Feed aggregator

SENG Vic Event Reminder 20 February 2017

Glenridding, Lake District Warned off by the fell top assessor, ill-prepared ramblers hurry out of the mist away from England’s third-highest mountain

I’m early for my appointment in the Helvellyn youth hostel car park, and the only sign of life is a raven croaking prukk-prukk as it dives from Edmund’s Castle crag, its black wings turning a sheeny purple. I pull down my beanie hat and zip up my jacket collar.

Rather than the crisp panorama to be expected on so chilly a day, banners of cloud wreathe me. Treading the path from Red Tarn, I cannot see the mountain above, though I know it’s shaped like an armchair, flanked by Striding Edge as one arm rest and Swirral Edge the other; the lumbar support being Helvellyn’s 950 metres. Cupped in between is Red Tarn, formed by ice age moraine damming water.

Continue reading...

Draft guidelines to be released by Standards Australia suggests lithium ion battery storage devices such as Tesla Powerwalls should be banned from inside homes and garages in Australia, and only installed in separate "kiosks" or bunkers. It threatens to bring the industry to a halt.

Conservative media launches attack against chief scientist Alan Finkel for not whole-heartedly embracing fossil fuels as energy debate sinks further into mire.

Wholesale power prices in coal and gas dependent Queensland average $480/MWh over the past week. No wonder everyone wants to build solar farms.

Solar and wind "saved the day" in NSW on Friday, when two big coal units failed to produce and two big gas generators suddenly stopped generating. Rooftop solar also helping Queensland meet record demand.

PM Malcolm Turnbull has installed battery storage at his Point Piper home and upgraded his rooftop solar system.

Climate Change Authority member Clive Hamilton quits over Coalition's "unconscionable" and "perverse" clean coal push.

Pollinate Energy has successfully secured support from Tata Trusts.

What energy crisis?

Who could forget the energy “crises” that affected electricity supply across south-eastern Australia last year.

Firstly the Tasmanian crisis, following the Basslink outage in December 2015. With hydro storage dams at record lows following a drought on the back of aggressive storage withdrawals during the carbon tax years, Tasmania enforced drastic measures to ensure supply. Thankfully, flooding winter rains, together with the eventual restoration of Basslink in June helped resuscitate the apple isle’s energy supply. Tasmania’s hydro storages now stand at around 40% of full capacity, more than double at the same time last year.

Tasmanian hydropower storage capacity shows a strong seasonal trend, filling in winter rains, and drawing down during the summer and early autumn. Exchanges with Victoria via Basslink help provide security of supply, that was compromised by the outage in December 2015, when storages were already dangerously low on the back of the drought conditions in 2015 and aggressive draw down of storages during the Carbon-tax years to capitilise on the higher mainland spot prices.

July saw the first of the sequence of crises in South Australia that followed from, and were in many eyes, attributable to the closure of its last coal-fired power plant at Port Augusta in May of 2016.

With gas prices at record highs, and South Australia effectively isolated from Victoria due to upgrades on the main interconnector into Victoria, spot prices sky rocketed, culminating on a cold, windless winter day on July 7th. Energy consumers that had not contracted supply were at the whims of traders. Prices averaged over $1400/MWhour for the day and around $520/MWhour for the week, almost 800% above the average for that time of year.

Graphical summary of electrical power generation, demand, spot prices in, and exchange between, each of the five regions comprising the National Electricty Market. The period shown is the week of July 3rd- 9th, 2016, during the first South Australian energy crisis. Over the week, interconnector flows from Victoria into South Australia were restricted to an average of 225 MW, or about 40% of full capacity due to upgrade works. On July 7th, at the height of the crisis, the flow was limited to 166 MW. VWP = volume weighted price in $/MWhour. TOTAL.DEMAND = regional demand in MW. DISPATCH.GEN = regional generation in MW. NETINTERCHANE = net exports (positive) or imports (negative) in MW.

All that was superseded by the events of September, when extreme winds played havoc with the South Australian transmission system, toppling transmission lines in the mid north. Poorly understood default control settings automatically disconnected wind farms, leading to the interconnector tripping and a state-wide blacked out. Unanticipated problems in restarting the system exacerbated the pain.

Finally, failure of a transmission line in south-west Victoria on December 1 lead to a power loss at the aluminium smelter in Portland. The damage to “frozen” pot lines has jeopardised the smelter’s ongoing viability. As the state’s largest energy consumer and the one of the biggest regional employers, the political fallout is intense.

