23 March 2017, Renew Economy, Fairfax joins media hysteria over post-Hazelwood “blackouts”. The warnings of blackouts provoked by the imminent closure of the Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria– already so prevalent on right wing blogs, the Murdoch media and the ABC – reached fever pitched proportions on Thursday. Fairfax Media led the front page of The Age newspaper (see image right) with an “exclusive” story that warned of 72 days of potential blackouts across the state over the next two summers. “Victoria’s energy security has been thrown into question, with the state facing an unprecedented 72 days of possible power supply shortfalls over the next two years following the shutdown of the Hazelwood plant next week,” the story by Josh Gordon begins. And how does it come to this breathless conclusion? Fairfax, like other media, such as the ABC’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, is basing the forecasts of blackouts on this graph that appears on the website of the Australian Energy Market Operator. It purports to show – in the light red at the top – the periods when Victoria could face a shortfall of supply. The graph for South Australia is even more dramatic. But is that really what is says? Blackouts all summer? Not at all, says the AEMO – a reply they would happily give anyone who bothered to ask. It actually shows the most extreme demand scenarios that it can think of – a one in ten year likelihood in this case – and graphs that over and above what it considers to be the “average” supply. Repeat. That is average supply, not total supply available. Assuming this would lead to blackouts is a bit like saying that someone who walks to the ocean edge at low tide risks getting wet when the tide comes in, and they don’t move. There is plenty of excess capacity that can meet that demand. This graph, is a section known as its Mtpasa forecasts, is basically a heads up that the tide will come in, and generator owners might want to think about maintenance planning, switching them on etc etc, to take it into account. Read More here
Category Archives: The Mitigation Battle
9 March 2017, The Guardian, Renewable energy spike led to sharp drop in emissions in Australia, study shows. A sharp drop in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at the end of last year came courtesy of a spike in renewable energy generation in a single month, according to a new study. Australia’s emissions fell by 3.57m tonnes in the three months to December, putting them back on track to meet quarterly commitments made in Paris after a blowout the previous quarter. The fall is the largest for the quarter since the government began recording emissions in 2001. The report’s authors said this was entirely due to record levels of hydro and wind generation in October. This brought emissions for the year to December to below the year to December 2015. But projected emissions for the December quarter were still 6.89m tonnes over levels demanded by scientifically based targets set by the government’s Climate Change Authority. And, long term, the results show Australia is set to run more than 300m tonnes over what is required to meet its Paris targets in 2030. Read More here
8 March 2017, Renew Economy, Queensland govt slaps down LNP, Murdoch over renewable scares. The Queensland government has attacked the LNP opposition and the Murdoch media for unfounded, baseless and “lazy” criticism of its plans to source 50 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable energy by 2030. The conservative LNP has been getting a big run in the Murdoch press with a new anti-renewables campaign, which has wound up significantly since the start of the year with a host of new solar projects that will add 1GW of solar power to the state’s grid….. That means that the Queensland government will not be in the same position as South Australia, which has had to watch with growing frustration as the private owners of the biggest gas plants in the state decide not to switch on during high demand periods, claiming they can find no economic incentive to help keep the lights on for their customers. On the subject of South Australia, premier Jay Weatherill said the state had no intention of rowing back on its 2025 target of 50 per cent renewables, saying to do so it would have to effectively “physically prevent” developments in their tracks. That much is true, because the build-out of the Hornsdale wind farm and the Tailem Bend solar project will take the state to 50 per cent wind and solar by the end of this year. Weatherill says the biggest threat to power prices in South Australia is the lack of competition among generators, something that can addressed by having more renewable energy and other technologies such as battery storage. Read More here
6 March 2017, Renew Economy, Fear and ignorance: Gas plant “explodes”, renewables blamed. It didn’t take long after the failure of South Australia’s two biggest gas plants late on Friday afternoon for the abuse to start flowing. “Renewables, absolute frigging BS,” wrote one correspondent in an email to RenewEconomy within a few hours of the sudden loss of 600MW of gas-fired generation. “What a lot of crap this renewable story is.” It happens all the time. + When a storm knocks down three power lines in September, the immediate reaction is to blame renewables; + when a condenser in Victoria hits the ground and takes out the main inter-connector, forcing rolling stoppages in South Australia, the immediate reaction is to blame renewables; + when more storms take down power lines after Christmas, causing more outages in South Australia, the blame is put on wind and solar; + and when the market operators turn out to be the only people in South Australia unaware of a pending heat wave, forcing them to miscalculate a demand surge and impose rolling stoppages, it was once again the fault of renewable energy. Friday’s events, however, took this blame game to a new level. Some sort of explosion occurred at the Torrens Island gas plant, starting fires and causing three units (totalling 400MW) to suddenly trip off and lose power, and causing the Pelican Point gas generator (210MW) to do the same…..Apparently, though, it’s all the fault of renewables, a conclusion drawn from the same twisted logic that supports the gun lobby in the US. As Don Russell wrote in The Monthly, guns killed 301,797 people in the US between 2005, and 2015 (and terrorists killed 95), but it wasn’t guns but restrictions on guns that was cited as being the fourth greatest fear in the US. Read More here