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In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

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Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#271

Post by defrost »

fishpen0 wrote: post #237
bigfatkitten wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian electricians (as with most skilled trades) undergo 4 year apprenticeships where they split their time between learning on the job and attending a trade school. There’s nothing wrong with this model, it produces tradespeople with solid fundamentals and practical experience that they would not receive in a diploma mill.

Apprenticeships in the US come with minimum wage and no to low benefits of any kind, often with no healthcare. If I want to switch from my job to electrician I have to forgo a living wage for multiple years to make that switch. Unless of course I am connected or related to someone already in the industry. The apprentice system is rife with easy low grade fraud where anyone already licensed can simply claim you've don…

Australia has always been big on workers rights and respecting trade work as much as any other, if not more.

Healthcare isn't tied to to an employer and the base level of "free" healthcare (supported by across the board taxation) will keep most alive and get you into an operating theatre for, say, a femoral artery heart stent placement at no cost other than the ambulance (should you not have St. John's Ambulance cover)

For interest:

AU Government on apprenticeships: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay-and-wages/minimum-wages/appr...

Electrical Union on same: https://www.etunational.asn.au/apprentices/apprentice-wage-r...

1907 Harvester Decision set a ‘living’ or ‘family’ wage: https://www.fwc.gov.au/about-us/history-sir-richard-kirby-ar...

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#272

Post by stubish »

cube00 wrote: post #6
kleiba2 wrote: post #4

> 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!

You pay a higher daily supply charge and more per kWh outside this window so it's more like free (conditions apply) The supply charge is 6% higher for the Solar Sharer plan, while the peak rate is 92% higher. Solar Sharer’s peak rate is almost double the flat rate. The off-peak rate is 17% lower than the flat rate. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/solar-sharer-plans-compa...

It is free if you can afford a suitably sized battery. Everyone else should stick to the existing plans. Fuzzy area in the middle for slightly undersized battery owners.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#273

Post by defrost »

actionfromafar wrote: post #158
epistasis wrote: post #110

This is exactly what utility propaganda and PUC manipulation in the US has successfully stopped from happening. From NEM3 in California, to charging a high fixed fee for being on the grid in other areas of the country, utilities have manipulated rules at every step to prevent a future that has cheaper electricity for rate payers. They come up with rather fantastic propaganda about how ratepayers with solar are burden…

Isn't it because the US has a more entrenched "clean beuatiful coal" class of people?

Almost ten years ago, in February 2017, the then Treasurer and now former Prime Minister of Australia literally brought a lump of coal into Parliament and metaphorically started licking it while telling all to not be afraid of coal.

* https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/09/scott...

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#274

Post by stubish »

Wacari wrote: post #27
thelastgallon wrote: post #2

Use EVs as energy storage. Millions of EVs form an energy reservoir. 20% of solar is curtailed now and q lot more in future, instead charge EVs. Pay the EV owners because they are creating a storage layer with their capital and power prices go negative hundreds of millions of times every year. No need of home batteries.

Agreed. V2G is actually one of the best DER strats out there. The EVs are already purchased, the batteries and PCS are already configured for bidirectional flow in most brands. Coordination/visibility problem remains at Dx level, but actually worth the investment.

Unfortunately most of the EVs already purchased don't have the electronics to support V2G. Newer Leafs and a couple of other brands do, but I think most models in most markets cannot support V2G.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#276

Post by dyauspitr »

toasty228 wrote: post #216
dyauspitr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You looked wrong. These batteries can do 100,000 charge-discharge cycles while retaining 80% of their capacity.

Hm sorry but no, feel free to read the specs of any manufacturer, they're rated for a few thousands cycles at best, usually under 5k, closer to 2k Even lifepo4 home storage batteries designed for frequent cycling are rated for ~10k cycles. As far as I can tell there are literally no battery chemistry that can survive 100k cycles and retain 80% capacity

Yeah, I have no idea where I came up with that from. It’s completely wrong.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#277

Post by stubish »

adolph wrote: post #195

While direct government subsidy is one way to increase battery adoption to increase power generation efficiency, a market based approach is for electric power companies to use batteries installed on customer premises as a power bank for the entire grid. If you ever check out gridstatus.io [0] or similar resources, you may have noticed "storage" or "battery" as a part of the fuel mix. These are most often power compan…

The VPPs are interesting. Several of them available to join in my region in Australia. But update isn't as high as they like, as people don't like handing over control to the energy company (traditionally the enemy). And the reality that selling your power makes so little money that people would rather just hold onto it in case of blackout. There is also an option to do the equivalent to a VPP, using the live wholesale market prices (at least one retailer offers this). Batteries are now smart enough to download the market prices and predictions and make all the same decisions as a VPP provider would, but with any extra profit remaining with the customer.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#278

Post by throwaway2037 »

Animats wrote: post #178

This works best in areas where cloud cover is consistently low, so solar power doesn't vary much from day to day. That's most of Australia. Two days of dark overcast and the load on non-solar sources goes way up. How much battery do you need before there's no demand for peaking plants? In some places, a day. In others, months? I looked at cloud coverage maps. There are monthly and annual average maps, and raw data fr…

    > This works best in areas where cloud cover is consistently low, so solar power doesn't vary much from day to day. That's most of Australia.
I just want to point out that where the majority of people live in Australia definitely has great variance in solar power day to day. For example, Melbourne is a running joke amoung Australians about how wildly unpredictable its weather is.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#279

Post by plantain »

skew-aberration wrote: post #50
plantain wrote: post #18

The 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…

I agree 100%, this is one of the most inequitable government policies I've ever seen in this country. The numbers are much worse than you make out. The program has spent more than 2.5bn (the projected figure) and we don't know yet how much. The subsidy was closer to 70% for a typical large battery install. The government's own gen cost report would have put grid storage 1.5x ahead on ROI. Note that figures like $66m/…

>I agree 100%, this is one of the most inequitable government policies Don't forget about the EV subsidies! No fringe benefits tax, no road user charges, discounted registration.

Set aside the broader incentives (noble though they may be) and just look at the equity in the distribution of the welfare.

Re: In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices

#280

Post by throwaway2037 »

Tepix wrote: post #222

We also have a solar boom in Germany, unfortunately our minister is trying to stall the deployment of solar instead of copying what Australia is doing very successfully here... it's really a shame!

Which minister and why?
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