News & Discussion: Electricity Infrastructure

[rubberman]

So, just replacing those plants in the next ten years is going to increase prices. It doesn't matter whether it's renewables, nuclear or coal or gas - new generation capacity will add costs we have avoided so far.

With one important difference. The existing coal plants now at the end of useful life are 50-70 years old. So replacing them although costly, would be at minimum 50 year investment and much more with proper maintenance. Solar and wind plants have a lifespan of about 20 years. So even if we manage to replace all of the coal and gas capacity with renewables in the next 20 years...we will have to start all over again-and thats not taking into consideration all of the additional wiring required to interconnect vastly scattered generation points -wires which will also require regular maintenance and upgrading as well.

The problem with that, even accepting the life figures you suggest, is that you have to convince whoever you want to provide finance that your coal plant will be producing electricity cheaper than competitors for the next 70 years. Coal plants are only economic over these long periods. If you can't guarantee they will be cheaper than the competition for 50-70 years, they become uneconomic because the depreciation and interest costs become crippling.

Fifty years ago, that was easy to justify. There was not enough competitive technology to coal above a certain capacity. With little competition, and a guaranteed market, investors lined up. Nowadays, there's no guarantee that solar or wind or whatever, won't reduce in price even more, and leave a coal plant as a stranded asset. Nobody will fund it without some sort of government guarantee. Which means the cost gets transferred to taxpayers. Those taxpayers, funnily enough, are also electricity customers, and so still pay.

[claybro]

So, just replacing those plants in the next ten years is going to increase prices. It doesn't matter whether it's renewables, nuclear or coal or gas - new generation capacity will add costs we have avoided so far.

With one important difference. The existing coal plants now at the end of useful life are 50-70 years old. So replacing them although costly, would be at minimum 50 year investment and much more with proper maintenance. Solar and wind plants have a lifespan of about 20 years. So even if we manage to replace all of the coal and gas capacity with renewables in the next 20 years...we will have to start all over again-and thats not taking into consideration all of the additional wiring required to interconnect vastly scattered generation points -wires which will also require regular maintenance and upgrading as well.

The problem with that, even accepting the life figures you suggest, is that you have to convince whoever you want to provide finance that your coal plant will be producing electricity cheaper than competitors for the next 70 years. Coal plants are only economic over these long periods. If you can't guarantee they will be cheaper than the competition for 50-70 years, they become uneconomic because the depreciation and interest costs become crippling.

Fifty years ago, that was easy to justify. There was not enough competitive technology to coal above a certain capacity. With little competition, and a guaranteed market, investors lined up. Nowadays, there's no guarantee that solar or wind or whatever, won't reduce in price even more, and leave a coal plant as a stranded asset. Nobody will fund it without some sort of government guarantee. Which means the cost gets transferred to taxpayers. Those taxpayers, funnily enough, are also electricity customers, and so still pay.

And yet here we are. More and more renewables.. higher and higher costs, and less reliability. All this, and the Chinese are building hundreds of new coal fired plants, with Europe re opening mothballed units.Stranded asserts?? Something is not adding up.

[rubberman]

With one important difference. The existing coal plants now at the end of useful life are 50-70 years old. So replacing them although costly, would be at minimum 50 year investment and much more with proper maintenance. Solar and wind plants have a lifespan of about 20 years. So even if we manage to replace all of the coal and gas capacity with renewables in the next 20 years...we will have to start all over again-and thats not taking into consideration all of the additional wiring required to interconnect vastly scattered generation points -wires which will also require regular maintenance and upgrading as well.

The problem with that, even accepting the life figures you suggest, is that you have to convince whoever you want to provide finance that your coal plant will be producing electricity cheaper than competitors for the next 70 years. Coal plants are only economic over these long periods. If you can't guarantee they will be cheaper than the competition for 50-70 years, they become uneconomic because the depreciation and interest costs become crippling.

Fifty years ago, that was easy to justify. There was not enough competitive technology to coal above a certain capacity. With little competition, and a guaranteed market, investors lined up. Nowadays, there's no guarantee that solar or wind or whatever, won't reduce in price even more, and leave a coal plant as a stranded asset. Nobody will fund it without some sort of government guarantee. Which means the cost gets transferred to taxpayers. Those taxpayers, funnily enough, are also electricity customers, and so still pay.

And yet here we are. More and more renewables.. higher and higher costs, and less reliability. All this, and the Chinese are building hundreds of new coal fired plants, with Europe re opening mothballed units.Stranded asserts?? Something is not adding up.

Less reliability? I hear the slow clapping from AGL shareholders as I write. Our aging coal burners are notoriously unreliable. And do you think that if anyone built a new coal plant, that costs wouldn't go up? Capital costs are a major input to generation pricing.

FWIW, AGL in its half yearly report reported 72% availability, excluding Liddell which was out of action for 68 days in one quarter...making that 72% quite misleadingly high.

