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SA you got power problems?

Posted: Tue, 14 Mar 2017, 22:23
by Adverse Effects
Elon Musk: I can fix South Australia power network in 100 days or it's free

Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, has thrown down a challenge to the South Australian and federal governments, saying he can solve the state’s energy woes within 100 days – or he’ll deliver the 100MW battery storage system for free.

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WOW that is a bold promise

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Tue, 14 Mar 2017, 22:27
by Johny
"Solve" could be a difficult term to pin down.
Lots of detail missing in many of these Musk/SA articles.

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Tue, 14 Mar 2017, 23:38
by jonescg
All the more frustrating when articles use MW and MWh interchangeably...

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Wed, 15 Mar 2017, 12:27
by nuggetgalore
jonescg wrote: All the more frustrating when articles use MW and MWh interchangeably...


Happens all the time .In discussion forums and talking face to face. To be fair, mostly by being lazy though, rather than not understanding the difference.
Still annoying.......

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Wed, 15 Mar 2017, 20:42
by Richo
Actually I think the article is correct.
Grid storage providers more commonly talk about the power capability (MW) onto the grid.
It does seem a bit confusing for eV people as kWh is more common so it feels like MW and MWh are mixed up.
So when they say 100-300MWh it seems wrong - but isn't.
Read it again knowing that it is correct...

TBH there are other grid storage suppliers that can do the same.
It's all just business to Musk.
I'd rather have the investment go to a local.
But hey if SA wants a brand name storage at the expense of the local market go ahead.

Brand name power - unemployed Australian's. Image
They can put it on their number plates Image

I don't watch the news much but I was under the impression the power problem was a 50-year event storm.
That took out the power lines.
You can have all the Musky batteries you want - no wires - no power.

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Thu, 16 Mar 2017, 16:01
by antiscab
Richo wrote:
TBH there are other grid storage suppliers that can do the same.
It's all just business to Musk.
I'd rather have the investment go to a local.
But hey if SA wants a brand name storage at the expense of the local market go ahead.

*snip*

I don't watch the news much but I was under the impression the power problem was a 50-year event storm.


$150/kwh installed is hard to beat, as is the system longevity

I'd be curious who are the Australian companies that can supply 100MWh of storage with 300MW capability for $150 million that will still have that capability in 10 years time

SA power problem is a shortfall in generating capacity (actually the whole east coast interconnected system has a generating shortfall) at peak times, partly because there's not enough gas available to run the peaking plants on the hottest of days

Ironically, installing substantially more solar, to go with this storage would be a more immediate fix.
The solution could be to start paying end customers for exported electricity, for systems above 5kw.
That change alone would make solar economically viable for a much larger range of businesses, rather than just heaps of residential 5kw installs

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Thu, 16 Mar 2017, 21:09
by Richo
antiscab wrote:$150/kwh installed is hard to beat, as is the system longevity

Yeah probably and I bet Musk is pricing that way to get the foot in the door and squeeze everyone else out.
antiscab wrote: I'd be curious who are the Australian companies that can supply 100MWh of storage with 300MW capability for $150 million that will still have that capability in 10 years time

Well I said I'd like a local to do it.
Weather the locals think they can step up to the job is another thing.
I was under the impression the flow battery was still feasible.
Obviously if we are buying Lithium batteries from OS then the point is moot as that is most of the cost.
I guess that's why pumped hydro is the dominating storage - dont have to rely on other countries tech to work.

antiscab wrote: SA power problem is a shortfall in generating capacity ... partly because there's not enough gas available to run the peaking plants on the hottest of days

Ah so that's why I heard on the radio about how WA exports 80% of it's gas.
Guess that's payback for only giving a small % of GST back to the state. Image
antiscab wrote: Ironically, installing substantially more solar, to go with this storage would be a more immediate fix.

I'm still of the opinion that home BESS+solar and NO grid is better.


SA you got power problems?

Posted: Thu, 16 Mar 2017, 23:09
by whimpurinter
Richo wrote: Ah so that's why I heard on the radio about how WA exports 80% of it's gas.
Guess that's payback for only giving a small % of GST back to the state.

Queensland exports most of its gas at the world market price (what large corporations can extract from their customers) because Governments refuse to look after their own resources. They supposedly must export the gas because that's the best price (for who(m), why, their shareholders. Who are they? who knows.

Now the federal government is using low gas supplies to Australia (where's it going? see above) as a jack-arsed reason to ruin the aquifers and other non-human life in Australia (sooner or later, and at random), supposedly because that will make up the short fall to Australian customers (never mind solar and storage). But, I hear you say, they'll be forced to export the environment-(read water table)-ruining f**cking that most states are limiting at the moment to overseas markets because that's the market price and they don't want to limit profits to the private shareholders (who are starving, I imagine - probably unemployed).

I don' want this all to end because it will be a sh*tfight when it does.

A couple more things. When I got on to the forum, I got a warning saying "This connection is not secure and logging on could be compromised" or words very similar. Any thoughts?

I see a report about Fukushima that it is releasing into the sea 400 tons of highly radioactive water from the plant every day with a radioactive level of 500 sieverts (4 sieverts is enough to end a very fit man's life in 3 minutes) not counting ground water rushing into the sea. An illustration shows a nuclear contaminated Pacific Ocean all the way to America (lucky we don't face the Pacific) though the Polynesian Island seem to be a small impediment to getting the full force here, according to the illustration. They're thinking the water release has been going on for 5 years now. They're storing other water in thousands of hastily-made barrels with an unknown life-span (it's funny, but what else can they do?) and they hope to start to get somewhere with reducing the worst part in 40 years.

This suggests that no fish are radioactive free in the Japanese waters and all this does not stay in the news (but what can be done?) for political reasons.

It's lucky for us that Nuclear Energy is so clean and the cost is low enough to be a viable alternative to coal, gas and oil because renewables aren't a part of the current business structure and will add costs.


SA you got power problems?

Posted: Fri, 17 Mar 2017, 19:16
by mikedufty
In fact WA legislation reserves a proportion of gas for local use. May have prevented some of the power supply issues if other states did likewise.

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Fri, 17 Mar 2017, 19:55
by TooQik
bladecar wrote: A couple more things. When I got on to the forum, I got a warning saying "This connection is not secure and logging on could be compromised" or words very similar. Any thoughts?
You're obviously running Avast anti-virus, as am I, and have updating it recently. The new update shows this warning when a non-secure (http) web page accepts login details, specifically passwords. If you know that the web page you're attempting to log into should be secure and you see this warning, then it potentially means you've been redirected to a malicious web site in an attempt at phishing for your details and you should stop what you're doing straight away.

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Fri, 17 Mar 2017, 20:37
by Richo
I get the same message - it was caused by a recent Firefox update.
I recommend NOT hiding your personal secrets on a forum...

At the end of the day Gas is finite too; just like petrol.
A house on a BESS + solar doesn't need gas.
Gas is DEAD.

The govt should do more solar+BESS incentives then they can export 100% gas.


Other countries, such as Japan, don't have weather like sunny Australia.
So they are forced to use other means of producing power.
So they'll die from either eating radioactive fish and/or plastic filled fish. Image

SA you got power problems?

Posted: Fri, 17 Mar 2017, 22:04
by whimpurinter
Thank you for your replies :) That all adds up.

Photos of fish from the Pacific Ocean up Japan way look like fish from Gladstone Harbour after they wrecked it further to develop a gas port for export.

Same fish appearance, different reason. The fish look ghastly with horrible Tasmanian Devil cancer appearance.

I really hope that doesn't mean a fleet of Japanese ships in our southern waters because we don't have a Government to take care of this problem.