After the NEM’s “annus horibilus”

With 2016 very much the National Electricity Market’s (NEM) “annus horibilus”, pundits awaited the summer of 2017 with bated breath. The combination of high gas prices, frighteningly intense summer heat, a fragile and ageing energy supply system, and increasing concerns about market rules, the scene was set for “interesting times”. Whatever was to transpire it was always going to be inflamed by political point-scoring - the one commodity that seems rarely in short supply.

And so it would prove to be, even in the northern states of Queensland and New South Wales that had hither-too largely escaped the wrath of Electryone.

The summer of 2017 has seen extraordinary rises beset the spot market across the country, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. Further blackouts in South Australia, and market interventions to avert them in New South Wales, have done little to assuage concern that our electrical power system is no longer fit for purpose. Queensland 2017 prices have been some is 400% above the historical average for this time of year.

Graphical summary of NEM operations for the period 1st January - 11th February 2017.

With the summer far from finished, our politicians remain hard at it, pointing fingers and apportioning blame, doing almost anything and everything but that which is in most short supply - namely, embracing bipartisanship. A glimmer of hope is to be found in comments from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, who has been charged to lead a review of the security of our National Electricity Market.

What is our NEM?

To provide some guide to what is happening to the NEM, and why, I have compiled a few pictures that illustrate elements its basic anatomy. This is designed as background. In following posts in this series I will focus on the details of recent events that have so heightened the political heat.

The NEM comprises five interconnected regional jurisdictions - one for each state along the eastern seaboard and South Australia. For each region, the market operator AEMO runs a 5-minute interval, energy-only, dispatch ‘pool’, or spot market. The objective is to balance supply with demand in a way that minimises cost, based on the bids submitted by generators. It is a complicated process. Settlement prices are aggregated at half hourly intervals, and determined as the average of bid prices of the last offer needed to meet the demand for the dispatch interval.

Pictorial of the generation structure on the NEM, as of early 2017. The top half shows the five regions comprising the NEM, the bottom half the power as generated and dispatched by fuel type progressing from fossil on the left through to renewables of the right. For the period shown (1/1/2017-11/2/2107) black coal contributed 55.6% of supply (at a capacity factor of 68%), brown coal 22.7% (cf=79%), natural gas 11% (cf = 24%), hydro 5.4% (cf = 14%) and Wind 4.6% (cf=29%) Units are in MW. Note that gas is the only fuel source common to all regions, but its contribution varies significantly from over 50% in South Australia, to just a few percent in Victoria.

With the focus of the dispatch ‘pool’ being least cost electricity supply, AEMO also operates several ancillary markets to ensure the requirements for safe grid operation are met. This includes the provision of reserve supply and frequency control normally sourced from synchronous generators such as large coal plants.

AEMO also has regulatory powers to intervene in the market by demanding generation be made available in cases when the total bid capacity is insufficient. When demand exceeds total capacity, or if the available capacity cannot be made available in a timely fashion, AEMO can authorise load-shedding, effecting a re-balancing of demand to meet the available generation capacity.

Normally, large electricity consumers will contract power supply via the contract market, rather than directly through the spot market. This insures consumers against the potential for extreme price volatility allowed on the spot market, that can see prices range from between -$1000 and $14,000/MWhour. For comparison, the standard domestic retail tariff is about $250/MWhour or $0.25/kWhour.

The bid strategies of power plants reflect differences in their cost structures and performance characteristics. For example, fuel costs for brown coal generators are very low, but they are best operated at constant load. In contrast gas plants are generally much more rampable, but much higher cost. In Victoria, as a consequence gas is used almost exclusively to meet peaks in demand as illustrated in the three graphics below.

Dispatch in Victoria for the period 8/2/2017-10/2/2017, coloured by fuel source. Also shown is the Victorian demand (brown line), available generation bid into the market (top black line), and net exports as negative (bottom black line) Brown coal power generation in Victoria for the period 8/2/2017-10/2/2017, coloured by power station. Natural gas generation in Victoria for the period 8/2/2017-10/2/2017, coloured by power station.

Typically a large base-load generator, such as a brown coal plant, will bid much of its capacity into the spot market at their short run cost, to ensure a slice of the action. In contrast peaking power plants will bid at price well above marginal cost, anticipating that they will required only very occasionally. Forward contracts of various kinds help insure revenue streams for base load generators against spot prices below their long-term cost of production, and for peaking plants being available when needed.