China is opening new coal plants because the government is underwriting the commercial risk. Is that even remotely likely to happen in Australia? The whole idea of privatisation was to remove that risk from government. There's no way that the political right will admit it was wrong. And Labor, surely, has learned its lesson after Weatherill restarted the SA Government in the generation business, only to lose the election and for Lucas to sell it off.

But don't blame renewables for any of that.

Let me ask you what do you think prices would be if we didn't have renewables in SA at the moment? Because with coal reliability at sub 70%, Tom Playford demolished, governments not building, bankers not financing coal, I reckon you are looking at 200-300% of today's prices - not 20-30%.

[claybro]

It’s a circular argument. Ageing subsidised coal, and expensive gas would not be required, if renewables could produce power 24/7. They can’t. And just building more, will continue to add to costs, as a parallel backup system, still needs to be there, on reserve to step up. SA bragging about being 70% renewable or whatever is coming from a state with a tiny population, comparatively tiny industrial base, and before we even plug in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.

[rubberman]

It’s a circular argument. Ageing subsidised coal, and expensive gas would not be required, if renewables could produce power 24/7. They can’t. And just building more, will continue to add to costs, as a parallel backup system, still needs to be there, on reserve to step up. SA bragging about being 70% renewable or whatever is coming from a state with a tiny population, comparatively tiny industrial base, and before we even plug in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.

Except that nobody is going to build a coal plant. It's all well and good to extol the virtues of coal, but without government guarantees, nobody will fund it.

Alinta didn't even try to replace any of its plant at Port Augusta. AGL only ever talked of extending the life of its plants, not replacement. It's all very well and good to talk about it on internet forums, but no realistic replacement is being talked about by any firms who could do it. We hear from the likes of Senator Canavan pushing coal. However, for all his talk, and his party being in power for 9 years, what have we got? Did any major generating companies take notice? Did the government in which he was a Minister even issue a policy? Or offer to guarantee a fifty year loan.

It's a dead parrot. Bereft of life...etc etc.

[claybro]

It’s a circular argument. Ageing subsidised coal, and expensive gas would not be required, if renewables could produce power 24/7. They can’t. And just building more, will continue to add to costs, as a parallel backup system, still needs to be there, on reserve to step up. SA bragging about being 70% renewable or whatever is coming from a state with a tiny population, comparatively tiny industrial base, and before we even plug in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.

Except that nobody is going to build a coal plant. It's all well and good to extol the virtues of coal, but without government guarantees, nobody will fund it.

Alinta didn't even try to replace any of its plant at Port Augusta. AGL only ever talked of extending the life of its plants, not replacement. It's all very well and good to talk about it on internet forums, but no realistic replacement is being talked about by any firms who could do it. We hear from the likes of Senator Canavan pushing coal. However, for all his talk, and his party being in power for 9 years, what have we got? Did any major generating companies take notice? Did the government in which he was a Minister even issue a policy? Or offer to guarantee a fifty year loan.

It's a dead parrot. Bereft of life...etc etc.

Agree with all of this. The current policy settings in Australia are designed to phase out fossil fuels. But the public were told repeatedly that renewables would be cheaper, and the current government promised to reduce power prices. It is dishonest. We are accelerating our push to renewables. Energy will continue to be more expensive, and availability will begin to become problematic. The WA government is already running adds about not using excess power between 5pm and 9pm. Let’s just be honest about it and tell the public what they are in for.

[bits]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

[mattblack]

It’s a circular argument. Ageing subsidised coal, and expensive gas would not be required, if renewables could produce power 24/7. They can’t. And just building more, will continue to add to costs, as a parallel backup system, still needs to be there, on reserve to step up. SA bragging about being 70% renewable or whatever is coming from a state with a tiny population, comparatively tiny industrial base, and before we even plug in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.

To downplay achieving 1% to 70% over the last 16 years, more than 80 per cent in the last five months and generating more than 100 per cent for days at a time is a massive disservice. I wouldn't consider a population of 1.8million 'tiny'. The state has withstood being disconnected from the national grid for days at a time without disastrous power outages. The development of our hydrogen infrastructure it will take the monopoly from privately owned gas companies to state owned assets which can be upscaled and integrated into the system. Aspirations of 500% in the future will be a massive cash cow for the state economy both in manufacturing and reduced cost for the average consumer. To keep harping back on arguments of the past is a nonsense.

[Nort]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

I fully intend to get solar at some point because of other benefits it will provide, but we are near the point, if not well beyond it, that the feed-in payments are unsustainable, because the grid costs are still there, being paid for by a smaller a smaller fraction of the userbase.

[bits]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

I fully intend to get solar at some point because of other benefits it will provide, but we are near the point, if not well beyond it, that the feed-in payments are unsustainable, because the grid costs are still there, being paid for by a smaller a smaller fraction of the userbase.

