Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

michaels

Isn't there a national security argument for maintaining a working grid though?


Personally I prefer a pricing model where prices charged reflect actual costs rather than trying to use cross-subsidies to hide/remove from general taxation payments to the least well off. The advantage of using real tax/benefits transfers is they can be directed to those most in meed rather than via some proxy such as energy usage. I would accept that prices should be adjusted to include all costs including externalities such as climate change that might not otherwise be priced in.

(Similarly those with log burners should be charged to reflect their particulate and nitrogen emissions)

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

That's possibly the thought process of any industry ... the right to recover their investments ... however, in almost all sectors that's not the case - it's simply a business decision with associated risk, which could affect the business profitability or it's very existence .

Fun times ahead!

HTH
Z

Sorry, what I meant here is that they have the right to get their monies back as the grid 'gold plating' was a government approved decision, and also due to legislation 'they' are protected when investing in the grid in the sense that they are allowed to get their investment back.

So the Aussie grid upgrade was a truly badly timed decision (with the benefit of hindsight).

Another fun grid to watch is Puerto Rico which took about 6 months to get running, yet Tesla had hospitals and schools back up much faster by diverting their Powerpacks to the island, and covering carparks with solar panels.

A series of mini-grids (very big mini-grids) interlinked and running off wind and PV with storage, could provide the island with a far better, cheaper and more stable grid.

Patching up the old grid leads to insane outages such as the nearly 1,000,000 customers cut off in April when a tree fell on a line and half the island was cut off, again.

Martyn1981

For an intro into Aussie energy policies, this 2 1/2 minute 'government' ad sort of gets you up to date.

Honest Government Ad | Australia's Renewable Energy Policy

zeupater

michaels wrote: »

Isn't there a national security argument for maintaining a working grid though?

Hi

There's possibly an argument involving the provision of power, but whether that encompasses a grid or even protecting the position of the current grid ownership model or even current grid shareholders is quite different ...

There are plenty of examples of poor management decisions leading to the failure of a business model where shareholder value has been completely destroyed, but the business entity has continued under new and possibly more professional ownership ... so if there's an argument that no business should be too large to fail, shouldn't this generally apply to the power sector too?

HTH
Z

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Sorry, what I meant here is that they have the right to get their monies back as the grid 'gold plating' was a government approved decision, and also due to legislation 'they' are protected when investing in the grid in the sense that they are allowed to get their investment back.

So the Aussie grid upgrade was a truly badly timed decision (with the benefit of hindsight).

Hi

Possibly, even probably ... but much depends on the driving factors behind the decisions, such as active & aggressive lobbying on behalf of the industry to create a protected & lucrative environment whilst being aware of the potential for changes - effectively a time sensitive 'make hay' opportunity ...

From the government's position - similar to the UK there seems to be a propensity to offload risk to the consumer in order to ensure that political decisions don't directly affect political prospects ... if politicians screw up, it's much more acceptable to land the consumer with associated costs than taxpayers - although they are one & the same, it's a much better strategy for those seeking future re-election - greed, capitalism & hoodwink easily drop into their excuse rhetoric!

If the Australian government is responsible, then relevant parties and individuals should be accountable, it's as simple as that - poor political decision making must be transparent at the ballet-box, not hidden in consumer bills landing through the letter-box.

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Good news, the government is to invest directly in the cost of low carbon electricity generation in order to bring down the cost per MWh to make it more competitive against the alternatives.

The bad news is that .... well ......

UK takes £5bn stake in Welsh nuclear power station in policy U-turn

The UK will take a £5bn-plus stake in a new nuclear power station in Wales in a striking reversal of decades-long government policy ruling out direct investment in nuclear projects.

Ministers said they had reached an initial agreement with the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi to back the Wylfa plant but emphasised that no final decision had yet been made and negotiations were just beginning.

Can't help thinking that a £5bn investment in short-term storage would start earning HMG monies almost immediately, and provide for an even faster deployment of RE.

pile-o-stone

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Good news, the government is to invest directly in the cost of low carbon electricity generation in order to bring down the cost per MWh to make it more competitive against the alternatives.

The bad news is that .... well ......

UK takes £5bn stake in Welsh nuclear power station in policy U-turn



Can't help thinking that a £5bn investment in short-term storage would start earning HMG monies almost immediately, and provide for an even faster deployment of RE.

Do we have a significant amount of over generation of renewable energy?

Coastalwatch

As a nation I would suggest that until we no longer have a need for Coal, CCGT & Nuclear power stations the answer is simply no. But in order to arrive at that utopian situation an element of storage capacity in some form or other will be necessary, so why not start now to assist with the peaks and troughs that come with existing renewable energy. Surely £5bn would go a significant way in making a start.

Speaking personally I'd advocate them using a small percentage of that by taking an initiative with home storage. Making it cost effective, so allowing many of us to store our excess renewable energy and reducing demand on the grid.


When compared to V2G then £5bn worth of storage would perhaps equate to 2 million EV's. Not sure how long a time span will be required before such a figure on the road might be reached here!

Martyn1981

pile-o-stone wrote: »

Do we have a significant amount of over generation of renewable energy?

Nope, not yet. In fact things look really timely with storage costs falling fast ahead of our need. Also EV's will absorb any excess once there's enough of them, and with V2G (vehicle to grid) they could be the answer to covering peaks, and even shortfalls in generation.

The sad thing with this nuclear deal, is that after HMG invest £5bn in it, it'll bring the CfD down to around £75/MWh, and assuming that's a 2012 baseline figure, £84/MWh now. So over 35yrs the subsidy element will still be about £28bn, v's £4.9bn for the same amount of off-shore wind generation.

So we are looking at paying a lot for the 'guaranteed' 24/7 generation of nuclear, at a point in time when storage may be resolving this issue, and we already have far cheaper RE prices today.

But, genuinely, there is some good news, in that this is low carbon generation, so more gas will be displaced, it's just disappointing that it's happening when a cheaper option may be viable - but is that a gamble the govt can take. Tough call.

Martyn1981

Coastalwatch wrote: »

Speaking personally I'd advocate them using a small percentage of that by taking an initiative with home storage. Making it cost effective, so allowing many of us to store our excess renewable energy and reducing demand on the grid.

Z suggested something like that a year or so back. Perhaps a reducing payment to those deploying batts, that falls in line with falling prices.

An average £1k payment, could deliver a million Powerwall II's for a £1bn, and that's about 13.5GWh of storage. That could knock about 10% of demand off the evening peak for nearly 3hrs.