Perhaps not for large scale solar generators.
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Every generation type has a minimum cost profile. Some generators such as solar, become more cost effective during periods of high prices. With shifts in network generation, there has been increasing prices up until recently, where pool prices have been falling. When prices pass through the generation cost threshold, generators become unviable/unprofitable…such as outlined in the ABC article.
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Power from the sun (sort of). The panels generate electricity by radiating heat.
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Heliostats like Bill Gates secret plant are Old technology. Environmentally unfriendly. Expensive to operate.
Port Augusta’s Aurora Solar Energy Project went bankrupt. Attempts are being made to revive it. I hope so, the big Californian projects have become macabre tourist attractions with there “streamers”, birds fried by the beams. 6000 birds a year from Ivanpah alone.
Ivanpah has turned into a funding black hole, and would fail without Federal support.
Cresent Dunes is reportedly closed for good, just not viable.
An interesting exercise, using a Web server as the load.
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If I recall correctly, there are commercial hosting options that give you a server in a data centre that is powered sustainably. So it may not be necessary to self-host and provide the power infrastructure for the server yourself.
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Where’s the fun in that? How much would you learn?
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One thing I noted in that paper is that their self-hosting was inherently inefficient, since with an independently powered server, once the battery is fully charged and the panel is generating enough power for the server, excess generation is wasted (not used).
So while you might miss out on some fun doing the whole thing yourself, you might get a better environmental outcome doing it a different way (co-lo in sustainable data centre, virtual server in a sustainable data centre, or powered at home either with 100% sustainable power from the grid or also using some sustainable on-site generation that is integrated with the house power supply and the grid).
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Was that the purpose of the exercise?
That is the purpose of “Solar Power Generation”. The authors of the paper clearly are concerned with environmental footprint.
The purpose of the research project was to measure the sustainability of a “solar powered website”. There are practical reasons in the context of the research for creating the system “standalone” (effectively its own off-grid unit). It would be much harder to isolate the components and attribute embedded energy costs etc. if not doing it standalone. However there is nothing intrinsic in “solar powered website” that requires it to be “standalone”. The result though is that they measured a configuration that “noone” “should” use if there are better choices available. As far as I can see, the only time you would use such a config is some kind of remote (unattended) website.
I don’t want to spoil your, or their, fun any further though. So I’ll leave it at that.
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One of the discussion points that flow from increased solar PV generation is what to do with excess generation. There’s re also issues with maintaining grid stability, also common concerns with other intermittent sources of environmentally sourced energy.
The concepts of micro-grids and distributed generation/storage come up as part of the solution. They potentially keep locally generated electrical energy close to the source. This reduces variations in daytime loads on the network due to PV output swings. They also have the ability to reduce peak demands on transmission lines. A great way as more small scale generation and storage is added to take pressure of existing network infrastructure. Locally installed energy storage systems are also able to take in off peak energy when demand is low to provide a better balance across the 24 hour load cycle.
While not that common yet one project soon to be operational, that will improve utilisation of local rooftop solar capacity in Townsville and NQ.
Costs for large scale battery storage systems per kW/kWh are substantially lower than for residential storage. Some figures suggest one third to half the equivalent energy cost of a fully installed home storage solution EG Tesla Powerwall.
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Researchers at UQ develop a new type of solar cell.
And researchers in the US create a generator which creates electricity from the air.
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At present the air-gen system is quite obscure. Generating power from thin air sounds remarkably like 1000 old scams that involve perpetual motion machines and other ways of getting something for nothing that break the laws of thermodynamics. Horvath told Joh Bjelke-Petersen he had a car that ran on water. Joh believed him, nobody else did. Nothing ever came of it. I doubt Nature would publish such a scam but just what it is we don’t know.
All the web articles I can find are re-working of the press release and don’t explain several keys points. The Nature paper that may explain how it works is behind a paywall. Does anybody have a subscription? Care to delve into it for us?
My prediction is that when the details are available that explain just where this energy comes from (hint: it isn’t from thin air in the sense of out of nowhere) there will be no clear evidence about how scalable production might be, if it will produce energy that is cost effective and what the environmental effects will be. I am not saying it can never work but that we are a long way from feeling excited.
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To put that in perspective, that’s a little over 600 times a typical home install in terms of energy (kWh) stored. I couldn’t find cost info for the Townsville project however.
Neither could I.
There are figures for the larger Tesla battery installation in Hornsdale SA, and budget figures for several others proposals in Australia. At the time the final costs of the first stage of Hornsdale had been revealed, I compared these with what I had had been quoted for an off grid system for our home and also for a Powerwall based system. On those costs the home systems excluding PV were more than twice the equivalent cost per kWh of storage, and had far less inverter capacity relative to stored energy. (5kW inverter for 20+kWh of batteries for a home system)
@Drop_Bear and others have previously referenced some global statistics.
Lazard gives a range of costs for large scale battery storage, and home battery systems. It is a useful and recognised resource. These indicate a ratio of up to three times. Efficiency of larger scale systems direct connected to the grid.
As battery storage systems are significantly imported technology and components the costs should be transferable across borders.
I’d be cautious of translating some of the other data to Australia.
The estimates for pumped storage are probably more difficult to translate to Australia. Our domestic major engineering projects tend to cost more than in some other examples. Our geography may be another factor.
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Rio Tinto plan to power their new Pilbara mine with solar and batteries.
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Another consideration is the charge / discharge rate of the storage, which may be limited to well below the panel output / inverter output in a home system.
I don’t know whether it applies in that case but for remote mines it can make sense to do this simply because the cost of getting electricity to the site (i.e. poles and wires) is too high.
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Mine? Perhaps just ore handling and processing and support services from a 34MW power system. One step forward that will save on Gensets and diesel or a long transmission line to a remote location (thanks @person).
Note:
Haulage and all the other in pit activities look to be all diesel. While there are no definitive details the headline photo is impressive. Komatsu 930E rear dumps. The -5 revision specs up at just over 2,014kW of diesel power and 521t gross weight, 4,500l of diesel in the tank and 150-300l/hr fuel consumption loaded.
It would be good to think that the haulage could be all electric. A 20,000kWh battery pack would weigh in around 80tonnes based on a Tesla 2170 cell giving an energy density of 4kg/kWh. Recharging though is all downtime.
P.S.
Iron ore is used to make steel. For every tonne of iron ore Australia exports it requires another 0.6t of metallurgical/coking coal to be mined and exported.
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Lots of diesel used in a mine and all subsidised by the taxpayer by virtue of being exempt from the diesel excise, I believe.
… and it will take a fair amount of time to charge a 20MWh battery pack. 
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The diesel excise and the petrol excise is supposed to be spent on public roads.
Why should businesses who use fuel on private sites such as mines and farms pay an excise on fuel which is not used on public roads?
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