Feed in tariff have been reducing rapidly.
You will struggle to find more than 3-5c on most reasonable plans.
I agree it will continue to reduce.
You need a battery.
Exporting during sun hours is worth not much. Consume your own power or store and export during the night. But most likely just store and consume for your own use.

[SBD]

It’s a circular argument. Ageing subsidised coal, and expensive gas would not be required, if renewables could produce power 24/7. They can’t. And just building more, will continue to add to costs, as a parallel backup system, still needs to be there, on reserve to step up. SA bragging about being 70% renewable or whatever is coming from a state with a tiny population, comparatively tiny industrial base, and before we even plug in hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.

Except that nobody is going to build a coal plant. It's all well and good to extol the virtues of coal, but without government guarantees, nobody will fund it.

Alinta didn't even try to replace any of its plant at Port Augusta. AGL only ever talked of extending the life of its plants, not replacement. It's all very well and good to talk about it on internet forums, but no realistic replacement is being talked about by any firms who could do it. We hear from the likes of Senator Canavan pushing coal. However, for all his talk, and his party being in power for 9 years, what have we got? Did any major generating companies take notice? Did the government in which he was a Minister even issue a policy? Or offer to guarantee a fifty year loan.

It's a dead parrot. Bereft of life...etc etc.

Alinta appears to still have an approved proposal to build a gas turbine power station at Reeves Plans but can't find any customers. I haven't seen anything to confirm the proposal has lapsed.

[rev]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

You'd make a great politician.

[Nort]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

I fully intend to get solar at some point because of other benefits it will provide, but we are near the point, if not well beyond it, that the feed-in payments are unsustainable, because the grid costs are still there, being paid for by a smaller a smaller fraction of the userbase.

Feed in tariff have been reducing rapidly.
You will struggle to find more than 3-5c on most reasonable plans.
I agree it will continue to reduce.
You need a battery.
Exporting during sun hours is worth not much. Consume your own power or store and export during the night. But most likely just store and consume for your own use.

Yeah. I can see grid connection eventually moving to a baseline minimum fee as more people adopt home batteries.

[rubberman]

I paid for solar and later a battery.
I am about 95% self sufficient other than my system does depend on the main grid being on to work at all. That requirement for the grid to be on is because I didn't want to pay more to gain a feature I don't consider important.

Get the right solar/battery system and you will be shielded from these price increases.
"20% up" to me is maybe $6 more a month.
All that 20% increase does is shorten the time for ROI for a solar/battery system.

To me I see the price increases simply as a ratchet to coerce the next group to pull their finger out and get a solar/battery system.

The claimed price decreases by the gov is for the average consumer. 1 in 3 have solar so the average bill is heavily influenced by those already with solar and those getting solar.
Are the price decreases 100% delivered every time because more have solar and the actual average bill is now lower as claimed?
Just because your bill went up doesn't mean the average bill went up.

Paying 20% more for electricity in 2023 seems more about a consumers life choices and priorities than an actual issue.


To reliability, we had a state wide blackout for few hours one time during a wild storm.
Where is this reliability issue that renewables has caused? I think the the last 2 decades has seen the South Australian electricity network dramatically improve in reliability when compared to pre 2000/pre renewable era.

You'd make a great politician.

What's the alternative? New coal, nuclear, renewables - all of them cost money. None of them are going to be as cheap as life expired coal plants. But that's the problem. Those coal plants are LIFE EXPIRED. Some of the country's biggest plants are regularly offline FOR MONTHS. Talking about keeping those going, and maintaining existing prices cannot happen.

So, can someone PLEASE tell me which of the following they prefer:

New coal plants - more expensive than now.

New nuclear plants - even more expensive than now, and unlikely to be built in time.

New renewables - more expensive than now, but are able to be built as needed because each installation is relatively cheap (but expensive when added together).

There is NO option that says keeping existing plants going at existing cheap rates.

[rev]

Are any of those things you mentioned, contributing factors to the constant increase in what consumers are paying for electricity?
What other reasons are contributing to it.

Governments keep promising they'll do something, but so far we see them doing nothing that is bringing the cost down or at the very least stabilising it.

Above I was just pointing out that its not just peoples choices.
Im sure we're all happy for Bits that's he's 95% self sufficient and has a solar+battery setup. Im sure we're all happy he can afford that setup, its not cheap particularly sufficient battery storage.

Is everyone else in the same boat, able to afford such setups?
Clearly not.

On top of that, we live in a time when everyone is concious of energy use/waste. Many people are doing what they can afford, for many that is just turning off power points and switching to LED globes around the house. For most pensioners its not running heating or air-conditioning because they can't afford the rising costs.

So it has little to do with the pig headed dismissive attitude you'd expect from a conservative politician of "its your own fault because of the choices you've made".

Prices aren't rising by 22% because of lifestyle choices.