Is the only reason that a behind the meter subsidy is more efficient because it reduces the upfront for an equivalent kWh storage (with the consumer footing the difference)? I would have thought few, larger, batteries at local substations was more efficient otherwise.
In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
111–120 of 328 posts
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many solar panels did you buy?
11, and I wish I'd bought 15
I bought 32 and wished I got another 6 for the south west aspect of the house ... but still, producing 11mWh a year in the UK on an east/west aspect, electricity bill for the year (even with all cars in the household being EV's) is negative. Battery makes the difference - load shifting is doing the heavy lifting in the winter.
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#113It started with a solar boom, many small home scale solar roofs popping up everywhere. Australia has a free trade agreement with much of the world, including China, and solar panels have literally dropped to 1/50th of the price they were in 1990 ($10/W to $0.2/W today). A shout out to the work that was done to establish dynamic grid pricing too. Anyway that caused power prices to reliably go negative during the day a…
free trade's amazing, seriously!
Time was, mercantilist countries would use foreign colonies for resource extraction; and sell the goods manufactured with these resources back to them.
It was great for everyone!
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#114This whole thing started because of some power pylons got destroyed and electricity was not restored for about a year right?
Not quite. It was already starting, but the Federal government at the time was very anti RE. South Australia had a single interconnect to the rest of the Australian Energy Market that covers the states except for WA and Northern Territory. There was a big storm that took out an interstate interconnect and the voltage spike caused all the other generators to disconnect to protect themselves. Then Elon promised to buil…
>That was the Hornsby battery
Hornsdale - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#115The program has so far spent $2.5bn, and installed 11GWh. That's just the cost of the subsidy (~30% discount), not the cost of what home owners tipped in. Utility scale batteries are now at ~$66m/GWh, or about ~$726m equivalent. It does not make sense for everyone to be doing a bespoke installation inside their own home. It is ridiculously inefficient. We are a society. We don't build our own roads, water, grid, scho…
Fair points, but you are glossing over important issues: 1. You are using the current point-in-time cost for batteries as compared to a subsidy spent over years while battery costs were dropping. 2. You do not include transmission upgrades and costs to distribute energy from centralized batteries. 3. You ignore the benefits and efficiencies of having generation and batteries distributed and close to the source of dem…
1. The subsidy was fixed per kWh at a level that has always been vastly above utility scale BESS.
2. Power usage is flatlining. There is no reason to need transmission upgrades for BESS. Successful projects are colocated at retiring generators, or at existing major grid terminus.
3. Are those benefits worth 4x the price? Noting again, that's 4x the subsidy, not even the actual installed cost which is closer to 8-12x.
4. It would have been cheaper even at just the subsidy rate.
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
11, and I wish I'd bought 15
I bought 32 and wished I got another 6 for the south west aspect of the house ... but still, producing 11mWh a year in the UK on an east/west aspect, electricity bill for the year (even with all cars in the household being EV's) is negative. Battery makes the difference - load shifting is doing the heavy lifting in the winter.
I hope you’re generating more than 11 milliwatt-hours per year, guessing you meant MWh :)
32*250*1400=11,200,000 watt hours, which makes more sense ;)
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#117It started with a solar boom, many small home scale solar roofs popping up everywhere. Australia has a free trade agreement with much of the world, including China, and solar panels have literally dropped to 1/50th of the price they were in 1990 ($10/W to $0.2/W today). A shout out to the work that was done to establish dynamic grid pricing too. Anyway that caused power prices to reliably go negative during the day a…
free trade's amazing, seriously! Time was, mercantilist countries would use foreign colonies for resource extraction; and sell the goods manufactured with these resources back to them. It was great for everyone!
...and then the "colonies" figured out how to weaponize it and turn the balance in their favor.
Or, not quite: the workers are being exploited just like they were during the colonial period. But at least now their rulers have power over our rulers that they didn't have before. So they get to be happy about that as they make novelty items out of toxic plastic for Temu.
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair points, but you are glossing over important issues: 1. You are using the current point-in-time cost for batteries as compared to a subsidy spent over years while battery costs were dropping. 2. You do not include transmission upgrades and costs to distribute energy from centralized batteries. 3. You ignore the benefits and efficiencies of having generation and batteries distributed and close to the source of dem…
also ignoring that Australia is building snowy 2 which is the world's largest battery by far, due to be finished in 2027-2028.
Are you really holding up Snowy 2 as a success story? We're past 20bn on Snowy 2 now. Run those numbers against grid scale BESS, on both capacity and peak generation and get back to me - 10 years ago it looked good, now it's not favourable.
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read the article, most of the decline in gas consumption in Australia is from changes in industrial usage. Residential demand is only down by 6% and part of that is likely due to the effective ban on gas in new residential construction which started in 2023 in Victoria. Prior to 2023 residential gas usage was increasing.
Australia never had much residential gas usage. Mr he very vast majority of residential homes don’t even have gas. No need for a furnace.
Pretty much every house in Victoria had gas, and gas furnaces, winter is cold enough
Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
#120> The government has moved to make use of this surplus solar energy, including by offering free power in the early afternoon to homeowners in Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia, regardless of whether they have solar panels on their roof or not. The goal is to spur more consumers to run appliances or charge electric vehicles during this window. Taking the term "1st world problems" to new heights!
The electricity is "free" because the energy generation is highest at noon (sun is at its zenith), and the population is at the work (low demand for residential electricity). So there is an oversupply of energy at that point. Just like there is an under supply of (solar) electricity at night time when people are using lights, watching tv and eating dinner but the sun isn't shining.
Solar panels don't necessarily get the most power at noon, as it can depend on what angle they're at if they're static (eg on a roof). Ideally you would want it facing the sun in the afternoon (especially if you don't have batteries and are trying to cut into your AC bill) or morning as you'll get more direct sunlight. It would also depend on how far on the horizon the sun is, which will depend on latitude. So peak generation will depend on how much exposure you'll get.
IMO, this plays into how solar is used. An individual household would have different goals than a grid-level solar/battery project depending on how they consume electricity. A grid is going to optimize (ignoring any desire for extra capacity for days without sun) for the peak that tends to happen between 4-6 for most western grids.