UK is now a clean energy leader

Engineering with Rosie looks at The UK's Stunning Grid Flip From Coal Giant to Clean Energy Leader (feat. ‪@JustHaveaThink‬).

 

Are EV batteries better than home batteries?

 According to Ronald Brakels at the SolarQuotes blog, yes they are: Here’s Why EV Batteries Are Cheaper & More Reliable Than Home Batteries.

Have renewables kept SA power bills down?

Sophie Vorrath reports that SA power bills rose less in past decade than coal states. This was based on an ANU report commissioned by News Limited.

	2006	2016	Increase
NSW	$918	$1,922	109%
VIC	$ 841	$1,837	118%
QLD	$890	$2,102	136%
SA	$1,110	$2,080	87%
WA	$855	$1,582	85%
TAS	$1,317	$2,181	66%
ACT/NT	$1,061	$1,785	68%

Clean energy is coming - don't get left behind

Paul Ebert writes that The clean energy economy is coming – and there's a lot to lose for those who can't keep up: "The energy internet, the ‘smart’ grid, solar energy and battery storage are converging and the economic benefits are clear".

Renewables as a source for baseload power

Skeptical Science asks the question Can renewables provide baseload power? and answers yes.

Mark Diesendorf argues that Baseload power is a myth: even intermittent renewables will work.

Change the energy market settlement time to encourage storage technologies

In Change market rules, and battery storage will easily beat gas Giles Parkinson argues that changing the settlement time in the energy market from 30 minutes to 5 minutes will encourage the adoption of fast response technologies like batteries and other forms of storage.

Nuclear not suitable for Australia?

Evcricket writes that If the answer is nuclear you don’t understand the question.

The follow up:  Is nuclear a good investment?

Will China do nothing about climage change for the next 16 years?

John Mathews and Hao Tan in FactCheck: does the new climate deal let China do nothing for 16 years? argue that far from doing nothing, China will be leading the world in the deployment of zero emission electricity generation. China's carbon emissions will likely peak well before their 2030 deadline.

Why Australia's electricity prices are too high

Jess Hill in Power corrupts How network companies lined their pockets and drove electricity prices through the roof explains how the companies providing the electrical grid are ripping off consumers:

In the past few years, our electricity prices have doubled. While the media has feasted on the likes of pink batts, Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson, the astonishing story behind these price hikes has been all but ignored. And yet, it may be one of the greatest rorts in Australia’s history.

Since 2009, the electricity networks that own and manage our “poles and wires” have quietly spent $45 billion on the most expensive project this country has ever seen. Allowed to run virtually unchecked, they’ve spent vast sums on infrastructure we don’t need, and have charged it all to us, with an additional fee attached. The spending was approved by a federal regulator, and yet the federal government didn’t even note it until it was well underway.

Let’s be clear: this is the single biggest reason power prices have skyrocketed. According to the federal treasury, 51% of your electricity bill goes towards “network charges”. The carbon tax, despite relentless propaganda to the contrary, is small beer, comprising just 9%. The rest of your bill is carved up between those companies that actually generate your electricity (20%) and the retailers who package it up and sell it to you (20%). The Renewable Energy Target is such a small cost impost, the treasury’s analysis doesn’t even include it; the Australian Energy Market Commission says it makes up around 5%.

Thanks to the networks’ infrastructure binge, we now pay some of the highest prices in the developed world. The impact has been felt most keenly in New South Wales and Queensland, where the networks are government owned and network charges have accounted for two thirds of the price increases.

Why electricity prices are going up as demand falls

Ross Gittins in Why electricity prices continue to shock people explains why electricity costs keep rising as demand drops, which is counter to normal economic theory:

But hang on, is this guy saying the price of electricity has gone up because demand for it has gone down? Isn't it supposed to be the other way round? Isn't a fall in demand supposed to lead to a fall in the price?
Well, assuming no change in supply, yes it is. So you're right to be to be puzzled. The relationship I've described between price and demand is, as an economist would say, ''perverse''.
But why? Because, as Garnaut explains, we've stuffed up the deregulation of the electricity market. (Moral: as we're being reminded by the plan to ''deregulate'' university fees, if you deregulate or privatise without knowing what you're doing you can make things worse rather than better.)
Before the reform process began, each state had its own, government-owned electricity monopoly, with little trade between the states. From the late 1980s it was decided to break the integrated state monopolies into their component parts - generation, transmission, distribution and retailing - and form one big eastern Australian electricity market with as much competition and as little monopoly as possible.
The power stations were separated into individual businesses - some of which were privatised, particularly in Victoria - and made to compete in a highly sophisticated ''national'' wholesale market for electricity. Garnaut says this has worked well, with competition keeping the wholesale price low in response to the reduced demand.
But transmission (high-voltage power lines) and distribution (local poles and wires to the premises) are natural monopolies. That is, it's not economic to have more than one network. So whether these businesses are publicly or privately owned, the prices they charge have to be regulated to prevent them overcharging.
Trouble is, Garnaut says, we've done this by fixing the maximum rate of return the businesses are allowed to earn on the capital they have invested. Economists have known for 60 years that this always causes problems because it's so hard to pick the right rate of return.
If it's too low it leads to underinvestment in the physical network, causing blackouts. If it's too high, however, it leads to overinvestment in the network at the expense of business and household customers.
But as well, when monopoly businesses that are guaranteed a certain rate of return suffer a loss of demand, the regulator has to allow them to restore their profitability by raising their prices.

