lencolad Posted November 5, 2016 Posted November 5, 2016 There's been a couple of reports into the SA thing now. The second one said that the wind farms were set to disconnect after a couple of voltage spikes whereas they could've been set to handle many more. It also said that the AC interconnector dropped out after 800ms of overload - in that time some load could've been dumped to prevent this. Maybe. But the storm front was well forecast and other gensets could've been online and load dropped early to prevent losing the interconnector(s). No doubt the next reports will explain more as long as there's no significant arse-covering done.
betty boop Posted December 2, 2016 Posted December 2, 2016 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fears-crippled-alcoa-plant-in-portland-may-never-reopen-after-power-failure-20161202-gt2lc1.html when a power outage can mean you dont have enough redundancy and now put some 2000 jobs in jeopardy than you know you have a problem !
lencolad Posted December 2, 2016 Posted December 2, 2016 'Alcoa assures us there will be no impact on the workforce ...' Interesting business model. Produce nothing and pay wages. That'll be sustainable. What on earth is happening to infrastructure ? Transmission lines are supposed to be reliable and well- managed aren't they, or am I missing something ? Or is something else missing - something like clear vision and competent management. Is this a shambles or a hiccup ?
proftournesol Posted December 2, 2016 Posted December 2, 2016 6 hours ago, lencolad said: 'Alcoa assures us there will be no impact on the workforce ...' Interesting business model. Produce nothing and pay wages. That'll be sustainable. What on earth is happening to infrastructure ? Transmission lines are supposed to be reliable and well- managed aren't they, or am I missing something ? Or is something else missing - something like clear vision and competent management. Is this a shambles or a hiccup ? AusNet, the electricity company responsible is the same one that took over 4 months to reconnect my power from the pole over the road. That should be enough explanation. They are making a profit though
lencolad Posted December 3, 2016 Posted December 3, 2016 Ausnet - the Telstra of transmission and distribution eh ?
proftournesol Posted December 3, 2016 Posted December 3, 2016 1 hour ago, lencolad said: Ausnet - the Telstra of transmission and distribution eh ? No the Donald Trump of tramsmission and distribution! Incidentally there's been a wholly unexpected silence from the usual suspects who haven't blamed coal generators for the transmission failures the same way they were so quick to do with wind power in the SA blackout. I suppose in this post-truth world there's no requirement to be consistent or truthful.
betty boop Posted December 3, 2016 Posted December 3, 2016 ausnet also directly responsible for killing 40 people and causing the 2009 bush fire that wiped out marysville for one, "The Black Saturday bushfire that destroyed Marysville could have been prevented if a power company had followed basic safety standards, according to an explosive coronial finding." "For the first time, power company AusNet Services has been held directly responsible in court for causing the 2009 bushfire, which killed 40 people, levelled hundreds of homes, and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. State Coroner Judge Ian Gray, in delivering an in-chambers finding nearly seven years after the disaster, outlined extraordinary details which have never before been aired in public." http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/coroner-finds-ausnet-could-have-prevented-marysvilles-devastating-black-saturday-bushfire-20151204-glfmuj.html now looks like quite possibly going to wipe out completely lively hood of people in portland ! 2000 people who's lives could be directly impacted here ! 1
proftournesol Posted December 3, 2016 Posted December 3, 2016 To be fair to AusNet and believe me I find that very very difficult, one of the problems is that not only are they monopoly providers but the problem is compounded by capping their payments, so the only way that they can increase profit is to slash service, and slash it they do. Minimal maintenance on failure only, minimal service to customers.... The big lie of improved efficiency and service under privatisation.