Renewables such as wind dispatch at the whims of the weather, and because of negligible short run marginal costs, bid their output at very low prices. As a price taker, wind generation tends to drive spot prices lower, impacting the viability of other generators. As shown below, and to be discussed in more detail in a following posts, the recent events in South Australian dispatch highlights the challenges in the market when wind power output correlates poorly with demand.

Dispatch in South Australia for the period 8/2/2017 through 10/2/2017, coloured by fuel source. Also shown is the South Australian demand (brown line), available generation bid into the market (top black line), and net imports (bottom white line). Black outs on the 8th February occurred when local dispatch curve hit the available generation. At that time here was no more capacity ready to be dispatched, so AEMO instigated load-shedding. (Note that not all capacity in South Australia was bid into the market at this time.)

Finally, rooftop PV is not dispatched onto the grid, but rather is “revealed” to the market as a demand in reduction.

Why are spot prices rising

In theory, the spot market is designed to encourage a competition that ensures prices provide generators with a revenue stream that is linked to their long run marginal cost of production. If prices do depart, competitive market principles should ensure system re-balancing either through investment in new generation or the withdrawal of old. Of course, competition needs to be provided by an adequate diversity in ownership.

And so shifts in the spot prices, signalled via the contract markets, are designed to reflect the balance of demand and supply. The years 2009-2014 were characterised by persistent reductions in demand across the NEM, in part due to growing penetration of solar PV. At the same time, the addition of new wind farms to meet Renewable Energy Target contributed to a growing oversupply in the market, reflected in very subdued spot prices. For example from 2010-2014, Victorian spot prices averaged about $35/MWhour, after factoring out the carbon tax. While that price is above the cost of production for existing Victorian brown coal generators, it would be well nigh impossible to obtain financing for any new large scale generation at prices less than about 2-3 times that.

Since 2014, demand has risen in Queensland due in part to the commissioning of new LNG gas processing facilities at Curtis Island. Reductions in generation capacity in Victoria and South Australia due to closure and/or mothballing of several fossil plants (Anglesea in Victoria and Northern and Pelican Point in South Australia), has significantly tightened the supply-demand balance. Consequently, spot prices are on the rise across the NEM.

Why do spot prices vary between regions?

Spot prices averaged about $60/MWhour across last year, but vary somewhat by region, and by season, and by jurisdiction.

As shown in diagrams above the make-up of generation in each of the five regions varies considerably, leading to different cost structures. Similarly differences in demand profiles lead naturally to differences in generation fleet. Finally there are differences in market competition.

With limited interconnection capacity, along with differences in regional demand and generation portfolios, occasionally lead to large separation in spot market prices. In times of very high demand during summer heat waves and winder cold snaps, or in times when supply is constrained by infrastructure (power plant or transmission) outages or fuel supply/cost issues, spot prices can be extremely volatile.

Annual variations in spot prices for the period 1st January through 11th February, for each of the four mainland regions. Red numbers shows the average for the years prior to 2017.

Historically, South Australia has had the highest prices and Victoria the lowest. This reflects the higher much higher proportion of gas in the generation mix, its larger proportional daily/seasonal cycle between minimum and maximum demand and, arguably, competition issues. As illustrated below, peak demand in South Australia is over 250% higher than the median, compared to around 150% in Queensland. A greater relative proportion of peaking generation capacity means higher average spot prices. Competition is a particular issue in South Australia, since the closure of the Northern Power Station, as it is in Queensland.

Annual demand in South Australia and Queensland, in MW in top panel, and as percentage of median demand in bottom panel. Note the recent rise in demand in QLD due in large part to the recent commissioning of LNG plants. The bottom panel highlights the much greater daily and seasonal variability in demand in SA which sees maximum demand occasionally exceeds 2.5 time median. In comparison QLD peaks are only 1.5 times median. The boxes show 25-75 percent quartile ranges with notch at the median. Outliers more than 1.5 times IQR are shown by dots. How well suited is our market?

It is important to realise that while the physical characteristics of any power system are governed by the laws of physics, the market itself is a construct - just one of many ways of matching supply and demand. In particular as an energy-only ‘pool’ , there are questions about how well our NEM is suited to meeting the need of providing a cost effective, secure and environmentally acceptable energy supply. In particular, there is very little incentive for demand side management. Moreover, the power system does not operate in isolation, and needs to be considered with other policy settings in the gas and water markets as well as climate policy. In the following posts in this series I intend to address some of these issues with examples drawn from our recent experience on the NEM.

