Re:Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming and Hum...
by BLKNSLVR on Thursday November 02, 2017 @09:37PM
(#15616067)
As a South Australian who has read a lot about the energy price issues we're experiencing, there's a lot of history to the story.
The big Tesla battery is about 80% completed and is there to be essentially a UPS - it will bridge the gap between a sudden loss of 'normal' power supply and the bringing online of additional sources to make up for the emergency shortfall. Gas plants that have X turbines, but only Y are 'spinning' can fire up their remaining X-Y turbines and the battery will cover us until X-Y are online.
A large coal plant in Port Augusta was shut down because it was no longer economically viable to run. It was offered to the SA government for $1 (that's how commercially unviable it was, some people say the SA Govt should have purchased and run it - I disagree with these people).
Somewhat ironically, this gave more market power to the gas generators who, due to 15+ year-old electricity market rules (because our regulators had been asleep at the wheel) can game the market to make massive profits during the relatively infrequent times when alternative energy supplies aren't meeting demand.
It's these peaks of demand coinciding with low supply and the gaming of the old-rules market that's responsible for a good percentage of the high prices.
Another good percentage of the energy prices is also a regulatory issue where the owners of the 'poles and wires' were guaranteed a return on any spending they committed to infrastructure. SO they went wild and we've ended up with a gold-plated (not literally) infrastructure that's cost end-users thousands of dollars over the years, and has made the "networks" huge profits, despite it being over-engineered to the nth degree (see:
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jes... - $45 billion Australia-wide on 'poles and wires')
Going way back, the SA government sold off its previously state-owned end-to-end power company, ETSA, to pay off a massive debt caused a huge government screw-up / scandal that bankrupted a local bank. Some say anbother part of the high power prices is due to privatisation, but this is murky territory, difficult to prove either way.
Nuclear takes too long to bring to market from scratch to be viable anymore.
The big Tesla battery is about 80% completed and is there to be essentially a UPS - it will bridge the gap between a sudden loss of 'normal' power supply and the bringing online of additional sources to make up for the emergency shortfall. Gas plants that have X turbines, but only Y are 'spinning' can fire up their remaining X-Y turbines and the battery will cover us until X-Y are online.
A large coal plant in Port Augusta was shut down because it was no longer economically viable to run. It was offered to the SA government for $1 (that's how commercially unviable it was, some people say the SA Govt should have purchased and run it - I disagree with these people).
Somewhat ironically, this gave more market power to the gas generators who, due to 15+ year-old electricity market rules (because our regulators had been asleep at the wheel) can game the market to make massive profits during the relatively infrequent times when alternative energy supplies aren't meeting demand.
It's these peaks of demand coinciding with low supply and the gaming of the old-rules market that's responsible for a good percentage of the high prices.
Another good percentage of the energy prices is also a regulatory issue where the owners of the 'poles and wires' were guaranteed a return on any spending they committed to infrastructure. SO they went wild and we've ended up with a gold-plated (not literally) infrastructure that's cost end-users thousands of dollars over the years, and has made the "networks" huge profits, despite it being over-engineered to the nth degree (see: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jes... - $45 billion Australia-wide on 'poles and wires')
Going way back, the SA government sold off its previously state-owned end-to-end power company, ETSA, to pay off a massive debt caused a huge government screw-up / scandal that bankrupted a local bank. Some say anbother part of the high power prices is due to privatisation, but this is murky territory, difficult to prove either way.
Nuclear takes too long to bring to market from scratch to be viable anymore.