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Giant Tesla Battery In Australia Earns A Million Bucks In a Few Days (electrek.co)
Long-time Slashdot reader drinkypoo writes: Last week, Neoen's and Tesla's massive battery was paid up to $1000/MWh to charge itself and now it could have earned up to 1 million AUD in the last few days by selling the power back to the grid to cover a coal plant outage. Unlike other forms of power storage, battery systems can be switched between states (charging, discharging, or idle) effectively instantly, which permits a stabilizing effect on the grid.
"What we are seeing here," writes Fred Lambert at Electrek.co, "is the Powerpack system enabling Neoen to sell electricity at up to $14,000 AUD per MWh and charging itself at almost no cost during overproduction."
"What we are seeing here," writes Fred Lambert at Electrek.co, "is the Powerpack system enabling Neoen to sell electricity at up to $14,000 AUD per MWh and charging itself at almost no cost during overproduction."
I wonder how many cycles it can handle before replacement? Would like to see upkeep cost over time on an industrial scale. Sill good news for those of us hoping to use home battery technology at some point in the next five years.
I would love to understand how they optimize operation; I get the sub-transient and short-time operation logic, and at least at a high level predicting real-time price swings-- but as a whole I can't quite wrap my head around how they control it.
Do they control it based just on what they are paid to do at a given point in time, or does it simply act as a "good citizen" of the grid? Does it work on 24-hour look-ahead (or longer), or is it more responsive real-time? What is the minimum charge level they target?
It will be interesting to see how these large batteries work when there are multiple units controlled independently.
No doubt... and a competently designed smart grid would allow even less pointless appliances to dip their power usage for short periods of time. However, as renewable penetration increases I think this problem will end up being solved mostly on the supply side with storage solutions... there are less cats to herd and the need for longer and longer term reserves will continue to grow for some time.
Someone had to do it.
That would be $280/MWh but that's still a far shot from $14000/MWh so your point still stands.
As for other solutions in other countries I'm not really sure any are "much more cost-effective" as I don't believe any other countries have built out a battery pack system to the scale of the Australia installation. Of course the fact that Australia needed the installation (and I seem to recall it was a pretty rushed job to deal with an emergency of some sort) still kind of puts a question mark on the state of the country's power grid.
Overall though, its probably a combination of new tech that hasn't gone through its depreciation yet, plus whoever Neoen is just being greedy and charging through the teeth because they know Australia can't afford to say no. I'm not (yet) worried that this current cost per MWh is indicative of the long-term costs. Of course such a high initial cost could certainly slow down investment from other countries who might have considered such an installation, dragging out that depreciation capability.
Look at the graph in TFA it appears that they sold 30 megawatts for two one hour periods at this price, i.e. a total of 60 MWh. This is an extreme, but very limited marginal pricing event.
To your broader point, it is important to realize that the reason this battery backup was deployed in the first place is that this is an unusual, problematic local grid situation. This is a fix for a remote area of Australia, the edge of the 5th largest population center (Adelaide*) separated from it by 100 miles and isolated by hundreds of miles of emptiness from anywhere else. There is little redundant/backup infrastructure, or all that many people.
*The greater metropolitan area of Adelaide has a population of 1,317,000 which is 77% of the entire population of South Australia (which is 50% larger than Texas). Things get really sparse really fast out past Adelaide's metro area.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
"MM"? They were paid in chocolate candy pieces?
Batteries can be use for grid stability.Batteries can switch on very fast.
A few weeks ago coal generators tripped, which would normally cause problems for the grid due to power spikes, a frequency drops (or something), anyway, this Telsa battery was able to active while the spike was in progress, its that fast.
Link about the cause of the spike
http://reneweconomy.com.au/coa...
I suspect the original story in the article is this one;
http://reneweconomy.com.au/tes...
Another story on Batteries setting prices
http://reneweconomy.com.au/tes...
They have a nice page to show Aus electricity generation sources as well, its a good site. (this one might have problems with noscript+ad-blockers)
http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem...
Closer to the right question, which is: is this the cheapest way to achieve this level of brownout protection and is that cheaper than the brownouts themselves.
