Johnnie wrote on Jul 29^th, 2020 at 9:20pm:


If I got 2c kWh I'd crunch cryptocurrency myself instead.

Johnnie wrote on Jul 29^th, 2020 at 9:40pm:


It comes down to power costs. If I was getting nothing for my power I may as well use that power on running ASICs that used that power mining crypto.

lee wrote on Jul 29^th, 2020 at 9:51pm:

Nothing wrong with some backup gas fired generators with huge wind powered generators and solar panels as the primary source of power, all for nuclear power grunt though.

Johnnie wrote on Jul 29^th, 2020 at 10:07pm:


Renewables can not become the primary source of power. They not efficient enough.

People confuse the nameplate capacity with the capacity factor. The capacity factor for solar is about 18%-20%. For wind up to about 35%. The capacity factor is a percentage of nameplate capacity. It tells us what the derived power may be.

But even if we build to 3-5 times installed capacity, it won't give us stability of supply. And those back generators have to be kept running, at reduced capacity, anyway.

They can be useful in small communities where there is no manufacturing.

Consider Coober Pedy -

"EDL has been operating the plant, a mix of wind, solar, batteries, flywheels, diesel and resistors, since 2017 – and it says that the average share of renewables in the town’s electricity supply since then has been 70 per cent.

Even more impressively, for more than half the time it has been running at 100 per cent renewables, with the longest uninterrupted period of 100 per cent renewables being 81 hours, achieved in December last year. And it has been running at 99.9 per cent reliability."

https://reneweconomy.com.au/coober-pedy-powered-by-100-per-cent-renewables-most-...

So less than 3.5 continually days since 2017. And they still need the diesel generator.

How the Greenies want to sabotage the power supply to shut down ALL industry in Australia and return it to a backward primitive ghetto the like of which you would find in darkest Africa today.

Renewable rubbish only works about 3 days a week.

They definitely need an Hydrogen Energy Storage System which would store huge amounts of surplus energy ready for any emergency.

The silly little battery is useless as it is flat in a matter of seconds!!!

Yet another Greeny failure.




Shine comes off solar from Alice Springs failure
Chris McLennan DECEMBER 10 2019 - 9:00AM


A passing cloud at Uterne Solar Station at Alice Springs has placed the NT's reliance on solar under question.

The NT's claim to be home to one of the world's leading solar energy resources lost some of its shine yesterday.



Combined with the many folks who happily connect their roof-top solar to the grid in return for free power and even power credits, the cloud caught local power providers napping.

So much so that investigators have recommended power companies in this part of the world buy a cloud forecasting service so they can at least see the power dip coming.



The NT Government gave the Utilities Commission the job of finding what went wrong that day in Alice Springs.

When you combined 40 degree temperatures with power cuts of eight hours, it makes for hot under the collar voters in central Australia.

The investigators made it clear solar wasn't solely to blame.



Trying to untangle the jargon used by the investigators it is clear there was a stuff up.

The transfer of the baseload power from the Ron Goodin Power Station to the new Owen Springs Power Station was going too fast with far too little co-ordination.


Owen Springs provides power from a combination of gas and diesel generators. Picture: Territory Generation.

But the Alice Springs blackout has also highlighted out future trust in solar might be shortsighted.

Again in its report, the Utilities Commission said "the sudden unforeseen (by those managing the system) reduction in solar generation due to cloud which precipitated the system black is not considered a root cause of the system black, as a power system should be designed as far as practical to be sufficiently robust to withstand this"




Ron Goodin Power Station is mostly gas powered.



https://www.katherinetimes.com.au/story/6534032/shine-comes-off-solar-from-alice...

Johnnie wrote on Jul 31^st, 2020 at 12:29pm:



Strewth. Who new solar panels were "green" after manufacture and until they expire?

Johnnie wrote on Jul 31^st, 2020 at 12:50pm:



Nope. Perhaps you can give us the CO2 emissions amongst others used in the manufacture of your "green" solar panels.

BTW- Have you really had your panels installed for 20 years?

Do the solar Fan Boys and Girls feel guilty about costing all the non solar homes big money ?  And damaging their neighbors appliances with excessive voltage their solar panels are putting on the mains ?  Of course not.

Just like Greenies don't care about the hundreds of birds wind farms kill.



Solar subsidy death spiral: $2 billion in Australia, rising 50% pa as electricity prices rocket
h/t Pat and Dave B. February 20th, 2019


Solar Panels cost more than people realize.

A few Australians are just beginning to realize that they are paying for their neighbor’s solar panel. As news spreads, the shine of good-citizen-solar is going to tarnish fast, but it is going to take a concerted campaign to spread the word.

In one corner are 2 million households which have solar PV and thought they paid for it themselves. In the other corner are 7.5 million households which have exorbitant electricity bills. And in every corner and all across the spectrum is mass confusion thanks to the mass media.

The fog of advertisements disguised as “news” means if you ask a dumb-enough-question 70% of Australians will say they want the government to set a high RET target to make electricity cheaper. It’s almost like 2 out of 3 people think we need the government to force us to buy cheap stuff, because everyone would buy the “expensive” planet killing volts if we only had the choice. Duh.

That’s $200 per household (and the rest!) added to the electricity bill in 2019
This is just the direct SRES (Small Renewable Energy Scheme) cost. It doesn’t cover the burden of stabilizing the grid, of covering the cost of baseload power sitting around waiting for when solar users need it.

Unreliable power makes the whole system less efficient, costs go up and all the cheap electricity generators have to charge higher prices too (at least, the ones it doesn’t drive out of business). Then there are the price spikes — so wild they make these subsidies look cheap.

Households’ $2bn hit for solar roof panel subsidies
Perry Williams, The Australian

Households will pay nearly $2 billion for rooftop solar installation subsidies this year, costing every home nearly $200 and threatening to derail Scott Morrison’s pledge to cut power bills.

The cost of the federal Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) and state-based rebates combined is forecast to rise by 45 per cent from $1.2bn last year to $1.74bn this year.

However, analysis of the cost of small-scale technology certificates, which are handed to consumers installing solar panels and then bought back by electricity ­retailers, shows a soaring cost for all power users.

How’s this for confusion?
Energy companies say the subsidy is 15% of the bill, but the Minister says it is just 3%. We don’t even know what the cost is. Therein lies a free-market disaster. How is anyone supposed to make sensible decisions?

Origin Energy ­revealed last year that the government’s SRES and state-based solar feed-in tariffs accounted for up to 15 per cent of bill charges.

Mr Taylor, the Energy Minister, said the cost of small-scale technology certificates — created to increase the incentive to install rooftop solar — was just 3 per cent of an average household bill.

Big energy blames big government and big government blames the big energy companies and in a way they’re both right. The big energy companies are playing the market for profits, but big government is screwing the people for power — selling “green electrons” at the election to win seats.

The Liberals are tossing away their best proven election winning advantage. They won’t win votes by aiming for the empty dead centre. The killer comments and lines are left on the cutting room floor.

They can’t show what fools the Labor Green candidates are while they try to be better managed fools themselves.

Just call it quits on the Solar PV subsidy — save householders $200 this year, and even more the year after that.

But read the comments at The Australian. Even at the most informed masthead in the nation many people have no clue.

Sawdust
I pay 28c per kWh for electricity I use from the grid. I get 11c per kWh for electricity my solar panels feed into the grid. Tell me again how I am costing other users money?

The only clever thing about renewable energy is the way the true cost is hidden.



http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/solar-subsidy-death-spiral-2-billion-in-austral...