Siso

Been watching the price closely in SA since 2010.(was working for a windfarm) Limited intermittents on the grid back then. Price use to be between $45 and $65 every day all day. As the penetration of intermittents increased so did the volitility. Its parasitic because it eats at the stability of the grid that base load generation can provide. Has not always been volitile as above Because I can save money at the time and still do. My next door neibour who hasn't got panels and my kids unfortunately.

use to be regularly. Know happens most day. Bit like the price, Use to variable, know it is volatile. No wonder it is so expensive with all the parasitic intermittent gen. No one knows whats happening next day.

no such thing as free electricity, just grid mis management

I have the early contracts, put in as much as I like at 50c/kWh

Yes, but someone pays it. the retailer adds more to someone elses bid. people that can least afford it. The retailers are going to be out of pocket.

try amber.com.au

They do charge it but if you make enough of the power you put in the grid you don't pay it, it gets absorbed in your energy payment, but someone pays it!

What I am saying is that some people (me included) still have their grid connection and end up getting a cheque a couple of times a year. I don't pay for my grid connection. My energy company does and I am pretty sure they would pass the cost onto others. e.g industry, those that rent and have no solar and people living in apartments and people that can't afford to buy a house. (I have kids in the last category) This energy system is expensive for those that can least afford it. These are politicians constituents who they are suppose to look after, not make life hard for those that can least afford for a policy(ideaology) that is going to make no difference to the problem it is supposed to fix until the big players catch up.

Meant to say inverters don't contribute to the stability of the grid. if people manage their battery systems properly they won't have and electricity bills so aren't contributing to the construction and maintenance costs of the grid. You are right about the progression of cars. Electricty has seen a similar path. More people are getting access to it and up and to recently it the generation was getting more energy dense and more controllable, now we are heading back 200 years when work was done with windmills whenever the wind happened to blow. Base load is only dead because of parasitic intermittent generation which is causing us to have to use traditional base load generators as peakers. I am not anti intermittent generation but trying to run a whole grid on it in an industrilised country is expensive and probably wont work. Germany has a 160GW of installed wind and solar and are still importing from France and Sweden. How much of an overbuild do you need. Germanys max demand goes somewhere between 40 and 60 GW. France is exporting 15GW into into countrys all around it at the moment. Writing and punctuation isn't my strong suit, but I can lift heavy things though(use to be able to.)

I should have specified intermittents. Hydro is pretty well base load if managed well. Has good heavy stuff turning with synchronous generators. As I understand some pumped hydro uses inverters so they get the varispeed/load for pumping operations. need to be confirmed. Offshore wind is very expensive, still is intermittent. Contribute to the grid by supplying power to it but don't really contribute to the cost of it if you export enough to cover off what you draw. Someone has to pay for it and unfortunately that will be people who can't afford it, renters and industry. The grid is getting larger as well that needs to built and maintained by these people. Inverters don't contribute to the grid. See Spain april 2025. from what I understand was caused by solar inverters playing up at a solar farm. I know you won't believe me! Will try to find some links. grid scale grid forming inverters haven't really been tested. They are installed at Broken Hill but weren't commissioned at the time of their blackout. Would have been a real good test since their GT's hadn't been maintained and were unreliable. They may have been able to run the town on solar and batterys.

Yep all good for domestic, thinking about getting a battery myself. The problem is we are taking people off to fund the grid. This will be industry and people that can't afford the solar and batterys or afford the house to put them on. We need to look at the bigger picture as we can't do without a grid.. Yes I am being hypercritical with a battery purchase.

Not being negative, just being realistic. Australia is/has become a quarry and I am concerned for my kids and grandkids future. Recently did a course with some workers from Bell Bay. All were in their early 20's, I wander how they are feeling! Build a new plant. We need some industry. Exporting our carbon emissions overseas is not good for Australia prosperity or the worlds carbons emmisions anyway. Far better to do some value adding here economically or environmentally even if it does mean keeping our coal for longer. Even if intermittents are going to work, we aren't ready for them and jumping the gun is costing us.

Australian industry is moving overseas! Bell bay smelter is closing down by the looks of it.Solar is high cost when you look past the generating electricity part.

Specifically talking Australia. Yep, remember when that report came out. Pumped hydro also has a round trip efficiency of about 80% which is pretty good.

If they are so good(and I love pumped hydro) Why aren't they building more. Ireland has one that fills up at night with coal and then runs with coal during the day. That runs well. Turlogh hill I think. You are right there are other spots around the east coast of Australia, doesn't do the rest of us much good. You think they would have had some geologists and engineers that would have allowed for hitting rock when boring through a mountain in the initial price. I think they under quoted so they could get started and then slug the government more money later on. bet that has never been done before!! Same ting is happening with a lot of transmission projects https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/transgrid-inflated-cost-of-running-power-line-underground-farmers-20230718-p5dp2o https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-01/energy-transmission-project-billion-blowout/104983108

We have been talking about a truck with a smaller diesel than it needs and a battery(hybrid). Having the diesel sized for best efficiency but have access to the battery for the odd hill. Australia is reasonably flat once we get away from the east coast. Just throwing ideas around.

Pumped hydro is not really electricty generation, just shifts the time. Also looks like it can be quite expensive. Snowy2 quoted at $4B, currently at $12B and talking $20B and they reckon nuclear goes over budget! Apart from the alpine regions Australia hasn't really got the climate as the water has to come from somewhere still unless you use sea water. Only one I know of and that is in Japan(Kunigami, Okinawa) and I don't think it is currently being used. Priced up one in SA but looks like there wasn't enough money in it. see attached. Tidal is still a young technology although people have been looking at it for years. salt water and machinery don't mix. One sunk off the coast of SA a few years ago when it was being towed to position. Australia's good geothermal area is a long way from anywhere so transmission is an issue. Also has been looked at for years but not much happening. (Petratherm been at it for years) No one has with a GW size grid, successfully got close to net 0 unless they have a heap of traditional hydro(Norway), accessible geothermal(Iceland), Nuclear(France ) , generous neibours(Lithuania) or a mixture of these(Sweden, New Zealand) Comments welcome😁 See https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/72h/hourly https://arena.gov.au/knowledge-bank/cultana-pumped-hydro-energy-storage-project-phase-2/ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/works-finally-begin-to-partially-remove-carrickalinga-oceanlinx/13237328

Unless you have a lot of traditional hydro. Australia only has about 8% and not likely to get more. Geothermal in Iceland's case

I didn't mention who was in power! You must be feeling guilty. The whole system has been sub par for many years. I know you think the current bloke can do no wrong but they have had 5 years to repair the damage previous governments have done, but nothing has happened. He said nothing in his public address and wasted everyones time. He, they are no better than any other politician of recent times. I would love to see Albo and Bowen admit we need more processing of fossil fuels in Australia but it won't happen.

If you are talking of the fuel crisis, the current bloke has been in politics for a long time so he was/is a part of the problem!

I'm not a scientist either but know about it and I have no skin in the game. pretty poor really.

Like I said, pretty major part of what they are trying to sell.

It is pretty important if the transition is a major policy of your party! If its your job to sell those tyres, its pretty important to have know what the main contributers to the process are. CO2 is the one we hear about all the time in the climate debate.

I did use to believe we needed the big business to supply jobs for Australia, but now the politicians have been bought by big business. Too many politicians of all sides go and work for the businesses that belong to portfolios they use to have. Out and out conflict of interest but none of them are going to change it. Does make our political system a con. Oops wrong thread.

Still shows how much are politicians are just winging it. Pretty basic question really.