Brownouts can destroy equipment, and severe shortages can also lead to blackouts. Both of those things can literally kill people. Let's prioritize keeping the power on. There's no better/cheaper/more effective device for grid stabilization than battery storage, today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Dollars are not SI units, and financial info has traditionally used Roman numerals as multipliers. MM = thousand thousand = million.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
As far as these batteries go. They're too complex and dangerous (they should use nickel-iron for stationary stuff),
Too complex and dangerous based on what? This 129MWh installation suggests that they aren't too complex or dangerous, though admittedly it's still early in its lifetime.
The battery was installed primarily to provide stability to the grid. Australia has a poor grid and the previous year had several costly blackouts. The battery can respond within milliseconds to grid instability whereas traditional power plants take minutes at a minimum. The battery has saved the grid multiple times in the few months it's been operational. When you want to stabilize the grid, it doesn't require a lot of power for a long time... just short bursts of power when it detects problems.
So, paying a lot of money for a small amount of power for a short period of time makes perfect sense if it keeps the grid from going down.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
That is a peak for one 30 minute period. It is some function of the way the market is controlled, for instance yesterday the price peaked at $3/kWh, yet for the rest of the day it has hovered around $0.10 per kWh
Here's the past and future price estimates over 24 h
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electr...
And here is the far more entertaining power flow between the states
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electr...
As I write the '57%' renewable SA system is absorbing all the coal power it can get from Victoria and its '57%' renewable generators are actually supplying less than 20% of the state's needs.
Here's a snapshot on a nice sunny windless day last Saturday where SA's renewable generators were producing virtually nothing. It demonstrates that you have to have 100% baseload generation, you cannot rely on renewables to replace them, at least until we install hundreds of batteries the size of the one in SA.
http://res.cloudinary.com/engi...
"Seriously, this is a complete non-story. For example, pumped-storage hydropower plants have been doing this for ages."
This is a desert, no mountain and no water.
"Yet it is totally stable just due to backup power plants, which produce more electricity than is consumed."
That they pay neighboring countries to take off their hands. Countries whose power plant owners are not amused about that fact.
https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesa...
The problem is the australian population is relatively low for the space that it covers. The networks are built around the normal demand levels and not able to cope with the very high peaks. This is made worse by the distances that power has to be transmitted.
Add onto that a complete lack of political will to build any large capacity power generation and you end up here.
It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, The Loy Yang power stations in the La Trobe valley are coming up on end of life. They are the largest plants in Australia and provide 1/3rd of Victoria's power. Going to be up the creek without a paddle when they EOL.
Question:
If you offer a good at a certain price, predictably, in writing, with prices that rarely fluctuate much but that you control...
And people take you up on that offer.
And then you can't deliver.
Is that THEIR fault? Or yours?
If electricity were free and in short supply, sure, people using it for strange non-essential purposes would indeed be a bit immoral. But those people who want that electricity are paying for it.
If the money you're charging for electricity can't put in place infrastructure to deliver that electricity in the right places and at the right times, is it really the consumer's problem? Or the people promising electricity at those prices?
If you can't deliver it at that price, raise your prices. If the infrastructure needs to change to cope, or you need new technology or you have to pay to change the way you operate the supply... then you raise prices to compensate.
But complaining about people USING electricity, at the advertised prices? That's a bit stupid. If anything they are actually CONTRIBUTING to investing in the electrical network. It's all the energy-saving nutters who turn off every switch that's drawing 0.1W for a fraction of a second before they do so - those are the people literally taking the bare minimum they need and investing back the bare minimum to get it.
This is why getting energy companies to push green tech, energy saving bulbs, efficient appliances etc. is really, really, really stupid. To use a US analogy that's like gun manufacturers being forced to say that you should be buying less bullets. Or a washing machine company telling you to wash your clothes less often.
If you can't deliver for the price you advertise, pick a better price or get out of the market. That there's a glut of people who WANT to pay the price your offering for the product you're delivering? You really shouldn't be complaining - that's almost unheard of in business.
Hint: If that's causing shortages, change the charging structures so that you penalise heavy, instantaneous uses as well as peak load. Then you'll make more money from those uses, which you can use to cure that problem. It's almost like a tax - tax the things you don't want to happen, and then use those taxes to stop those things being a problem.