Disclosure

Mike Sandiford receives funding from ARC and ANLEC.

Green MP says 1,100 pieces of environmental law need to be moved on to UK statute books before Britain leaves EU

Britain is hugely unprepared for the potential impact of Brexit on environmental protection, with more than 1,100 pieces of EU green legislation needing to be moved into UK law for safeguards to be maintained, according to a report by the Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Lucas, who spent 11 years as an MEP before being elected to parliament, said environmental protections faced “a cocktail of threats from Brexit”.

Continue reading...

Last Wednesday around 90,000 homes and businesses in South Australia were deliberately disconnected from the electricity grid for up to an hour. So why did it actually happen?

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 17 February 1917

Surrey
The vane above the old church tower moves uneasily a point, and scarcely more, from east towards the south. It is not much, but just enough this morning to make the top of the frosty earth crumble as you walk across a field which was ploughed weeks ago, to show cart tracks along the border way, and, what is more, to set the birds in movement and in voice over the hedgerows and among the trees. When snow not long since lay in the birch wood on the far side of the common the young trees appeared to be dull yellow, but now, with the snow gone, they are cream in colour. The thin shreds of bark peel off like knitted fragments and scatter among the lengthening tassels on hazel boughs. A plaintive note comes from the far side of the birches, then a pause; the swish of the wind goes through or between the long, hanging limbs; the note sounds again, and then, as if following it, a bullfinch flits, the rich red of his breast set off by the darker feathers, which in the lights and shadows among the trees are beautiful beyond belief. You wait a long while to catch sight of any company he may have, but to-day there is none; a stormcock flies on to the highest branch of an ash at the corner of the copse and fills the empty air with singing; you move, and he drops, almost like a stone, below the boughs, but in the space of a short pause is up and again in full song. There is a clamour in the south where the sky is so heavy as to forbid the sight of what it all may mean, but momentarily a great flight of rooks ­– over a hundred – comes into view, well up in the air, wheeling in an almost solid body to the west. The noise seems to animate everything. Wood pigeons scatter into small flocks, some going this way and some that, a bantam crows, the sheep bleat and the lambs call, the cattle coming from the shed yonder sniff the air and low, halting in their march toward the mangold which lies in a heap near the slicing machine.

Continue reading...

January’s smog broke recent records, but while glib comparisons with Beijing can result in action, they are also misleading

Newspaper headlines in January told us that London’s air pollution was worse than Beijing. BBC journalist Joseph D’Urso likened this to the heatwave weather stories each summer that say Brighton is hotter than Barcelona. Brighton is not normally as warm as Barcelona. Comparing particle pollution, London was worse than Beijing for four smoggy days, from 20 to 23 January, but over the whole month London’s particle pollution was around a quarter of that in the Chinese capital.

Related: Paris tries something different in the fight against smog

Continue reading...

A mass beaching of whales at Golden Bay in New Zealand has seen a total of 700 whales caught in the shallows over the past few days.

Republicans who support climate change action are undeterred by their president's apparent climate scepticism.

2017 is shaping up as a watershed year in Australia's embrace of renewable energy with more than 20 large scale wind and solar projects worth $5bn under construction.

This is the great age of cartography, says Lois Parshley’s timely reminder of the importance of understanding landscapes (The long read, 7 February), and mapping everything from sediment-laden ocean floors to patterns of disease outbreaks in earthquake-hit locations.

Related: Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life by Edward O Wilson – review

Continue reading...

Following an unprecedented series of shark attacks off Australian beaches, the need to find practical solutions is intensifying.

Aerial drones could be an important tool for reducing risk of shark attacks on our beaches within the coming years. Here’s how it would work. Drones would fly autonomously over beaches continuously scanning for sharks with image recognition software.

If a shark is detected, real-time video will be instantly sent to beach authorities, such as lifeguards. If it is a dangerous shark, appropriate action can be taken to ensure public safety, such as sounding alarms and clearing people from the water.

Like other shark bite mitigation measures, this cannot completely eliminate the possibility of a shark attack. However, it could help to reduce the risk to an acceptable level for the majority of beach users.

Importantly, the drone-based approach to shark bite mitigation does not harm sharks or other marine wildlife, such as whales, dolphins, rays and sea turtles, unlike more controversial shark control measures such as mesh nets or baited drum lines.

