Wind energy needs new storage measures

[Kevin Lancaster]

Wind energy needs new storage measures

Wind farm operators believe that in time new storage measures and lower costs will change the energy game radically.

 

[Chris.Geerdts]

Interesting to get some open-ness about the real generation factors of wind systems. The operators normally just give the nominal numbers

We know about the storage issues - already discussed at length on mybb

What we really need is updates on the latest plausible options for generation in the SA context.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Some notes on that Chris

REIPP phase 4 -
Some of the wind energy projects have come in at a tariff of 60c per kWh.
This is well below Eskom's average tariff of 76c kWh. Most of the solar photovoltaic projects are now below 80c kWh.

Medupi - R2+ kWh probably R3 in reality.


Given a fairly mild faceplate vs nominal output of 30%, it is still far cheaper to build 3x the Wind capacity needed + storage, than to build 1 Medupi. Even more so, when the private sector is more than happy to build for RoI kWr values.

Whats needed? More REIPPP allowance for Wind/ Solar / CSP (even though CSP is a more expensive option than even Medupi Coal), and more infrastructure - a high voltage DC corridor for long distance transmission wouldn't hurt from Northern Cape -> Western Cape or Gauteng.


Whats stopping this? Greed.

 

[JStrike]

Some notes on that Chris

REIPP phase 4 -
Some of the wind energy projects have come in at a tariff of 60c per kWh.
This is well below Eskom's average tariff of 76c kWh. Most of the solar photovoltaic projects are now below 80c kWh.

Medupi - R2+ kWh probably R3 in reality.


Given a fairly mild faceplate vs nominal output of 30%, it is still far cheaper to build 3x the Wind capacity needed + storage, than to build 1 Medupi. Even more so, when the private sector is more than happy to build for RoI kWr values.

Whats needed? More REIPPP allowance for Wind/ Solar / CSP (even though CSP is a more expensive option than even Medupi Coal), and more infrastructure - a high voltage DC corridor for long distance transmission wouldn't hurt from Northern Cape -> Western Cape or Gauteng.


Whats stopping this? Greed.

Stopping this? There was just a another extra round of the REIPPP announced a few months ago, in addition to REIPPP 5 that is coming next year. And as far as I am aware, there is a tonne of work being done to create new transmission corridors

 

[Bern]

Stopping this? There was just a another extra round of the REIPPP announced a few months ago, in addition to REIPPP 5 that is coming next year. And as far as I am aware, there is a tonne of work being done to create new transmission corridors

What is stopping this getting proper mass are government officials trying to go for options that make no economic sense, but allow for lots of corruption like the current nuclear gambit. Imagine what kind of renewable and storage options could be built for 1 Trillion Rand...

 

[JStrike]

What is stopping this getting proper mass are government officials trying to go for options that make no economic sense, but allow for lots of corruption like the current nuclear gambit. Imagine what kind of renewable and storage options could be built for 1 Trillion Rand...

The REIPPP is one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world...

 

[Bern]

The REIPPP is one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world...

Compared to who? Surely not the Scandinavian countries, Germany, the UK, the US, China, India and so forth? It also doesn't count for much in terms of our overall required spend when we are looking at investing the levels of money we are talking for nuclear.

 

[JStrike]

Compared to who? Surely not the Scandinavian countries, Germany, the UK, the US, China, India and so forth? It also doesn't count for much in terms of our overall required spend when we are looking at investing the levels of money we are talking for nuclear.

Yes it compares quite favourably with them. We were 5th in the world last year if I remember correctly (China being first). Over R150b has been invested so far (With more rounds to come)

 

[Bern]

Yes it compares quite favourably with them. We were 5th in the world last year if I remember correctly (China being first). Over R150b has been invested so far (With more rounds to come)

OK I am corrected! I though most of this was talk, not actual investment.

 

[richjdavies]

The difference between REIPP and other schemes it is still centrally managed and programmed. There's a big tender with an auction basically.
In other countries it's hard to be sure quite how much has been spent, because it's private people and companies doing the spending, but then getting Feed In Tariffs for the next 20 years. It's flipping expensive, but it doesn't show up right now, it's spread over 20 years.

SA government has so much faith in soviet style central planning...

 

[JStrike]

The difference between REIPP and other schemes it is still centrally managed and programmed. There's a big tender with an auction basically.
In other countries it's hard to be sure quite how much has been spent, because it's private people and companies doing the spending, but then getting Feed In Tariffs for the next 20 years. It's flipping expensive, but it doesn't show up right now, it's spread over 20 years.

SA government has so much faith in soviet style central planning...

