The future of energy generation and storage

[qldfrog]

This can't be good for the ALP leading up to the election.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to put a dollar figure on price reductions prior to the last election.


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Electricity bills will rise by as much as 9 per cent from July 1, the Australian Energy Regulator has declared, a draft ruling that will intensify pressure on struggling households and threaten the re-election prospects of the Albanese government.

The AER said increases will vary across the National Electricity Market, but the largest jump will be seen in NSW, where prices are set to rise by up to 9 per cent. Increases are smaller in Queensland and South Australia, but prices will rise by between 3 per cent and 6 per cent.

Prices in Victoria are governed by a separate regulator, which earlier ruled prices will largely remain unchanged.

Small business customers face prices increases of between 4.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent.

The energy regulator said the increases were driven by higher costs of producing electricity and network costs, which the AER said had jumped by between 2 per cant and 12 per cent.

Anyone surprised?

 

[sptrawler]

Anyone surprised?

Bill shock is going to be a huge problem for the elderly,when the taxpayer funded electricity subsidies stop, but it wont happen before the election so enjoy it while you can.

 

[Smurf1976]

Anyone surprised?

Not even slightly.

But I'll tell you one thing with absolute certainty - coal, gas, hydro, oil, nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal or burnt chicken poo. None of those will fix it, because the means of generation is only a minority of the problem.

The political and public debate about all this is akin to the child who's "looking" for something without wanting to find it. They know exactly where it is, and are thus "looking" everywhere else.

The real problem comes down to huge administrative overheads along with intentionally inefficient operation in the name of ideology.

To put some figures out there, and I'll intentionally not state what company these are for, the breakdown of the price charged to small consumers (households, small business) is:

Generation = 39%

Transmission and distribution = 36%

A long list of administrative costs not relating to generation, transmission or distribution = 25%

Now to clarify that, the generation, transmission and distribution costs include the (rather large) administrative costs actually relating to them. So there's an administrative cost, a very substantial one, embedded into those prices. The other 25% is for other administration, that which isn't about the physical generation, transmission or distribution of electricity.

Hence the industry employs more people today than it did 40 years ago. Noting that, in theory, vast improvements to efficiency have occurred over that time:

Remote read meters substantially replacing manually read meters.

Computerisation of all aspects of administration.

General reduction in manning levels, number of network maintenance depots, etc.

The industry still had a major construction workforce 40 years ago in every state.

Thermal generation has seen huge efficiency improvements. Back then NSW, Qld and SA all still had 30MW steam turbines in service, Victoria had 20MW as the smallest and that was about the point WA closed the 25MW but they still had 30MW beyond that. NT the smallest was 7.5MW for the Darwin system. All those small machines being far more labour intensive than modern, larger machines. They were less fuel efficient too.

Offsetting that has been a huge rise in bureaucracy at all levels and completely new administrative overheads on top.

 

[Smurf1976]

Meanwhile in Tasmania they're building a tunnel, albeit with somewhat less fanfare than Snowy:

That's not a dam, it's the edge of Lake King William which is created by a dam at a different location but this site itself is simply a hole in the ground.

Purpose is to replace the existing canals which convey water about 18.7km to the Tarraleah power station. Partly because they're now rather old (No.1 canal in service since 1938) and needing significant maintenance but the real long term plan is to increase the capacity of Tarraleah power station to 190MW (presently 90MW), the first step to which is to increase the water conveyance capacity.

Suffice to say I'll always be a fan of just getting on with things.