Andrew Robb certainly derailed the CPRS but it only occured due to the absolute stupidity of the greens, as usual.
If they had not pesisted in their ridiculous stance, then Rudd would have had a done deal.
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AEMO has information on existing generation, planned retirements and planned new generation pipeline investments.
See the summary table under the graph on this page…
Unfortunately many Australians rely on the media, social media, activists or vested interest groups for information, which quite often doesn’t portray the real picture of where eledtricity generation in Australia is heading.
The information presented by AEMO differs to much of the information often available in the public domain and demonstrates that there is significant investment in renewable electricity generation at the expense of traditional forms of generation such as coal. The information shows that solar pipelined investments exceed coal generation, while wind will have a similar (slightly less) generation to coal as well. In the short term, the influence of coal generation in Australia will be greatly diminished and will only make up about 1/3 of total electricity generation.
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Actually the marginal cost of solar power is zero, because solar radiation has no actual cost to the entity who intercepts it with a PV panel. The costs you refer to are what is covered by the cost per kWh I mentioned, which covers capital and operating costs. This is different to fossil fuel generators which have to purchase fuel for every kWh they generate, in addition to paying for the capital and ongoing maintenance expense.
This is one reason why PV generated electricity now has a lower cost than fossil fuel generation, and similar applies to wind power.
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It’s understood the cost of the fuel is zero.
As you note there is a cost for everything else required to utilise this free source. Those costs including the cost of financing are amortised over time and are not zero. It would be nice to imagine it will all be free one day.
Considering the marginal cost of solar power to be zero does not align with my economics learning. It is irrelevant to the bottom line in any financial analysis as the cost of fuel whether one unit is produced or ten it is always a zero cost. You don’t even put it into the spreadsheet because it is irrelevant to the outcome.
The actual capital investment in Wind or Solar PV scales approx linearly with the system capacity. Which analytical model you use depends on whether the system is able to sell 100% of production directly or is constrained in the market by other factors.
The cost though to the owner is very dependent on demand. There is a massive cost penalty with investment in solar or wind generation if 100% of production cannot be sold or used… A real prospect as more large scale renewable generation and residential rooftop PV is added to the grid.
The cost equation for conventional generation will move from a comparison with Solar PV and wind to that of battery, pumped storage etc. Eventually conventional generation will cease. Perhaps NG Combined Cycle will linger for backup or peak demand.
As you point out large scale renewable generation is cheaper than conventional. As more comes on line the costs of providing more large scale pumped or battery storage will also need to be included in the final cost to the consumer. No free lunch for now. 
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True which is why the CEC is a great resource.
The challenge question or elephant in the room.
How much concurrent investment is also required in additional electricity storage capacity through pumped storage, battery etc is required to scale with the increased low carbon generating capacity?
If the two are not in step we risk having many PV owners with stranded assets until storage capacity catches up.
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Indeed, firmed PV and wind power, ie with storage, is already less expensive than new and some old fossil fuel powered generation.
Having storage means it is more likely than near 100% of the output can be sold into the NEM.
Adding to the cost is the proposal that new renewable energy generators should front the cost for transmission, which is effectively a subsidy to the fossil fuel industry, which didn’t have to pay for the existing transmission system.
In any case, many large solar farms are not supplying into the NEM as price takers, they have supply contracts, such as state governments, rails systems etc, and thus have a fixed price return. Clearly the economics makes sense, otherwise they would not be doing it.
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I understand (have seen a number of reports on studies) that the system can operate with not much more storage than currently exists up to at least double the renewable energy input that we currently have. SA is operating at over 50% renewables now, with only a small amount of storage, ie the Hornsdale Reserve, aka Tesla Big Battery.
Of course as we approach 40% renewables in the NEM, it will be trickier to operate, and there will be more wind and PV curtailment, which is why we need to start installing storage now, as 40% is probably coming sooner than the FF industry would like!
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The ‘Eagle has Landed’.
It is critically relevant for Qld where I reside as the available storage capacity and planned projects don’t add up to much compared to the states installed conventional generation. Interesting that Qld had one of the first. 500MW of pumped storage at Wivenhoe built in 1984. Other than big fat Tesla batteries the alternatives can be a decade in the making.
True although they have a big backup plan with additional capacity from over the border. Shared risk.
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Yes, but they are net exporters these days, NSW and Vic being the main beneficiaries of that excess to local requirements generation capacity.
One of these days I hope someone starts making use of the some of the 22000 sites identified by ANU as suitable for pumped stored hydroelectricity.
Off-river or using existing storage only though, I’m not in favour of more dams to stuff up more rivers…
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Plans are already in the works. I gather the ANU study only looked at fresh water pumped hydro. Most of Australia’s population is near the coast. Lots of water in the sea:
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Yes. Cultana is still at feasibility?
