to unacceptable financial risks without knowing whether the project will even proceed.
For 70 years the State Liberal Party has demonstrated its commitment to creating realistic opportunities in the nuclear industry with the establishment of the Radium Hill mine and later the Olympic Dam Mine under Liberal Premiers Playford and Tonkin respectively……
The Premier, lacking support from his own Cabinet, had to establish a Citizen’s Jury at taxpayers’ expense, to progress his own agenda and with access to a wide range of advice, two-thirds of that jury has determined that this venture should not be pursued ‘under any circumstances’.
Appointed by the Premier, Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce has acknowledged that it could take up to 10 years to secure vital public support and another 28 years to establish such a facility.
The advice to State Parliament shows it will cost taxpayers $600 million to continue the consultation and select a site without any guarantee of eventually securing investors or customers for the facility……The Weatherill Labor government is playing poker with your money and our state will be forced to place a blind bet of $600 million just to stay in the game…..
Nuclear Waste storage is a responsibility for those nations using nuclear power. It is not the instant fix for the South Australian economy as promised by the Premier. https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/
Energy executives say gas market – not windfarms – to blame for South Australia’s woes
Main problem afflicting country’s grid is the lack of clear policy direction from Canberra, witnesses tell Senate inquiry, Guardian, Katherine Murphy, 7 Mar 17, Senior executives from AGL Energy have given evidence that the main issue causing problems with reliable energy supply in South Australia is “dysfunction” in the gas market – not too many windfarms making the grid unreliable.Executives from AGL told a Senate inquiry in Melbourne on Tuesday they would like to build a new gas-fired power station in South Australia to increase base load capacity in the state, but gas supply was chronically unreliable in the eastern states.
Richard Wrightson, AGL’s general manager of wholesale markets, told Tuesday’s hearing the problem was so dire the company was contemplating building its own LNG hub in Queensland to help secure reliable supply downstream.
“Dysfunction in the gas market is causing most of the systemic problems we are seeing in South Australia,” Wrightson told the Senate select committee into resilience of electricity infrastructure in a warming world.
“We would love to be able to contract more in that marketplace but the main restriction on being able to do that is access to flexible gas contracts that we are able to trade in an out of.”
The Turnbull government has argued that ambitious state-based renewable energy targets are driving too large a share of low-emissions technologies, such as wind power, into the grid, and that is a significant factor behind the unreliable conditions in South Australia.
But a number of witnesses appearing before the Senate committee on Tuesday said the main problem afflicting Australia’s energy grid was not proliferating renewables, but a lack of a clear policy direction from Canberra. The policy vacuum had created a damaging investment strike in new assets at a time when old coal-fired power generators had reached their natural age of retirement.
Ross Garnaut, the economics professor who led the climate change policy review for the Rudd government and was the independent expert adviser to the multi-party climate change committee that developed the carbon pricing scheme subsequently repealed by Tony Abbott, said the political debate about climate and energy policy in Australia was “incoherent”……
The chief scientist, Alan Finkel – the official leading the energy review – has already provided implicit support for an emissions intensity scheme in his preliminary report to the government, saying it would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”.
SA power: Taxpayers should buy gas-fired electricity generator, top economic advisor says, ABC News 8 Mar 17 By political reporter Nick Harmsen The South Australian Government should consider buying or leasing a gas-fired electricity generator to help stabilise the state’s expensive and unreliable power supply, South Australia’s influential Economic Development Board says.
The recommendation was made to the Government late last month, according to evidence given to the SA Parliament’s Statutory Authorities Review Committee.
Board member Goran Roos told the committee in the absence of progress on energy policy at a national level, South Australia should consider going it alone.
“In the medium term, which is one to two years, the South Australian Government should consider direct control of electrical generation facilities either through acquisition or leasing arrangements coupled with long-term back-to-back take-or-pay contracts with end users,” Professor Roos told the committee.
“A suitable facility could be the second … Pelican Point gas turbine.”
The second unit at Pelican Point was mothballed in 2013, and was seldom used until the second half of last year.
“ENGIE has argued that the second Pelican Point gas turbine cannot compete with cheaper wind energy and it is commercially unviable to occasionally switch on the gas-fired power plant to meet requirements for a few high-demand days across the year,” Professor Roos said.
“As such, the acquisition costs or lease costs for the second gas turbine should be minimal on an NPD basis, should the Government choose to acquire or lease this facility.
Antinuclear 