https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/yallourn-exit…
Cannot believe this article when they want to charge those with solar to export and that there is "too much electricity with solar" sometimes. Yet, there could be blackouts?
VIC & SA - Future Blackouts
geekcohen on 11/05/2021 - 13:31
Comments
Exactly. But then go "there is the risk of blackouts" because there isn't enough power. So what is it?
The sun doesn’t shine 24/7. Power usage patterns don’t always align with the sun.
In order for the solar system to export to grid it needs to produce output voltage higher than what is on the grid. Our grid is typically 230Vac (but can vary between 216v to 253V) So imagine every houses in your street has solar, your house bumps to the voltage a bit higher, and your neighbours too. Eventually it gets to high for the system to handle.
Solar system aren't allow to export to the grid when there is a black out due to safety reasons. When you inverter detect the lost of main grid it isolates from the grid.
One solution is get everyone to install their own battery system. But this is costly and still doesn't fix the real problem.
The best solution is nuclear! Here's why:
- We are not on any fault line so we are not going to have the same issue they have in Japan.
- Nuclear technology has evolved significantly and is very clean if done probably.
- We have tonnes load of the uranium in Australia. We are the third largest exporter but we don't use it. Stupid.
- Nuclear power will drive the cost per kw cost down significantly.
- Super high output. Everyone can switch to electric cars!
- Low carbon footprint. Save the environment!
- We have so much land. Pick one dessert, dig a hole and store the waste for thousand of years. We should have figured out how to do cold fusion before we fill up
- the waste storage.
And yet the government wants to keep building coal power stations that are costly to maintain, staff and upkeep…
Then proceeds to blame the success of renewable PV cells on the overloaded grid.
If they were smart they'd be investing in large scale energy storage projects. (But that would take precious subsidies from the oil, gas and coal sector which they're in bed with).
*Also this is a side effect of privatising the energy industry, thank god we haven't done this in WA.
There will not be blackouts
This is a legit beat up by the usual suspects at The Age.
if Victoria had a liberal premier this would be a story about how much progress the state is making in moving away from a reliance on coal.
This is true. And remember the networks get to make a profit on any upgrades and expansions, so they are overstating the need for upgrades.
There is very good data and modelling showing there can be substantially more renewable power in the grid without issues.
https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/major-publications/ren…The real anachronism is these coal plants burning fuel 24/7 when we only need the power sometimes. Much better to have renewables backed by gas or storage for managing fluctuations.
Tesla battery look like an cost effective alternative now!
Yes, it can happen. It's all about supply vs demand at any given time. Normally, supply can be balanced against demand. Sometimes, demand can be either more than or less than what's available in the grid.
This is true, but coal power is a terrible solution to fluctuations in demand, as it is unresponsive. And current coal plants are increasingly unreliable too.
The reason for the charge is something to do with the grid being overloaded by so many households feeding back in: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-28/aemc-solar-panel-owne…