Darren69 Posted December 4, 2016 Posted December 4, 2016 On ?12?/?3?/?2016 at 4:32 PM, al said: ausnet also directly responsible for killing 40 people and causing the 2009 bush fire that wiped out marysville for one, "The Black Saturday bushfire that destroyed Marysville could have been prevented if a power company had followed basic safety standards, according to an explosive coronial finding." "For the first time, power company AusNet Services has been held directly responsible in court for causing the 2009 bushfire, which killed 40 people, levelled hundreds of homes, and caused millions of dollars worth of damage. State Coroner Judge Ian Gray, in delivering an in-chambers finding nearly seven years after the disaster, outlined extraordinary details which have never before been aired in public." http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/coroner-finds-ausnet-could-have-prevented-marysvilles-devastating-black-saturday-bushfire-20151204-glfmuj.html now looks like quite possibly going to wipe out completely lively hood of people in portland ! 2000 people who's lives could be directly impacted here ! It doesn't take Einstein to work out who will eventually pay for any remedies suggested after these finding, be it payouts, infrastructure updates or both.
betty boop Posted December 4, 2016 Posted December 4, 2016 11 minutes ago, Darren69 said: It doesn't take Einstein to work out who will eventually pay for any remedies suggested after these finding, be it payouts, infrastructure updates or both. oh yeah was another reason ... the price went up... and then in victoria we also ended up with a fire fighting levy ! 1
proftournesol Posted December 4, 2016 Posted December 4, 2016 Another benefit of the neo-liberal agenda, remove every impediment to profit including as much regulation and consequence as possible and then introduce the idea of 'user pays' as long as the user is the consumer and not the corporation. Kleptocracy. 1
betty boop Posted December 6, 2016 Posted December 6, 2016 apparently we are talking about a nuclear solution now ! http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/call-to-build-nuclear-power-plant-in-portland-20161206-gt4zt8.html "A nuclear power plant should be built in the western Victorian city of Portland to supply cheap electricity to Alcoa's troubled aluminium smelter, according to a local-micro party MP. Vote 1 Local Jobs MP James Purcell has warned that Portland, which has a population of about 10,000, will become a "ghost town" if the smelter closes and cheap power generation is not created." 1
lencolad Posted December 6, 2016 Posted December 6, 2016 Top idea. Add uranium enrichment, reprocessing of waste for plutonium extraction, waste disposal, operator training (the 'Chernobyl Academy' ?) and a cafeteria open to the public. Oh, and an observation deck for the nuclear trainspotters.
proftournesol Posted December 6, 2016 Posted December 6, 2016 Yeah, great idea. Nuclear power requires large public subsidies both at establishment and decommissioning in order to be cost competitive - there goes the cheap power. We have no nuclear power industry in Australia, it has been estimated that it would take 15-20 years to train a local workforce and commission a working power station. Alcoa would be a distant memory by then. He's right that we need viable industries in rural areas as this article shows. Quote Extreme Victoria: Melbourne rides high while the rest of the state goes backwards December 6 2016 - 12:55AM Victoria has become Australia's most divided state as the economic fortunes of Melbourne soar while those in the rest of the state crumble faster than anywhere else in the nation. New calculations of capital city and rest-of-state economic growth derived from the national accounts show Melbourne's economy grew at a blistering 4.4 per cent in 2015-16, faster than anywhere else apart from Sydney, whose economy grew 4.5 per cent. Melbourne's economy grew by 4.4 per cent while that of regional Victoria shrank by 1 per cent. Photo: Leigh Henningham The economy of regional Victoria shrank for the fourth consecutive year, slipping another 1 per cent in response to a sharp decline in manufacturing. Victoria is the only state whose regional economy went backwards in 2015-16. SGS Economics and Planning, which calculates the capital city and rest-of-state figures annually, says GDP per capita in regional Victoria has collapsed 8 per cent since it peaked in 2006-07. Manufacturing in regional Victoria has collapsed 26 per cent since 2009-10. Manufacturing has also collapsed in Melbourne. Calculations by SGS Economics show it accounted for 16 per cent of Melbourne's economy in 1996 and only 7 per cent by 2016. But financial services and professional services have filled much of the gap, accounting for 13 per cent of the economy in 2016 (up from 10 per cent) and for 9 per cent (up from 6 per cent). Healthcare and construction have also become more important to Melbourne, accounting for 7 per cent of its economy (up from 5 per cent) and 6 per cent (up from 4.5 per cent). In regional Victoria, other industries