Try $14,000/MW-hr => $14/kW-hr
This is the result of a postal auction of supply versus demand. There was suddenly a drop of nearly 500 MW and the other generators are trying to ramp up to fill the void.
The quoted price is where power companies are willing to turn off entire suburbs. For what it is worth it was a very hot day in Melbourne and there would have been a serious backlash if a power company blacked out a suburb to save a couple of thousand dollars (a bit like Malaysian Airlines taking the Ukraine route to save about $1000 in jet fuel).
If you were a power company - at what point do you start cutting customers off?
on the wholesale market, yes.
power companies will pay a lot of money for power when generators go offline unexpectedly.
It's bad publicity when an entire state has a blackout.
We shut down our coal fired power station. Since we have so many wind turbines, and we're connected to the other big generators in the eastern states.
Then one day we had a storm that knocked over a big power line to the eastern states. Our other power line was down for maintenance. Our wind turbines switched off to save themselves (perhaps a bit more sensitive than they needed to be). Then the whole grid went dark.
This battery was built as a knee-jerk political response to the event. As well as building some over priced diesel generators.
At least the battery was a good investment.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
South Australia has 0 coal plants. I think wind power is now the largest category producer so if anything it's the damned wind gaming the system.
Czech language for absolute beginners
It's not constant electric supply. It's very short term grid stabilization which is worth a lot more.
Recent bids for solar electric with battery backup for constant electric supply come in at about 3-4 cents/kWh (without battery, it's about 2 cents/kWh).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
People can't seem to get their head around the fact that Australia is not a suitable country for 100% renewables.
So, the country with some of the worlds highest solar irradiation levels, huge expanses of empty land, thousands of kilometres of coastline and is in the line of the roaring 40s wind stream, is not a suitable country for solar PV, solar thermal, wind (including off-shore), wave or tidal energy?
This Hornsdale battery has been a wake up call to a lot of governments in Australia, and when the SolarReserve tower in Pt August goes live it's going to generate a wave of similar generators elsewhere.
Yes, nuclear is another huge advantage that Australia has had in the past, and if we didn't have the renewable resources it would have been a great idea, but nuclear today is many times more expensive that renewables and the lead time to build such a station is about 10 years (including the politics of it). It would have been the ideal solution 30-40 years ago, but it's time has passed now.
The concept of a single nuclear power station in the outback supplying 4 major population centres is a risky one too. A 500MW coal generator tripping causes issues with the grid. Can you imagine if a single 1-2GW power station suddenly shut down? Also, I always thought nuclear power stations had to be near water for cooling.
- Chuq
The battery is owned and operated by a French company called Neoen, which provide electricity and services to South Australian electricity grid.
70MW of the power and 39 MWh of the energy capacity is contractually allocated for grid stabilization: responding to transients. This is about 2/3 and 1/3, meaning that it must keep itself 1/3 charged and not be operating at more than 1/3 load unless "something is wrong".
Details at http://reneweconomy.com.au/wha...
The remaining 30 MW of the power and 70 MWh of the energy capacity are available for arbitrage: Neoen may buy and sell energy to make money. This also has a grid stabilization effect, smoothing out supply/demand imbalances, but operating slightly slower.
Remember the battery is located at a wind farm. It's not uncommon for power to be free: the wind is high and the grid load is low, and the windmills are in danger of spinning too fast.
South Australia's grid is not great, meaning that like any thinly traded commodity, electricity is prone to severe price spikes in the event of a shortage. The battery's rapid response means that it can beat any other source to market when prices spike and take advantage of "surge pricing".
I don't know the full details of the algorithms, but it's basically "buy low and sell high". The challenge is to predict pricing: is it worth buying energy now to sell later, or should I wait for lower prices? The risk of the latter is that if prices go up instead, I won't have energy to sell.
And I'm sure their algorithms take wear and tear on the batteries into account too, and how much that adds to the eventual replacement costs.
For the Australia battery, quite small = ~45 minutes from full to empty or vice versa.
How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?
Hi, European here. That isn't even remotely the case. We use MM = million and M = thousand constantly in the financial sector.