North Island National Grid at near Capacity

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#2758791 11-Aug-2021 22:24

raytaylor:

(good stuff edited out)

- Some blame labour for cutting gas exploration permits. Labour responded by saying any permits that would have been issued would not yet be in production. I am against gas but also i think that is hiding another fact - if this happens again, those exploratory permits could be in production by the time that the next event occurs. They are just getting delayed further.

I think this event reinforces our need for the Lake Onslow scheme.
It would add 1200MW to the grid available within minutes and could run at that rate for 4,000 hours though if combined with a home-solar subsidy, could be recharged using solar panels during the day.

We have to stop burning gas. No excuses.

A better way to increase power would be to provide incentives for people to install solar or wind and some battery storage. They pay for most of it....but get some help.

There are already over 30,000 grid-tied residential solar installs. More than 5000 of those were installed in the last 18 months. (EMA) The newer installs have higher capacities because solar is steadily declining in price. If we assume and average of 15kWh / day across the 30,000 installs (based on 141 samples around NZ with the median average output being 14kWh - pvoutput.org) then existing solar capacity would be - average - about 450MWh per day. Much more in the summer and a bit less in the winter. But with battery backup, these same sites can charge up off-peak and reduce the load at peak.....and even help support it.

Far cheaper than any hydro scheme and much faster to implement. The technology is moving along rapidly. The grid is the first thing to fail in earthquake, fire, storm or flood. Spread generation around.

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I've been on Geekzone over 15 years..... Time flies....

Handle9

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#2758798 11-Aug-2021 22:30

Linuxluver:

raytaylor:

(good stuff edited out)

- Some blame labour for cutting gas exploration permits. Labour responded by saying any permits that would have been issued would not yet be in production. I am against gas but also i think that is hiding another fact - if this happens again, those exploratory permits could be in production by the time that the next event occurs. They are just getting delayed further.

I think this event reinforces our need for the Lake Onslow scheme.
It would add 1200MW to the grid available within minutes and could run at that rate for 4,000 hours though if combined with a home-solar subsidy, could be recharged using solar panels during the day.

We have to stop burning gas. No excuses.

A better way to increase power would be to provide incentives for people to install solar or wind and some battery storage. They pay for most of it....but get some help.

There are already over 30,000 grid-tied residential solar installs. More than 5000 of those were installed in the last 18 months. (EMA) The newer installs have higher capacities because solar is steadily declining in price. If we assume and average of 15kWh / day across the 30,000 installs (based on 141 samples around NZ with the median average output being 14kWh - pvoutput.org) then existing solar capacity would be - average - about 450MWh per day. Much more in the summer and a bit less in the winter. But with battery backup, these same sites can charge up off-peak and reduce the load at peak.....and even help support it.

Far cheaper than any hydro scheme and much faster to implement. The technology is moving along rapidly. The grid is the first thing to fail in earthquake, fire, storm or flood. Spread generation around.

That introduces a lot of variables to the grid which can make it challenging to effectively maintain stability. Current grids aren't designed around distributed generation and will require significant changes and upgrades.

Lias

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#2758801 11-Aug-2021 22:46

Is it wrong that I don't really care what the government do, as long as their solution has these outcomes:

Stability of supply with abundant spare capacity
Substantially lower prices for consumers
Returns all generation / transmission to a single not for profit (not an entity that the government expects a return from)
Gentailer shareholders crying themselves to sleep

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

duckDecoy

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#2758943 12-Aug-2021 10:29

raytaylor:

- A bunch of people blamed EV's without realizing that most EV owners would be stupid to be charging during the evening peak when it costs twice as much to recharge rather than using their timer to recharge after midnight.

