{"id":277082,"date":"2023-09-03T21:09:51","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=277082"},"modified":"2023-09-03T21:09:54","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:09:54","slug":"australia-is-on-the-precipice-of-a-radical-experiment-with-their-energy-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=277082","title":{"rendered":"Australia is on the precipice of a radical experiment with their energy grid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From\u00a0CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Joanne Nova<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The AEMO (manager of the Australian grid) has finally released the major report on problems coming in the next ten years on our national grid, and it\u2019s worse than they thought even six months ago. They euphemistically refer to the coming \u201creliability gaps\u201d. They could have said \u201cblackouts\u201d instead, but a gap in reliability sounds so much nicer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bizarrely, the lead graph of the 175-page AEMO report<\/a> goes right off the scale, mysteriously peaking in the unknown and invisible real estate off the top of the chart.  And they\u2019re not projecting troubles fifty years from now. Those cropped peaks of invisible pain hit from 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even the pain we can see is apparently quite bad. Two states are already likely to breach \u201cthe interim reliability measure\u201d this coming summer.  The AEMO is calling for tenders for \u201creliability reserves\u201d in South Australia and Victoria just one day after releasing the report. Apparently, they want offers of industries ready to shut down who aren\u2019t already on the list, and they want spare generation too \u2014 get this \u2014 even asking for \u201csmall onsite generators\u201d. Does that sound bad to you? It sounds bad to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the calm analyst Paul McArdle says<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on current trajectory, we\u2019re in for a world of pain ahead.  \u2026the<\/strong> AEMO projections are looking pretty dire<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider Figure 1:  A decade of blackouts coming<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever seen a graph like this that hides the peaks? In the \u201ccentral scenario\u201d of the cropped graph \u2014 \u201conly\u201d four states of Australia go off the charts. Imagine what the bad scenario looks like\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AEMO, ESOO, 2023<\/a>. Figure 1 shows the reliability and indicative reliability forecasts for the 2023 ESOO Central scenario. This forecast considers only the sub-set of known developments that have demonstrated sufficient commitment towards commissioning in the NEM (those developments classified as committed or anticipated), including announced retirements. It allows for project delivery schedules that may be slower than proponents have advised based on observed development, approval, and commissioning requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that South Australia flew in diesel jet engines for backup generation<\/a> at one point (General Electric aero-derivative turbines)  \u2014 perhaps we can ask Qatar Airlines if they can plug some planes straight into our grid. (The government won\u2019t let them fly in more passengers, in case it screws up Qantas profits, but that means they must have a few  planes they can spare.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A leap to Figure 43 suggests those hidden peaks of Figure 1 might be quite high in NSW and Victoria. Figure 43 shows the same \u201cCentral Scenario\u201d as Figure 1 \u2014 this time as dotted lines \u2014 and we can see a bit more of the graph. The y axis is the same Expected Unserved Energy (%) this time reaching up to 0.007%. But the NSW (blue) and Victorian (grey) lines are doing the Moonshot thing in 2027. They\u2019re headed to infinity or some number the AEMO didn\u2019t want to graph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AEMO, ESOO, 2023,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The solid lines in Figure 43 are the slightly better scenarios that include contributions from CER<\/strong> or \u201cConsumer Energy Resources\u201d (that\u2019s you!). This is what the future looks like with more help from things like solar panels on rooftops, home batteries, and Electric Vehicles. It\u2019s also the best we can do with DSP<\/strong> assistance \u2014 which means Demand Side Participation \u2014 those people who participate by not<\/em> demanding electricity. In normal English, we would call them the customers who are paid to stay away or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten different ways to go without electricity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The AEMO doesn\u2019t use the word blackout, but it has a dozen flavours of blackouts-by-another-name, many of them voluntary or subsidized and somewhat prearranged. It looks so much better on paper to say \u201cDSP\u201d but it means someone, somewhere, going without electricity when they would otherwise have used it. DSP gets 146 mentions in the AEMO report, giving us some idea of how mini-blackouts are now an essential part of managing a very sick grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a minimum DSP may just be an inconvenience \u2014 people have to program their washing machine and pool filter to run at lunchtime, which sounds fine until you have only one sunny day that week and you have six loads of washing. In a rich world without \u201creliability gaps,\u201d you would just run it, conveniently from 5 to 10 p.m. the night before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DSP is code for people willing (or dragged), in some sense, to have a voluntary mini-blackout \u2014 and the report notes the major factor driving an increase in DSP uptake is because electricity is now more expensive (what a great thing?). The AEMO notes: \u201cThese higher prices have led to more benefits<\/strong> to customers participating in DSP schemes or responding directly to market signals\u201d.<\/em> Table 5 lists the Negawatts of voluntary outages when prices rise to $1,000, $5,000, and $7,500 per megawatt hour\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Alice lives in Down Underland \u2014 more expensive electricity means customers get more \u201cbenefits\u201d when they don\u2019t use it. See how this works? Only the wealthy will have the convenience of electricity whenever they want it. The underclass will be cooking on barbeques, and getting up earlier each day to program the washing machine and set up the timers for the scooters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ominously, the AEMO projects a lot more voluntary blackouts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AEMO, ESOO, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Drowning in complexity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The message in 42 tables and 100 figures is unspoken but obvious \u2014 the Australian grid is drowning in complexity; there are so many moving, unpredictable parts. The report models the various possibilities of low rain, low wind, low stocks of fossil fuels, droughts, heat waves, and unexpected outages. They try to model some combinations and permutations of multiple troubles occurring simultaneously. Whether we get and can afford electricity now depends on ocean currents in the Pacific that no one can predict. We live in the land of drought and flooding rains, and we\u2019re hoping the weather will be nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AEMO brightly says that it can be managed, see Figure 2, if we build 10,000 kilometers of high transmission lines through farmland and forests, and then finish all the wind farms and solar magic panels, along with lots more voluntary blackouts, \u201cconsumer investments\u201d (home batteries) and dispatchable capacity (whatever could that be?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thought is the predictions for South Australia:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There is an 84% chance under a \u201cneutral\/unknown climate outlook\u201d that South Australia will have no blackouts this summer. But there is a 16% chance that some will occur, and these are most likely to be 1-3 hours long, affecting 5 to 30% of the region (which means \u201cof the state\u201d, presumably). But there is a tiny chance they might lose half the state for as much as 16 hours (spread over four different nights, say).  I bet they are praying they don\u2019t get a hot, windless week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if they don\u2019t have one blackout, more of people\u2019s lives will be wasted paying electricity bills and reading articles on how to save electricity, how to reprogram the pool filter, how to charge the kid\u2019s scooter, how to put out fires started by the scooter\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If that\u2019s a neutral\/unknown outlook, what does it look like for a long, hot summer? For the data nerds: The text that officially goes with the graph above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 22 shows a bubble plot of the distribution of USE outcomes that are forecast in South Australia for the 2023-24 summer, under a neutral\/unknown climate outlook. It includes the total outage duration and average depth in each simulation<\/p>\n\n\n\n