-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
S. A. Needs Help
- Thread starter PJF000
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Australia New Zealand
raynewman
Active Member
$2,000,000,000 for 2,000 MW pumped hydro assuming the back of a coaster calc done by Turnbull is even close. It's probably a bit short.
Battery is $US250 per KWh that's $1,000 per KW at the 4 hour rate.
Soooo 2,000 MW battery is $US2B now-ish (not in 10 years).
Why bother with the hydro?
Battery is $US250 per KWh that's $1,000 per KW at the 4 hour rate.
Soooo 2,000 MW battery is $US2B now-ish (not in 10 years).
Why bother with the hydro?
Murbs
Member
Couldn't agree more.
The other huge advantage with battery storage is that it can be sprinkled around in hundreds of substations which makes the whole system inherently more fault resistant rather than having all the storage in one place.
raynewman
Active Member
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
WhiteStar
Member
Not when El Niño comes to town. He can hang around for a long time & create a lot of mothballs. At least $2 billions worth. Not if but when. At least all of a sudden we're not hearing a whole lot from Matt Canavan about his clean coal dreams but something tells me he's not finished yet.
Blue heaven
Fair Dinkum Tesla
And on top of that sprinkled around hundreds of thousands of homes and small business that are paying for it out of their own pocket because it's now cost effective.
As far as long term lifespan goes yes, but a minimum 4 year completion time is likely to make the exercise pointless due to the rapidly falling cost of batteries, what the Snowy hydro proposal may do is embolden more investment in wind and solar.
Im still waiting to see what comes of Mike Cannons Brooke's tweet/bet with Elon. I realy hope they dont go with the "clean" coal plan that was being discussed a few days ago. Solar and wind are still cheaper in the long run. Not that familiar with the hydro plan, what i have read seams to have merit but the cost seams high.
raynewman
Active Member
It will last as long as you keep the maintenance up - guess the same applies to battery.
No banana on that one.
The best, of course, is a mix; a bit of that, a bit of this at al...
The other consideration here is they could use the $2Bn as a subsidy, say 20% off the battery purchase price to incentivise homeowners and businesses to purchase it (although for homeowners the economics are good enough now, two more years worth of bill shock and price rises and people will be falling over themselves to get off grid). This would result in $10 Bn of batteries being installed. They could advance order a huge number of Powerwall 2 batteries and flog them off with the discount, getting a bulk buy discount in the process. This would result in, @$500/KWH, 10GW of response and 20 GWH of storage. The batteries are covered for ten years at which point they can be reconditioned or recycled, with some pretty valuable materials in them. A huge pumped hydro scheme only keeps the grid centralised. A truly robust, safe and cheap grid is de-centralised. Poles and wires cost a *sugar* ton of money.
raynewman
Active Member
and supports Turnbull's power base (pun intended). The centralized version of the net keeps the money centralized.
It is exactly why every single measure announced in the last few days are focused on grid based solutions. The talk on building gas plants and then building more gas production and then guaranteeing a price for it all to be consumed just plain smacks of liberal politiking and protection of the big three. None of those will result in cheaper energy for the consumer because the gas price is still going to be linked to export prices (which is uneconomical in the long term vs PV). In the end it will just result in several billion dollars for some giant white elephants when PV efficiency increases 50% whilst costs reduce by 50% and battery prices fall by another 50%. At that point they're going to shed massive demand from the grid and the major industrial users will all build their own power plants as per Sun Metals Solar PV farm. Olympic Dam and a bunch of other big users are seriously considering it. Smelters will not be far behind them especially with prices already reaching 2c/KWH in some parts of the world, and 6c/KWH for 24/7 solar concentrated supply.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
Hardly.
Mind you, I am not arguing for one or the other. You asked for a reason to consider the pumped storage solution. I have to say though, arguing which clean energy solution is preferable is a nice argument to have.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
WhiteStar
Member
One of my new year resolutions - communicate with more clarity - fail
I was referring to extended periods of drought. There are many examples around the world where long droughts have massively reduced hydroelectric generation. Apart from the Snowy itself; California, Venezuela, Columbia, Chile, Brazil, Kenya, Zimbabwe & China just to name a few, are places where drought has had a huge impact on power generation.
Evaporation has a constant effect in hydroelectrics but when the reservoirs aren’t being replenished, power output is reduced or even crippled when water levels fall below intakes.
Lots of info here:
How Drought Affects Critical Hydroelectric Dams
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I thought this is pumped storage -- which I take to mean a cycle of the same water + replenishment for evaporationOne of my new year resolutions - communicate with more clarity - fail
I was referring to extended periods of drought. There are many examples around the world where long droughts have massively reduced hydroelectric generation. Apart from the Snowy itself; California, Venezuela, Columbia, Chile, Brazil, Kenya, Zimbabwe & China just to name a few, are places where drought has had a huge impact on power generation.
Evaporation has a constant effect in hydroelectrics but when the reservoirs aren’t being replenished, power output is reduced or even crippled when water levels fall below intakes.
Lots of info here:
How Drought Affects Critical Hydroelectric Dams
WhiteStar
Member
Yes the proposal is pumped storage but part of the larger existing Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric system and the water comes from the same source. There are competing demands especially irrigation for agriculture during drought which is the main consideration.
Dr Liam Wagner, from the Griffith Business School at Griffith University
what about if you need that battery to run for 1 week
7days x 24 hours x 2000 MW = 336 GWh
if a natural disaster (or otherwise) causes an outage, perhaps 4 hours is too short to recover, maybe 24 hours is still too quick in case of floods, Fukushima had backup for about 3 days. basically the more duration, the better.
raynewman
Active Member
pumped hydro has a lot of reliability when it is between 2 dams
vs
hydro generation which has variable reliability on inflow and outflow.
If hydro and battery are same price for 4 hours, then great, but that battery is either a daily cycle or emergency only cycle battery, but not both.
if hydro for 168 hours is same price as hydro for 4 hours, then its obviously better and can be used for both daily cycle and emergency only cycle.
a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a hydo dam with 4 hours capacity. just as
a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a battery with 4 hours capacity
diminishing returns, but its still 42x times longer capacity for the same money.
vs
hydro generation which has variable reliability on inflow and outflow.
If hydro and battery are same price for 4 hours, then great, but that battery is either a daily cycle or emergency only cycle battery, but not both.
if hydro for 168 hours is same price as hydro for 4 hours, then its obviously better and can be used for both daily cycle and emergency only cycle.
a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a hydo dam with 4 hours capacity. just as
a hydro dam with 168 hours capacity is far greater usefulness than a battery with 4 hours capacity
diminishing returns, but its still 42x times longer capacity for the same money.
Similar threads
