Taxing the Electricity that Charges EV's- UK

[kwhelan 241]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2022/05/27/rolls-royces-smr-needs-10000-times-less-land-than-wind-energy-proves-iron-law-of-power-density/?sh=6cb8561298f0

Boris admitting they are going to build 1 plant a year

[dirtydoogle 383]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:08 PM, Young Thrash Driver said:

That's an appalling summary which ignores the cost and the vastly different scale. Political will isn't the issue here, it's physics.

1000kV DC link is what ya want, China are doing obscenely long transmission. Some big boy PV stuff going in Aus also. The infrastructure is mental, the synchronous condensers on those big projects are upwards of 250 tons. One we SourceSafe an armature that weighed 180t and needed a road built to get it to site 🤦‍♂️

 

We need more localised production, not just for EV but for future proofing NZ. Heatpumps are as big of an issue, same problems with inverters making yucky stuff happen on the grid 

And we need to boot the old boys club that is the NZ generation and transmission companies, govt has little to do with it and frankly they would struggle to do a worse management job 

[jon dee 500]

4 hours ago, kwhelan said:

.... you see we are just hamsters on a wheel

But Hamsters look like they are having fun.... not sure about this guy ? 

 

[kwhelan 241]

cut and pasted,

has some interesting figures on NZ current power generation and usage

The investigation report on Lake Onslow is supposed to be released soon. This will be touted by the incompetent Minister as a real game changer but needs more taxpayer money to be wasted. Yet they won’t release the economic analysis to justify it. In any sensible world, this would be the first thing done. But in the Kiwibuild era, that type of report would just be decried as naysaying and the old paradigm. So for benefit of Kiwiblog readers, if you indulge me, here is the condensed version. Remember it when the Minister’s PR comes out about how good Onslow is and the puff pieces about it being a real game changer.
I haven’t included links as it would make this post too long. However, the info is factual so easily checked with public domain data – look for numbers and units, not words. A good place to start is here: https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator Read their reports.
Electrical energy is in Watt hours, Power is Watts – they measure different things, though many ignorant commentators confuse them, Nomenclature and units are a good way of quickly sorting the parrots out to disregard their twitterings. And remember, get units correct; kilo(k), mega(M), giga (G) and Tera(T).
NZ uses about 45TWh of electricity a year ~125GWh a day; more in winter, less in summer. It needs to generate significantly more than this to allow for losses (heat) on overloaded equipment. However, during a day, the power varies greatly. It is about 3GW at 4am and the peak about 6.5GW. Usually, absolute peak is about 6pm but the demand is high 7am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm. The generation has to match the demand within 1% at all times. If it doesn’t, then demand response is needed (a euphemism for turning your power off). Biggest single unit on the grid is about 400MW (a gas burner) at full load. Most are less than 100MW – lots of littleuns. For operational and maintenance reasons, hydro units don’t like being at part load. Most are either flat out or off.
An average 21TWh p.a. is generated by hydro, but this can vary from 16-24TWh depending on rainfall in hydro catchments. Typical thermal generation is around 10TWh a year, but half this is the make up for hydro/ wind shortfalls on a day to day basis. Onslow is supposed to replace a lot of this thermal – nominal 5TWh in dry years. It was going to store the mythical hydro spill (where water goes down the spillway, rather than through unused units) This last happened in 12 years ago when we had a lot more gas burning power stations. There is no surplus to spill there now.
Solar and wind are really good at generating power when it isn’t needed. We can hold back some water, running hydros less when the unreliables are generating, but that ability is very close to already being maxed out. That means the shortfall has to be covered by ramping up and down thermals – in $/MWh terms, about 10% of the cost of getting the electricity from batteries.
The typical electricity price on the spot market over the course of the year is around $150/ MWh. This is 15c a unit (kWh) of your power bill, rest is distribution and administration charges, plus the increasing costs of bad debts. Winter, it is higher prices and summer lower. When the thermals are running, a major part of their costs are carbon charges. For Huntly, it is around 10c a unit. At that wholesale $150 price, many new power stations are still not economic to build and operate. Even just getting consents (they are front end charges ) is a significant cost on future power.
The above sets the scene.
If we take Onslow sells a full lake of power at $200/MWh once every 5 years, that is an income of $1B. The other 4 years they have to buy power off the grid to fill the lake. They need to buy 20% more to allow for losses and inefficiencies. So that is an average 1.5TWh a year. If this is bought at say $100/MWh, then that is an expenditure over the 5 year cycle of $600M. So gross income averaged over that cycle is $80M a year. Then one has to subtract finance, administration and operating costs of say $20M. So there would be a net income of $60M a year. That “profit” has to pay for the cost of construction. For a long life asset for this, the nominal capital payback should be maybe 20 years. So anything more than $1.2B to build is losing money. And note all my assumptions were on the optimistic side for the government analysis. Nor have I added interest.
Now look up the cost quoted for Onslow and remember hydros usually cost twice as much as original budget price. The consents, which will be opposed, will add big delays and increase the costs further. I haven’t even factored in all the transmission upgrades needed which would more than double the overall costs.
To get the “cheap” wet year power, they will have to buy off a surplus generated by power stations yet to be built. There isn’t any there from existing stations unless we burn more coal. However, at that cheap buying price, the companies won’t build new stations as they would lose money. So building Onslow would guarantee no new stations would be built unless the power price to consumer went up by maybe 20c a unit in real terms. Think what this will do to cost of living, inflation and the economy.
That simple economic analysis above is why the generation companies are not interested in it at all. They can do the sums – it is a massive white elephant that will drag their balance sheets negative. Though the Labour appointees on the company boards might force bad commercial decisions – it has happened before. The only current support for it is from sycophants to give a vanity project to a Minister who wants to be seen to be doing something but is out of her depth in a puddle.
If they were to do day to day energy trading, like Dinorwig does, Onslow could replace thermal and cover the unreliability of overbuilt wind and solar. The lake could be smaller, but the power station would need to be bigger. Basic economics are better, though not positive, but still no new stations would be built and there would be no dry year reserve.