Surfer has a close encounter with a great white shark as seen by a drone. Testing drones

As part of the NSW government’s A$16 million Shark Management Strategy, researchers from the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) and Southern Cross University (SCU) have demonstrated that drones can reliably detect sharks off Australian beaches.

NSW DPI researchers have also compared the costs and benefits of marine wildlife sightings between drones and helicopters, as well as established environmental conditions suitable for drones to provide effective shark detection capabilities.

This summer, a team of SCU and DPI researchers completed an intensive drone trial on five important beaches in NSW to verify that drones will work in the long term. As part of the trial, drones performed six 20-minute patrols each morning on each beach for every day of the school holidays.

Researchers monitoring drone footage spotted great white, bull, whaler, mako and hammerhead sharks off NSW beaches. They also saw many dolphins, sea turtles and less dangerous shark species, such as shovel-nosed sharks.

These trials included experiments comparing “people versus machines” by evaluating the utility of automated flight paths and shark recognition software.

Drone captures a great white shark cruising the shallows of Northern NSW. Automating the drone-based approach

The overall objective of this research is to develop a fully automated drone-based shark surveillance system in the near future.

We envisage that a team of aerial drones could run continuous shark detection missions during the hours when most people are on our beaches.

When required, each drone will automatically take off, patrol for sharks, land itself and charge up again, ready for the next mission. If a drone detects a shark, to can alert beach authorities.

Their response will vary depending on the species of shark detected and its location. This will be immediately apparent from the live video feed and location data they receive. As well as tracking sharks, the drones will also be fitted with sirens and lights to contribute to any emergency actions.

Great white shark off a beach in Northern NSW. Problems to solve

There are still at least five major challenges to overcome before establishing a fully functional automated drone-based shark surveillance system. But these could be gradually overcome within the next few years.

Civil aviation regulations

Aviation regulations restrict the use of fully automated drones in most airspace. We could overcome this problem by modifying the law or establishing restricted zones over beaches where drones can fly.

Public safety concerns

We need to minimise the risk of injury as a result of drone failure, by making sure their flight components are failsafe and having flight paths clear of beachgoers. We also need airspace safety systems to ensure that drones are grounded when emergency and other aircraft are in the vicinity.

Public privacy concerns

A drone-based shark surveillance system would require public acceptance. For this, beachgoers need to be aware of the sorts of data being collected by the drones, and to rest assured that this does not breach privacy legislation.

Reliable hardware

Although aerial drones can already automatically take off, fly routes, land and charge themselves, it is not clear how reliably this technology will stand up to the Australian beach environment. To be effective, we will need drones that can reliably function under heavy workloads in coastal conditions. Similarly, data transfer platforms also need to be fast and reliable.

Purpose-designed software

Image analysis software needs to be further developed to automatically detect sharks with a high level of accuracy. Customised software will also need to be developed to coordinate the missions of a team of drones and to ensure seamless video streaming to the portable wireless devices of beach authorities and users.

In terms of the hardware and software challenges, there are a number of research groups racing towards solutions with the goal of commercialising their products. Once an automated drone-based technology for shark bite mitigation is in place, it should be possible to solve issues regarding legislation, safety and privacy.

Given the current rate of technological development and the falling costs of commercially available drones, fully automated drones could be reducing the risk of shark attacks on Australian beaches within five years. However, for many nervous beachgoers, this may not be soon enough.

Brendan Kelaher receives funding from the NSW Department Primary Industries for two PhD students working on shark projects.

Andrew Colefax receives project funding for his PhD from the NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI). He also receives additional work from the NSW DPI.

Paul Butcher works for NSW Department of Primary Industries. He receives funding from the NSW and Commonwealth Governments. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University.

Vic Peddemors receives funding from the NSW Government, the Australian Research Council and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) on behalf of the Australian Government.

Bob Creese does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Joint statement says years of finger-pointing have destroyed investor confidence in Australia’s energy sector

A coalition of business, energy, investor, climate and welfare groups has issued a sharply worded wake-up call on the energy debate, declaring “finger pointing” and 10 years of partisan politics have destroyed investor confidence in Australia’s energy sector, “worsening reliability risks”.

The joint statement from 18 groups ranging from the Business Council of Australia to the Australian Council of Social Services follows months of zero sum political debate about energy policy, power prices and reliability, during which time the federal government has pre-empted a major review by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, by ruling out carbon trading in the electricity sector.

Continue reading...