I pay a flat rate for my power, doesn't matter when I use it. When you install an EV charger is it set up differently? Or do lots of people have a contract where they pay different rates depending on the time of day?

backfiah

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#2758954 12-Aug-2021 10:47

Lias:

Is it wrong that I don't really care what the government do, as long as their solution has these outcomes:

Stability of supply with abundant spare capacity
Substantially lower prices for consumers
Returns all generation / transmission to a single not for profit (not an entity that the government expects a return from)
Gentailer shareholders crying themselves to sleep

Preferably you would also have an outcome that they shouldn't be burning dead dinosaurs and making our childrens' future even more dystopian.

antonknee

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#2758957 12-Aug-2021 10:56

duckDecoy:

raytaylor:

- A bunch of people blamed EV's without realizing that most EV owners would be stupid to be charging during the evening peak when it costs twice as much to recharge rather than using their timer to recharge after midnight.

I pay a flat rate for my power, doesn't matter when I use it. When you install an EV charger is it set up differently? Or do lots of people have a contract where they pay different rates depending on the time of day?

Generally speaking, if you let your power retailer know you have an EV they will put you on a different plan. Eg Mercury do 20% off the standard rate for all power from 9pm on, Genesis I believe is 50% off.

raytaylor

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#2758986 12-Aug-2021 11:45

duckDecoy:

I pay a flat rate for my power, doesn't matter when I use it. When you install an EV charger is it set up differently? Or do lots of people have a contract where they pay different rates depending on the time of day?

Its not so much the charger wiring, but more the electricity plan you choose.

A car uses approx 200 watt hours per kilometre

If you drive 20,000kms per year (about 50kms a day commuting etc) then thats about $12.40 per day to recharge it at 23c per kwh on a fixed price plan.

Most EV owners realise that their car will become their biggest load within their house so they switch to a spot price or day/night plan.

This is where you will get a discount for shifting your power consumption offpeak.
A spot price plan will vary more - onpeak costs much more and offpeak costs much less.
A day/night plan follows the same idea but doesnt rise as much onpeak while doesnt drop as much offpeak (avoids such extremes) and suits most EV owners.

This means if you might be paying 28c onpeak while offpeak your only paying 15c so you shift your EV charging and water heating to the offpeak.

The $12.40 fixed-rate plan cost to recharge would could come down to $8.10 at 15c/kwh on a day/night or probably less on a spot price plan. It therefore makes much better sense to do it that way.

Then there are solar owners who may have a lifestyle that suits recharging during the day- they are better putting their excess energy into the car charging or hot water heating, before exporting to the grid.
If you have solar panels you typically export to the grid at 5c/kwh and sometimes the spot price which is low during the day and buy in the evening at either fixed rate 23c/kwh or the spot price which is much higher. It therefore makes sense to use as much power within the house without exporting and reimporting it by shifting your load from the evening to during the day.

So when you see me trolling on facebook replying to all the moaners who claim having EV cars will ruin our national grid, and I reply saying thats incorrect as EV owners would be f***in stupid to be recharging during the on-peak time of the day, this is why.

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raytaylor

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#2758990 12-Aug-2021 12:00

Linuxluver:

Far cheaper than any hydro scheme and much faster to implement. The technology is moving along rapidly. The grid is the first thing to fail in earthquake, fire, storm or flood. Spread generation around.

I love the idea of batteries and distributed generation. Unfortunatley Eastland network has been installing roadside diesel generators for peak supply rather than load control which really annoys me.

With batteries, I just dont like the idea of having to transport them around the world, mine for minerals and the general waste they create at the end of their life.

Tesla says they can recycle 92% of the materials in a battery. That still needs to be transported back to the recycling facility and then to another factory for rebuilding and leaves 8% waste.

Hydro, once the concrete has set, can last 100 years+ and might need an upset taniwha to be paid off, but i think will be a much better asset

Flow batteries are more interesting - if its just the plates and liquid that needs replacing that could work well - though it depends how much of the liquid can be recycled. With the lead acid batteries we use, the lead plates get recycled but the liquid just goes to waste which isnt good for the ocean.

Ray Taylor

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Zeon

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#2759005 12-Aug-2021 12:07

Longer term ideally we would have fully dynamic pricing rather than just on-peak/off-peak. You'd have some small smart relay that sat between your hot water cylinder and you choose at what price is starts kicking in. Perhaps using machine learning to determine the estimated price during the night and your actual usage the following day and whether it needs to kick in above your threshold rate.

