Category: Batteries

Batteries – now known as “Virtual Power Plants”

By Graham Pinn

In a bid to stabilise electricity supply, the NSW Labor Government is taking batteries to the next level. Incentives (aka subsidies) have increased from $800 to $1500 for homes with (subsidised) solar, to install new batteries connected to the grid. Now impressively re-labelled Virtual Power Plants (VPP), this will allow energy companies to access domestic supply to “future proof” the grid.

The problem of intermittent domestic electricity generation at night has been addressed by home battery storage, currently a significant cost of around $10,000 per house, with, in addition, another $1500 for an inverter, to convert AC to DC current. In the event of power failure, a typical battery would power the home for 36 hours. There is a limited life expectancy to these batteries, typically 5 to 15 years and, whilst this may be sufficient for those who can afford it, it adds cost to those homes or businesses who currently depend on power stations for increasingly expensive electricity supply.

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When Green Energy Failed in Broken Hill

By Jo Nova

On October 17th a storm blew seven transmission towers over, disconnecting the Broken Hill area [in Australia] from the national grid. About 19,000 people live there, and with a 200MW wind plant, a 53MW solar array and a big battery, plus diesel generators it was assumed they’d be OK for a while without the connection to the big baseload plants.

But instead it’s been a debacle. They had nearly a week of blackouts with intermittent bursts of power, barely long enough to charge the phone.

The fridges in the pharmacies failed, so all medications had to be destroyed and emergency replacements sent in. Schools closed. Freezers of meat are long gone…  Emergency trucks finally brought in food and eventually the schools reopened. Full reconnection did will not happen until November 6th.

Read More: https://joannenova.com.au/2024/10/650m-in-renewable-energy-didnt-save-broken-hill-from-days-of-blackouts-after-a-storm-islanded-it/

A Pilot Plant for Net Zero

By Viv Forbes

Both solar and wind energy have fatal flaws – solar stops when the sun goes down or if a cloud blocks the sun; wind fails if the wind is too strong or too weak. But every day we hear of some fantastic and expensive plan to keep the lights on when these unreliable energy twins stop work.

The latest thought bubble from Mr Bowen (the Australian Minister for Generating Blackouts) is for him to be able to drain the energy from electric car batteries to back up a failing grid. He suggests that batteries could also power the house or sell energy into the grid. (They are already scheming on how to use smart technology to prevent homeowners from charging their own batteries when flicker power is fading.)

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Battery Baloney, Hydrogen Hype and Green Fairy Tales

By Viv Forbes

How low Australia has fallen – our once-great BHP now has a “Vice President for Climate”, the number of Australian students choosing physics at high school is collapsing, and our government opposes nuclear energy while pretending we can build and operate nuclear submarines.

Our Green politicians want: “No Coal, No Gas, No Nuclear” while Our ABC, Our CSIRO and Our Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) are telling us that wind and solar energy plus a bit of standby gas, plus heaps of batteries and new power lines can power our homes, industries AND the mass electrification of our vehicle fleet. This sounds like Australia’s very own great leap backwards?

There are two troublesome Green Energy Unions – the Solar Workers down tools every night and cloudy day, and the Turbine Crews stop work if winds are too weak or too strong. And wind droughts can last for days. The reliable Coal and Gas Crews spend sunny days playing cards, but are expected to keep their turbines revving up and down to keep stable power in the lines.

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An Inconvenient Event?

When one unit of the twenty year old Callide coal-fired power station in Queensland failed recently, that bad news was all over the Woke green media.

Source: Fire Rescue Victoria

But when a Tesla Lithium Battery caught fire on its first day of testing at the Big Battery facility in Victoria, it hardly rated a mention (maybe fierce fires in lithium batteries are no longer newsworthy?)
Viv Forbes

More:
Tesla Battery Catches Fire at Utility Storage Project in Australia
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-megapack-catches-fire-at-australian-battery-project-11627635528

Crews battle Tesla battery fire at Moorabool, near Geelong
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/tesla-battery-fire-moorabool-geelong/100337488

Tesla big battery fire in Victoria under control after burning more than three days
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-battery-fire-in-victoria-burns-into-day-three

Another Lithium Battery Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn7Hj2mFeas

New York Can’t Buy its Way out of Blackouts

By David Wojick

New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest utility-scale battery system, designed to back up its growing reliance on intermittent renewables. At 400 MWh this batch of batteries will be more than triple the 129 MWh world leader in Australia.

The City of New York’s director of sustainability, Mark Chambers, is ecstatic, bragging: “Expanding battery storage is a critical part of how we advance momentum to confront the climate emergency while meeting the energy needs of all New Yorkers. Today’s announcement demonstrates how we can deliver this need at significant scale.” (Emphasis added)

In reality the scale here is incredibly insignificant.

Read on here:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/24/new-york-cant-buy-its-way-out-of-blackouts/

Renewable Struggles and Deceptions in California:

By David Wojick

The renewables scam is breathtaking, and not just in California. Nationwide we are spending untold billions of dollars on huge batteries, trying to keep the erratic nature of renewables from crashing the electric power system. But these stabilization efforts are routinely portrayed as storage for when renewables do not run. Stabilization is the opposite of storage. We are being lied to about renewables.

Read the full article:
https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/16/california-secretly-struggles-with-renewables/

New York Can’t Buy its Way Out of Coming Blackouts

By David Wojick

Even if battery backup worked, its astronomical cost puts the idea in Fantasyland

New York City will soon be home to the world’s biggest industrial-scale battery system. It’s designed to back up the city’s growing reliance on intermittent “renewable” electricity. At 400 megawatt-hours (MWh), this cluster of batteries will be more than triple the 129 MWh world leader in Australia.

Mark Chambers, NYC’s Director of Sustainability (I am not making this title up), is ecstatic.”Expanding battery storage is a critical part of how we advance momentum to confront the climate emergency,” he brags,” while meeting the energy needs of all New Yorkers. Today’s announcement demonstrates how we can deliver this need at significant scale.”[Emphasis added]

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