You can get feed in tarrifs for small private generation here too

 

[itareanlnotani]

REIPP allocations are way way under what they could be.

We're hugely into coal, which is incredibly polluting, and could *fairly easily* go to at least 30-40% renewables in 5 years *if* they allocated enough GW towards that.

Instead, we get BEE diesel, coal, and Nuclear.

Again, its greed.

 

[JStrike]

REIPP allocations are way way under what they could be.

We're hugely into coal, which is incredibly polluting, and could *fairly easily* go to at least 30-40% renewables in 5 years *if* they allocated enough GW towards that.

Instead, we get BEE diesel, coal, and Nuclear.

Again, its greed.

We are hugely into coal as :
1) We need cheap baseload
2) We have the largest coal reserves in the world
3) We don't have gas (yet), which would be ideal for baseload
4) We don't have enough nuclear (yet)

And once again, we have one of the biggest renewable energy programmes in the world. Could it be bigger? Sure. And that is the reason for the extra round that is happening now

 

[JStrike]

Not that I like to point people to tabloidy sites like news24, but there is an interesting piece up today that is quite relevant - http://www.fin24.com/Economy/SAs-renewable-energy-success-in-8-slides-20151005

 

[TheJman]

So agree with everyone's points here to some extend...

The program that the Government has rolled out has both positives and negatives, like (Positive) the fact that we are (hopefully) ensuring that the companies that are awarded a project actually have the ability, expertise and quality products that last (as opposed to the usual tender *** that happens...)...

Negative being that I am sure government has found a way to make a serious cut of profits from this (who knows how many BEE partners in each project are really benefitting the communities they're meant to in stead of building more nkandlas..)

The issue at hand is if you look at a country like India, every week there is another announcement regarding a massive solar plant being built there, I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure India will soon have more solar installed alone that we produce totally (from all sources).... We don't know who is doing it though, and it could be rubbish solar companies whose product will fail leaving those plants as white elephants...

There's a balance that needs to be struck, I really wish that we could implement the net-feed-in system, where each house/business not only gets a rebate on installing solar (from designated official suppliers) but you can also feed excess back in - in effect, each house becomes a power plant and the need to build massive transmission lines and infrastructure almost falls away...

 

[JStrike]

So agree with everyone's points here to some extend...

The program that the Government has rolled out has both positives and negatives, like (Positive) the fact that we are (hopefully) ensuring that the companies that are awarded a project actually have the ability, expertise and quality products that last (as opposed to the usual tender *** that happens...)...

Negative being that I am sure government has found a way to make a serious cut of profits from this (who knows how many BEE partners in each project are really benefitting the communities they're meant to in stead of building more nkandlas..)

The issue at hand is if you look at a country like India, every week there is another announcement regarding a massive solar plant being built there, I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure India will soon have more solar installed alone that we produce totally (from all sources).... We don't know who is doing it though, and it could be rubbish solar companies whose product will fail leaving those plants as white elephants...

There's a balance that needs to be struck, I really wish that we could implement the net-feed-in system, where each house/business not only gets a rebate on installing solar (from designated official suppliers) but you can also feed excess back in - in effect, each house becomes a power plant and the need to build massive transmission lines and infrastructure almost falls away...

So your take is that there is a negative, because there must be something dodgy going on...
How about you just give credit where credit is due?

And feed in systems are not the panacea you make them out to be. What happens is you have a lot of people feeding into the grid when production is already at it's highest and usage is at it lowest, and not feeding in when usage is at it's highest. Grids can't just have massive surges going through them willy nilly. While feed in systems have their uses, they are not the panacea you make them out to be

 

[TheJman]

So your take is that there is a negative, because there must be something dodgy going on...
How about you just give credit where credit is due?

I think there could be more than just that as a draw back.. But believe I gave the credit that at least we are hopefully getting in some top companies to build these plants and we're not rushing into things like Medupi and Kusile... I've taken a cautious view here

 

[JStrike]

I think there could be more than just that as a draw back.. But believe I gave the credit that at least we are hopefully getting in some top companies to build these plants and we're not rushing into things like Medupi and Kusile... I've taken a cautious view here

No, you tried said there were positives and negatives. You then listed actual positives and said there are negatives, well, because there must be.

Just give credit where it is due

 

[TheJman]

No, you tried said there were positives and negatives. You then listed actual positives and said there are negatives, well, because there must be.

Just give credit where it is due

So you believe the system deserves full credit and that there are no problems?

 

[JStrike]

So you believe the system deserves full credit and that there are no problems?

Nothing in this world is without problems. Nothing.
But when something is an overwhelming success, you give it credit, and don't try detract from it by imagining negatives