Read the whole article.

Base-load electricity from renewables

In Renewable energy finally makes economic sense Mark Diesendorf argues that renewable energy can reliably supply base-load electricity. On those rare occasions when additional electricity is needed he advocates biofuelled gas turbines.

Solar to beat coal

Evan Beaver in Crushing Solar Optimism argues that the continuing improvements in the efficiency and cost of solar will put coal fired electricity generators out of business.

Renewables may be reducing power prices in South Australia

Dylan McConnell, Research Fellow at University of Melbourne, writes in Power of the wind – how renewables are lowering SA electricity bills that:
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power appear to be the impetus behind a South Australian proposal to substantially drop electricity prices, just as other states are hiking theirs.
...
And while it is not specifically acknowledged in the determination, this may be the first time the “merit order effect” of renewable energy sources can conclusively be seen flowing through to consumers in Australia.

Nuclear waste safer than coal ash?

Mara Hvistendahl writes that Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste.

The article ends with a clarification:

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

Some articles on the Australian energy sector

Ben Eltham and Squirrel Main have written an interesting series of articles on the Australian energy sector:

Your Energy Bill Explained
Poles, Wires, Regulators and Middle Men


Ben Eltham has also written several other articles on the energy sector:
Renewables Will Win At The Ballot Box
Solar Is The Brightest Energy Option

Our Gold-Plated Electricity Infrastructure

Those opposing wind power

Mike Seccombe has written a two part series on the people and organisations behind much of the opposition to wind farms in Australia:
A field guide to the war on wind power and A field guide to the war on wind power (part two)

Sandi Keane also looks at the same people and how some residents are fighting back in Waubra Fights The Anti-Wind Bullies.

Wind and solar lead to electricty price falls in South Australia

Wind, solar force energy price cuts in South Australia by Giles Parkinson.

Great post on the NEM and carbon price

The NEM is the National Electricity Market. The blog post The NEM, Bidding Orders and the Carbon Price explains how the carbon price impacts on electricity generation. It is a good read.

International Atomic Energy warning on catastrophic climate change

Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington in Governments failing to avert catastrophic climate change, IEA urges have reported that the executive directory of the International Energy Agency is warning that migration to alternative energy sources is happening too slowly:

Governments are falling badly behind on low-carbon energy, putting carbon reduction targets out of reach and pushing the world to the brink of catastrophic climate change, the world's leading independent energy authority will warn on Wednesday.

The article goes on:

"The world's energy system is being pushed to breaking point," Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, writes in today's Guardian. "Our addiction to fossil fuels grows stronger each year. Many clean energy technologies are available but they are not being deployed quickly enough to avert potentially disastrous consequences."

On current form, she warns, the world is on track for warming of 6C by the end of the century – a level that would create catastrophe, wiping out agriculture in many areas and rendering swathes of the globe uninhabitable, as well as raising sea levels and causing mass migration, according to scientists.

Changes coming in the power industry

Paddy Manning has written Power providers energised for coming of a green age:

Electricity companies are preparing to shift to a green future by investing in the industry of energy solutions.

A SMARTER, greener future for energy use may be coming too slow for some, but it is coming nonetheless. Eventually our dirty old electricity grid may provide little more than back-up power, giving us plenty of scope to retire ageing coal-fired power stations.

Meanwhile Ben Harvey looks at why Western Australian power bills are going up and up in The shocking truth about your bill:

It's an inconvenient financial truth, but if you think your electricity bill is big at present you are, pardon the pun, in for a shock.

And it's an inconvenient political truth that there is no white knight waiting to save you - we are going to get screwed on power prices regardless of whether the ALP or the Liberals are in office.

Colin Barnett is doing a very good job of apologising for raising prices and is gently putting out the message that things might not be so bad in the future.

Eric Ripper is doing an even better job of making everyone think that life will be easier if you vote for him in 2013.

Both these men - who are generally decent and trustworthy - are full of it: prices are going up far higher than either is letting on.

Both want to ensure that our bills cover the cost of delivering electricity to our houses.