[NZ00Z3 187]

11 hours ago, kwhelan said:

cut and pasted,

 

Can you please link or tell me where the original is.

[Cement 871]

54 minutes ago, NZ00Z3 said:

 

Can you please link or tell me where the original is.

Looks like this: https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/05/general_debate_29_may_2022.html

[jon dee 500]

13 hours ago, kwhelan said:

Biggest single unit on the grid is about 400MW (a gas burner) at full load. 

Can someone please explain to me how a "gas burner" can be a load on an electrical grid ? 

Cheers...

[Palazzo 477]

1 hour ago, jon dee said:

Can someone please explain to me how a "gas burner" can be a load on an electrical grid ? 

Cheers...

It produces 400MW at full load, that is, when required by the grid requires at at times of high demand.

 

Unless I've missed something.

[andrewm 236]

1 hour ago, jon dee said:

Can someone please explain to me how a "gas burner" can be a load on an electrical grid ? 

Cheers...

Burns the natural gas to create either steam or other hot gases that turn a turbine. 
Its a producer rather than a load, unless you are pointing out that the article said it was a load somewhere?

Edited May 30, 2022 by andrewm

[jon dee 500]

OIC.  Sentence is a little ambiguous and contains the word "load". Did not make it immediately clear that it was referring to contributing power to the grid rather than taking power from the grid. Thought it might have been referring to Tiwai (which would be a load) but then AFAIK Tiwai is not connected to the national grid so my bad   Uses carbon electrodes to make fire though   

Got a lot to learn about energy pricing, but the one thing I do know (as mentioned above) domestic consumers are going to get screwed no matter what happens. The competition that was supposed to hold prices down just means you now have a choice as to which company you get screwed by !!!!! 

Cheers...

 

[tawa 150]

Problem with electric cars is they need high peak load to be charged, problem with distributed generation is they don't produce all the time... maybe there is something that balances there?

We've looked at DG at home, there's a huge opportunity to incentivize and improve grid loadings via distributed generation and storage (already cars on the market that can feed back in and power your home) for the best technical outcome, however the payback/pricing structure makes it a waste of time. Conversion losses when storing it in batteries aren't great, maybe 10% round trip, though having generation closer to consumption removes grid load so you'd see less grid losses, maybe a few percent. Guess it depends how good the grid storage is whether it is worth it, not sure if we waste anything much during peaks with all our hydro...

I think the ability for the grid managers to control the large loads is a good idea, taxing it any different to other electricity usage isn't though.

[Spinner99 55]

I thought this was a cool idea for electric tucks

 

[NZ00Z3 187]

Electric trucks with pantographs, an interesting idea.

Maybe apply the technology where it has been used for the last 100 years and electrify the rail network:

• Tracks and corridors are already in place and under utilised
• No more extra poles on the side of the roads for cars to hit and kill people.
• Gets the trucks off the long haul runs so less trucks on the road, Yeha!!
• Reduces the amount of rubber from tyres that is polluting the environment.  18 wheels or more on a truck and trailer.

[jon dee 500]

I believe that the main trunk rail line Wellington-Auckland is electrified. It was one of the governments "Think Big" projects back in the 80's at the time of the last big fuel crisis. Recently KiwiRail wanted to change back to diesel but the government said they needed it to stay electric to help them try and meet their climate change emissions goals. 

 

Cheers...

[lord_jagganath 421]

1 hour ago, jon dee said:

KiwiRail wanted to change back to diesel 

funny enough I keep seeing diesel engines in the mornings. 

[jon dee 500]

I don't know what sections of the main trunk are currently using electric locos. But chances are that diesel locos are widely used for marshalling and for non-electrified routes. Political window dressing versus practical operational issues. However, now that we are in the grip of another fuel crisis the government is casting around for ways to meet its overly optimistic climate change commitments. So the formerly neglected and unwanted main trunk electrification project will finally have its day in the sun  

Cheers... 

[tawa 150]

Pantographs is a pretty cool idea, wonder if we'll see a more modern incarnation with wireless charging embedded into the roads... Could be some interesting side benefits, microwave a few possums for pest control, or electromagnets up some extra downforce for lane-assistance