have failed to take up the slack left by manufacturing, and further plant closures are imminent, among them Ford in Geelong, the Alcoa plant at Anglesea and the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley. Latrobe Valley resident Graeme Middlemiss says young people are finding it more and more difficult to find meaningful work in the region. Photo: Jason South This is no surprise to Latrobe Valley resident Graeme Middlemiss, who lists a range of closures, or cutbacks, that have left local workers jobless. He starts the list with a briquettes manufacturer in Morwell. "It steadily declined from about 600 employees down to about 100 and then closed - and most of those people haven't been able to find work," he said. The Morwell briquettes factory closed in 2014, not long after the closure of the neighbouring Australian Char site, with the loss of about 50 jobs. Job losses have also occurred in mid-sized and smaller businesses such as in steel fabrication, he said. The former power station worker, who is a Latrobe City councillor, said there were noticeable signs that the local economy was declining. Victoria has become Australia’s most centralised state, with 80 per cent of its economic activity taking place in Melbourne. "The first thing that's apparent is there is not as much discretionary income in the community as there once was. Wages are lower, unemployment is higher - so what people have to spend is reduced," he said. "My understanding is that our local economy, here in the Latrobe Valley, has been declining at about 2 per cent per annum for a number of years. Of course, that will be made much worse with the announced closure of the Hazelwood power station," he said. The much poorer performance of the regional economy had accelerated the drift of country kids to the city in search of work, he said. "Anecdotally, the young people in my region are finding it harder and harder to find meaningful work. So what it does is it puts pressure on these people to go to the city to find work," he said. Victoria has become Australia's most centralised state, with 81 per cent of its economic activity taking place in Melbourne. In NSW, only 75 per cent takes place in Sydney. Even in highly centralised South Australia, 33 per cent takes place outside of Adelaide. GDP per person in regional Victoria has slipped to $49,000, down from an inflation-adjusted $53,000 nine years ago. GDP per person in Melbourne has climbed to an all-time high of $65,000. "I can't see the trend reversing, at least in the short-term," said SGS economist Terry Rawnsley, a specialist in national accounts who devised the city and rest-of-state accounts and used to produce the Australia-wide and state accounts while at the Bureau of Statistics. "I can't see the Alcoa reopening, I can't see Ford reopening. The big centres, Geelong and Bendigo and Ballarat, need to work out what they are good at and get strong transport links to Melbourne. "What they call the very fast train to Bendigo and Ballarat, which only goes at about 80 kilometres per hour, even that has helped Bendigo become a commuter town, which has helped the local economy because people spend money at home that they have earned in Melbourne. Dr Rawnsley's calculations show regional Victoria deteriorating faster relative to Melbourne than it did when Jeff Kennett lost office in 1999 amid concern he was focusing too much on Melbourne. Treasurer Tim Pallas said he recognised there were challenges in regional Victoria, "especially for those regions in transition, and after four years of inaction by the previous Liberal-National Government". He said he was making record investments in regional rail, roads, hospitals and education, spending $2 billion in 2016-17, including $1.3 billion on regional rail. The $200 million Regional Health Infrastructure Fund would fund works and planning in Horsham, Port Fairy and Warragul. The budget set aside $169 million to reconfigure the Goulburn Valley Health service to meet the demands of a growing population. Dr Rawnsley said so stark had the divide between city and the rest become that if the Reserve Bank made its decisions only for regional Victoria, it would need to cut its cash rate to 0.25 per cent. If it made them only for Melbourne, it would have to lift its cash rate from 1.5 to 2.25 per cent. Peter Martin is economics editor of The Age. Follow Peter Martin on Twitter and Facebook Propping up unviable industries is not the way to do it but neither is the neo-liberal strategy of exporting jobs off-shore to maintain corporate profits but then just leaving citizens to rot with no jobs and no futures beyond part-time jobs in the service sector, this is no vision for Australia and is driving Trumpism