Closer to construction.
The Kidston project in NQ has a nominal project value of $700M, 250MW for 8 hours generating capacity in the first stage. The project reuses existing water storage infrastructure.
The project depends on a long term low interest $610M loan from the Commonwealth Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to get over the line financially.
The Qld State Govt is also funding the power line connection at a cost of $132M.
And in the starting blocks
The Snowy 2.0 project also using existing water storage has a feasibility estimate of $3.5-4.8B for up to 2,000MW of generating capacity. A recent report suggests like all government projects the real cost including grid connection Is greater and may be closer to $10B. There is even debate on construction completion 2025 or 2027 or …?
The end point.
The capital commitments required appear significant. Although spread with new projects added every year for a decade or more anything is possible. The two pending projects that don’t need new storage suggest we will need to commit additional $billions of investment in new storage every year for decades to come?
Queensland’s grid peak demand (record) is over 10,000MW, which occurs just as Solar PV drops off in the afternoon. That’s less than one third of the peak demand on the NEG?
Has anyone done the required capacity numbers and put a plan on the table so we can all acknowledge the extent of investment required?
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One of Qld’s Coal power Stations failed and was partly/largely supported by the SA Virtual Power Plant to offset the 784 MW outage.
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That’s a huge problem in Govt. Taking the nbn™ as an example, Rudd put a price on it and look what happened with that. I think most on the site would think the nbn™ was and is needed, just not the MTM NBN which in reality is a millstone around Australia’s neck. I mean here the Fibre Optic plan.
Which Govt or mix of Govts are going to be brave enough after nbn™ to take the step of putting a huge figure up that shows how much is going to be required to do the job properly. To be honest I think they would rather take a pay cut (and how likely is that) than guesstimate/estimate the real figures. So I don’t see any political will to do so. It is a needed/necessary change we need to make to our energy supply system but the short term grab for political survival is totally against having any real long term planning in place that may span several changes of power.
Batteries in homes and micro-grids perhaps while in many ways dearer than national level action are what many can move to even if the cost per kWh is much higher than a national storage system. These Virtual Power Plants may be the answer to reluctance at the political level. Big Power want to maintain their profit taking position in the market, so often you see very negative talk about home and community storage systems being viable alternatives. There are some huge power needy businesses starting to look at lot more at Micro Grids to supply their power needs and many remote/isolated communities are starting to understand that a level of self sufficiency can be obtained and maintained outside of the huge Fossil fuel & Power Supply Industry business segment.
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The main problem, as I understand it, with a large single mirror is that it will distort under its own weight (or, in the extreme, break) - hence easier to make a virtual large mirror by deploying and adjusting many small reflectors.
I believe that testing has been done using molten sodium chloride (salt) for this purpose. I don’t know whether that is used anywhere on an industrial scale.
Not only would this be useful for power generation at night but also for generation on cloudy days.
But we digress because this topic is not about power generation. The device backed by Bill Gates is for using the sun’s energy to replace a conventional oven or furnace in industrial processes that require it.
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I thought that power generation from the sun when it is not shining fitted right into “Solar Power Generation”
The topic title is wrong.
Can someone correct it???
Does it matter?
The facts are:
- existing infrastructure is nearing the end of its economic life and
- renewables are the most cost-effective new-build replacement.
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It is an aside. Wikipedia has a broad topic on the options and examples, trials.
There is plenty of science that suggests for the present the shorter path to capturing and using thermal solar is as heat for processing or as an alternative to home heating. Which is your observation on the introduction to the topic.
With large scale storage of thermal energy depending on temperatures, specific or latent heat, electrical generation currently relies on conventional steam turbines with conversion efficiencies less than 40%. Either direct generation or generation using lower grade recovered heat boosted by hydrocarbon fuels.
P.S.
in cold climate (or the reverse for cooling) Wikipedia suggested 50% of the heating needs of the average home could be stored by a 2.8m cube of concrete. Call it 50 tonnes mass, which aligns with the common design thinking for some low energy homes. Well insulated, high thermal mass stabilises temperatures effectively. There are a number of home designs that utilise the principle with active or passive solar to provide any additional inputs required.
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Why? If you wish to have a topic more to your liking please feel free to start one.
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The topic title is wrong because the person who started the topic included a link to an article to talk about but the product described in the article is not power generation.
No worries. I think the topic is irretrievably off track now so might as well discuss power generation.
So as to the question “Is molten sodium chloride used commercially for thermal energy storage?” the answer is yes.
During the summer of 2013 the Gemasolar Thermosolar solar power-tower/molten-salt plant in Spain achieved a first by continuously producing electricity 24 hours per day for 36 days.
Nice going, Spain. 
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