Same thing for EVs.....

It seems crazy that local lines transmission costs don't alter based on demand too. The system needs to handle everyone on the street plugging in their EV, running the heat pump, stove and over all at 18:00. If these too were dynamic it could help to encourage people not to warm their water or charge their EV at this time either...

What impact will the "phasing out" of natural gas for cooking and water heating have on local line demand? Natural gas seems like a really sensible option, especially with cooking to reduce peak loads....

Speedtest 2019-10-14

frankv

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#2759032 12-Aug-2021 13:35

raytaylor:

Hydro, once the concrete has set, can last 100 years+ and might need an upset taniwha to be paid off, but i think will be a much better asset

Let's not forget the whio / blue ducks and other species whose habitat is destroyed, and the productive farmland that is flooded. And the energy that goes into making the cement. And, something we haven't had to deal with yet, the cost of getting rid of the dam when it has outlived its usefulness, presumably because the lake behind it has silted up so much that its useful water storage is limited. And a consequence of hydro dams being ideally in steep, high-rainfall catchment areas and people living elsewhere is power lines across the countryside.

Nevertheless, I agree that, generally speaking, hydro is good investment.

tdgeek

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#2759035 12-Aug-2021 13:42

frankv:

raytaylor:

Hydro, once the concrete has set, can last 100 years+ and might need an upset taniwha to be paid off, but i think will be a much better asset

Let's not forget the whio / blue ducks and other species whose habitat is destroyed, and the productive farmland that is flooded. And the energy that goes into making the cement. And, something we haven't had to deal with yet, the cost of getting rid of the dam when it has outlived its usefulness, presumably because the lake behind it has silted up so much that its useful water storage is limited. And a consequence of hydro dams being ideally in steep, high-rainfall catchment areas and people living elsewhere is power lines across the countryside.

Nevertheless, I agree that, generally speaking, hydro is good investment.

About a million houses in NZ, all of which do that, then the businesses then the farms. A Hydro installation is around 75 square miles, that's not a lot of land to repatriate native plants and wildlife. Waterways have options for marine life.

Handle9

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#2759098 12-Aug-2021 16:54

Zeon:
Longer term ideally we would have fully dynamic pricing rather than just on-peak/off-peak. You'd have some small smart relay that sat between your hot water cylinder and you choose at what price is starts kicking in. Perhaps using machine learning to determine the estimated price during the night and your actual usage the following day and whether it needs to kick in above your threshold rate.

Same thing for EVs....

That would be a disaster and won't happen.

Ge0rge

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#2759191 12-Aug-2021 18:10

Handle9:
Zeon:
Longer term ideally we would have fully dynamic pricing rather than just on-peak/off-peak. You'd have some small smart relay that sat between your hot water cylinder and you choose at what price is starts kicking in. Perhaps using machine learning to determine the estimated price during the night and your actual usage the following day and whether it needs to kick in above your threshold rate.

Same thing for EVs....

That would be a disaster and won't happen.

Thanks for that really insightful analysis, certainly adds to the discussion. /s

I have read about a lot of people doing similar to this already with their home automation, certainly doesn't seem to be a disaster - in fact quite the opposite.

Handle9

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#2759203 12-Aug-2021 18:31

Ge0rge:
Handle9:

That would be a disaster and won't happen.

Thanks for that really insightful analysis, certainly adds to the discussion. /s

I have read about a lot of people doing similar to this already with their home automation, certainly doesn't seem to be a disaster - in fact quite the opposite.

If you think the general population will be happy exposed to the spot market then you don't understand the spot market.

tdgeek

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#2759234 12-Aug-2021 18:59

Ge0rge:

Thanks for that really insightful analysis, certainly adds to the discussion. /s

I have read about a lot of people doing similar to this already with their home automation, certainly doesn't seem to be a disaster - in fact quite the opposite.

Him and I dont get along but he is 100% correct. Not unless Mauricio can drag in another 3.5 million subscribers. As for an insightful analysis, you need to be more aware of the general tech demographic compared the the team of 5 million.

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