betty boop Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 bit of a shock looking at the next notice from red energy... ok they drop the service charge per day by 10c... roughly 10% ... likely something not in their control... but power rates up between 10% to 30% depending on peak/shoulder tiems and hardest pill to swallow... feed in tariff down now to 6.5c there goes the value of solar out the window... unless you are using it complete waste ! and while batteries are still for the realm of the rich, we are going to see quite a hike here ! ok time to look around...red I suspect your days are numbered ! red blames the rate hike to ... "increases in whole sale cost of electricity and large scale renewable energy certificates" ofcourse the increase in whole sale cost is likely coming from the closure of hazel wood... we will pay the price for that now. but large scale renewable energy certificates ? what the hell is that ... and how does that explain the feed in tariff...using solar going up in that case ? ridiculous ! 1
proftournesol Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 Powerwall cost is around $10k, probably what you paid for your PV, payback time will be shortening as power costs keep increasing. Add in a Reposit system and there are some days when you can make good money from your system. The other thing that Red Energy did when we notified them we were switching to Powershop was that they suddenly came out with all these good offers for us to remain with them
betty boop Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 14 minutes ago, proftournesol said: Powerwall cost is around $10k, probably what you paid for your PV, payback time will be shortening as power costs keep increasing. Add in a Reposit system and there are some days when you can make good money from your system. The other thing that Red Energy did when we notified them we were switching to Powershop was that they suddenly came out with all these good offers for us to remain with them did you stay with them ? battery return rates arent great that I can work out, will revisit.... but I dont know if it will even save me $1k a year ! at that would take 10 years ... and thats only paying depreciation of it !
Swarm Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 Powerwall wouldn't even cover 1/4 of my daily usage apparently. 6kwh usage per day if i'm reading correct ?
Darren69 Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 I work in an asset management possie and my gut feeling is that by the time all of this infrastructure people are investing in and adding to their houses etc. gets close to paying for itself, it will be close to requiring replacement. Would like to be wrong. 1
betty boop Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 6 minutes ago, Swarm said: Powerwall wouldn't even cover 1/4 of my daily usage apparently. 6kwh usage per day if i'm reading correct ? I think the idea is it only picks up enough to get through the night. problem is during evenings nights is peak for us when everyone is home. baths movies music ... etc etc am not sure 6kwh would be enough for us either
betty boop Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 2 minutes ago, Darren69 said: I work in an asset management possie and my gut feeling is that by the time all of this infrastructure people are investing in and adding to their houses etc. gets close to paying for itself, it will be close to requiring replacement. Would like to be wrong. yeah thats the problem... with 10 year return and such ... tech keeps marching on... and keeps dropping in price....
t_mike Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 Go to the onebigswitch website and see what they can offer. My power went down by about 7% in October. 1
betty boop Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 2 minutes ago, t_mike said: Go to the onebigswitch website and see what they can offer. My power went down by about 7% in October. one difficulty i have is red has advised of projected rates... and say some of it will be incorporated in the next bill... how do i know with one big switch they have projected rates or current rates ? its almost like i have to cop the next big to realise and then be able to switch with some surety... i had this problem with simply energy once... where my bill actually went up rather than down because they didnt have the right rates when they quoted me... ended up taking them to the ombudsman and won !
Guest Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 Keep in perspective that "battery power" has normally been only fort those like remote farmers, small mines, cray fishermen and hippies, in isolated places and has not ever been all that viable if the power runs past your home. So, a luxury rather than a commodity, in this case. Also remember too, battery powering for increased self consumption is to be frank, in it's first year of Commercially (Approved for sale) available products in our Country and hopefully has a long life of price improvements and economic viability.
t_mike Posted December 22, 2016 Posted December 22, 2016 Onebigswitch aren't a retailer, they are a broker. They negotiate rates for 10s of thousands of households nation wide. The rate you get is what everyone gets and as such the retailers will look after you a little better. Any problems and you can contact OBS and let them know. The offers through OBS are contractual from the retailers.
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