© Electric Power Consulting Pty Ltd 2015
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The Electricity Grid
The why, the where and the
future
26 March 2015
Sothern Highlands & Tablelands Group – Engineers Australia
Dr Robert Barr AM
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Electric Power C
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Hydro
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6 x 50MW Peaking Plant – Snowy Hydro
Valley Power, Latrobe Valley, Victoria Australia
300MW Open Cycle Natural Gas
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Eraring Power Station
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Yallourn Power Station
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1,490 MW Brown Coal – 4 units
Tallawarra Power Station
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435 MW Combined Cycle Natural Gas
Solar Photovoltaic
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Wind
Disruptive Technologies
• The old business models are not
working well in the new
environment
• Heavy cross subsidies from
non-solar PV uses to non-solar PV users
• Is causing network stress
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• Benefits
– Reduce network losses
– Delay augmentations?
– Voltage support?
– Green kWhs?
Embedded Generation Issues
Negatives
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Voltage rise
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Cold load pick up
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Dual power flow analysis
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Some network augmentations
required
Dancing Partner Issues
• Intermittent generation has major
cost implications
• The power system network is not a
battery
• Low cost energy storage is the
missing element that can make
renewables a valuable assets
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Modeled Conventional Dispatch
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Modeled Small Wind
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Modeled Large Scale Wind
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13% Wind
Wind
• Every 100MW of wind generation requires
about 90 MW of conventional generation for
backup
• All wind generation needs a “dancing partner”
• Wind is only financially viable with LRET
• Will most likely be the main method of
reaching the 20% renewable target for 2020
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Network Death Spiral???
• Intermittent Distributed Generation
– reduces kWh energy throughput
– adds network cost per kWh delivered
– encourages more intermittent generation
• Restructuring of network charges is required
– need to move away from kWh charges
– move toward kW demand charges
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Electricity Network Charges
• Why the recent increase in NSW network
charges?
• Australian Energy Regulator
– ~30% reduction in Operating Expenditure
– big cuts in capital spending
– reduced load growth
– replacement expenditure
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Privatisation in NSW?
• Lease
– Endeavour Energy
– Ausgrid
– TransGrid
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Improved Energy Storage
• Has the potential to radically change the
electricity network model
• Both threat and opportunity
– customers could move to standalone PV
installations
– could allow N-1 performance with a N network
– could pave the way for electric cars
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Conclusions
• Network business around the world are being
transformed
• Cross subsidy removal is an essential part of the
reform process
– network charges need to move away from kWhs to kWs
(import and export)
• Wind and solar PV generation require large scale
conventional “backup” power generation –
dancing partners
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Conclusions
• Economics will drive much of the “back up”
generation to be open cycle gas:
– Capital cost
– Higher CO
2producing plant
• Energy storage is potentially the big game changer
– electric cars
– allow the removal of lightly loaded rural parts of the network
– is needed to make renewables work
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Conclusions
• Electricity networks will be needed for a long time
to come.
• As customer needs change, so will the networks
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Questions?
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