Intermittent sources
of energy experience
“choke points” when
the sun isn’t shining
(all night) and the wind
is scarcely blowing.
Records available
on the Australian Energy
Marketing Operator website
show that the wind
across SE Australia
dies several times a month.
The chart below shows
how much of the installed
or “plated capacity”
of the wind farms
was actually generated
from hour to hour,
in January 2020.
The SE Australia
"choke point"
became an issue
after several back-up
coal-fired power stations
closed, most recently
Hazelwood in Victoria.
AEMO warned that
when demand peaked
in high summer, that
area of Australia
would be “running
on the rims”
with no spare.
In January 2019
( Australia summer ),
some coal-fired capacity
went off line in NSW,
and parts of Melbourne
blacked out.
The blackouts showed
coal or natural gas
back-up capacity
is mandatory for
the choke points
when wind and solar
fail to deliver electricity.
The great expectation
for renewable energy
is that the peaks and
troughs of supply
will be evened out
by batteries and
pumped hydro
to store power
when the sun
is shining and
the wind is blowing.
The Chief Scientist
of Australia repeated
a warning
from Bill Gates
and everyone
who understands
the difference
between
storing data
and
storing power.
Moore’s law
in computing
states that
storage capacity
will double
every few years,
but that
is not happening
with battery storage
of electric power,
for very good
scientific reasons.
The Elon Musk battery
in South Australia
cost $60 million.
It is connected
to one wind farm,
and will maintain
a flow of power
from that facility
for about 20 minutes,
in the absence of wind.
That translates into
enough power to sustain
the entire state for only
three or four minutes.
Installed solar and wind
capacity is expanding,
but the critical number
is the choke point (s)
that kills the electric grid,
not the average amount
of electricity generated
over a year.
At the very
lowest levels
of wind,
the wind farms’
total contribution
is near zero,
regardless of the
installed wind farm
maximum capacity.
There is no way
that wind and
solar power
can replace coal,
natural gas and
nuclear power.