So at a time of “…unprecedented oversupply…” our power bills are booming. How unwise we have been to elect politicians who have brought us to this – where efficient and cheap 24/7 coal fired electricity generators are coming under financial pressure from taxpayer subsidised wind and solar which only generate expensive and erratic electricity when conditions are exactly right.
Things will get a lot worse for the electricity system when adoption of home generators takes off.
www.dailytelegraph.com.au/gas-fired-generators-to-power-sydney-homes/story-e6freuy9-1226155129422
The problem in a nutshell is distribution costs are increasing as ‘renewables’ increase, and the resultant increasing prices send more people partially or wholly off grid. Leaving the remaining grid customers to pay more and more of the distribution costs.
This problem can only get worse.
Interesting story from 2011 Philip – I missed it then and have never heard of the issue since. Seems a very expensive Govt experiment.
With manufacture heading overseas and a contracting employment sector, this is probably not surprising .
I heard that Alcoa used to use one third of VIC’s power and now of course they have closed..We should be lucky we don’t have to rely on Russia for our power needs..
Warwick, I looked into the economics a year or so back. It didn’t make sense for me,
a, because I have solar
b, with Perth’s climate, our energy consumption is fairly low.
I recently saw ABS household energy consumption by state. Victoria’s is exactly double that of Queensland. So, it could be economic at current prices in the colder parts of Australia.
Bluegen claims 85% efficiency as waste heat is used to heat water. The grid system can never get anywhere near that. And as always with these new technologies, unit prices will fall steadily.
At $50k/unit, it would take me 50 years to amortise the capital … let alone the on-going cost of the feed gas
Dream on, and on, and …
Falling demand accounts for the “glut” of power generation capacity; this country peaked in the mid 1970’s. I’m encouraging my children to look off-shore for opportunity, with language the only real barrier. If one doesn’t mind a tropical climate (I detest it myself) then Singapore is an excellent candidate – no real beaches, though, and terrible beer 🙂
www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-08/australia-faces-unprecedented-oversupply-of-energy-report-says/5658926
“The principal consultant of energy strategies with Pitt and Sherry, Hugh Sadler, says the upshot is that if the coal-fired power stations want to stay running, they will be competing in a buyer’s market
This Saddler guy is clearly no electrical engineer & does not consult them.
When the grid collapses without the stabilization of frequency from the base load it would take days to get it up again. California had a run away collapse years ago, & even though it rates alone as the ~14th(?) largest economy in the world, it took something like 5 days to get going again.
This clown is inviting social collapse & anarchy.
IDIOTS!
If we have enough supply for10 years, this is the ideal time to start building nuclear power stations. They will be up and running when we run out of other sources.
But it won’t happen: we will wait until a crisis demands action. 😉