Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy

Well said. The other gold-plating Gillard and the ALP are guilty of is their breathless support for windmills (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21). Unfortunately these have a tendency to shut down when it gets hot so make an even more useless (if that's possible) contribution to electricity security, whilst driving up the cost of power as the RET shovels cash towards the windmill investors.

Keith I would have thought that the heatwave precisely underlines why over investment in fixed assets to deal with rare events is not good economics and is not delivering the lowest costs to consumers (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21). Among the surge in airconditioning installations, how many are thermal storage units - I'd say close to zero. All those rainwater tanks that were paid for by government, and could double as thermal storage to shift demand to night time ignored, because the price signals for demand reduction are not adequate, and the incentive to innovate absent. Ergon has proven (eg James Cook Uni) that thermal storage is already cost effective in some sites even with the skewed pricing regimes. There is no doubt with a bit of gumption, they could become more widespread.

It may be the case now that gold plating the grid is at present necessary, but new energy storage technologies coming into the market and already in the market overseas, will eliminate peak demand by storing off-peak electricity and releasing it back into the home during the peak demand cycle (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
See www.nuglobalnrg.com/nrgeconomizer.html
A new Electro Flow Capacitor being developed by Lockheed Martin will permanently take the home off the grid and cut power prices by 70%.
The savings in Australia will also embrace the unique daily service charge, the carbon tax, the RET and the GST payable at present on a power bill.

Mike Westerman:
I would suggest that the typical residential demand profiles would be unsuitable for chilled water storage. Most residential A/C is low cost splits. Chilled water ducted would be too costly. I have been involved in a number of commercial projects over a number of years. Commercially they make a lot of sense and would reduce the overall demand profile. (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).

One of the biggest costs is extortionate wholesale charging to meet sudden demand surges. Sure, it costs a lot of money to keep a coal fired boiler bubbling away ready to send extra steam through an idling turbine, but the rates charged are extreme (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
The solution is to build more hydro dams and hydro generation. Open a floodgate and a turbine comes online in seconds. Up/down lake configurations can provided temporary reserves for big peaks (even Loch Ness does this).
All our major rivers need big hydro dams, especially those to the north which flood every year. Not only do dams reduce the damage done to river banks, provide year round flows to sustain upstream migration (with fish ladders at the dam itself), and ensure water security during drought years, but they also provide permanent inland refuge for migrating birds, oh, and cheap electricity.
The Greens must stop blocking dams, which are the most environmentally sound renewable energy source, and will make profiteering on short term demand by Macquarie Generation and others more difficult to justify. The economic multipliers are enormous, and include benefits of inland recreational water bodies for tourism and local economies.
No more excuses, Greens.

Purely qualitative opinion pieces are pretty meaningless without some hard numbers to back them up (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
Yes, Sydney did have its hottest day on record last Thursday, and yes, peak demand probably did top 14000 MW - but the system coped, and it coped with the peak demand of 3/2/11.
Shouldn't that invite the question what is the maximum level of demand with which it COULD cope. Is it 15000MW? 20000 MW? 25000MW? For if it is over 20000MW,, or if the industry simply doesn't know, then yes, it is gold-plating.

We really need to put an end to this artificial environment called the power industry and at the same time, stop government from meddling with it (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
The whole lot should be privatised using the same model as the UK with an ombudsman with legal teeth and a 'service level agreement' written into the privatisation legislation. It worked in the UK and no-one complains about it. UK-style privatisiation is very different from Aussie-style privatisiation and it works.
All the time we keep trying to kid ourselves that government should be running power, we are deluding ourselves.
And while we are about it, let's put an end to expensive, non-productive 'feel good' experiments such as windmills and the hoax of the carbon tax.
In NSW, power companies print an estimate of the effect of the carbon tax on our bills: around $300p/a for an average household. That is exactly its impact on us as we do not get 'compensation' (bribes).

There are alternatives also in the pipeline, not withstanding the need to replace aging infrastructure (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
Demand management is one factor to add to the mix of responses needed.
In this discussionj about air conditiong load, Australian standard AS4755 for air conditioners is pertinent because it can eventually link air conditioners with network generators to assist in peak demand management.
Some relatively small amount of infrastructure is required in each household.
Air conditioners built to this standard can be interlocked to controls from a smart meter interface.
An automatic reduction in the airconditioning load occurs at the time it is most needed should the user agree to participate.
This stuff has been in the pipeline from 2009 and earlier.
I invite people to Google AS4755 and do your own follow up from there.
Of course it needs bipartisan support, and community, intra and interstate agreements so its not likely to happen any time soon without a base of wide support. Lets get started on that!

If for many consumers power cost 80c/kwh rather than 30c/kwh during peak periods then the peaks would be lower, no question. Average prices could be lower too reflecting network costs (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasies, January 21).
The problem is the regulated flat pricing provides no feedback so that usage patterns can be varied as there is no incentive to do so.
Histor has shown that regulated prices cause both shortages and surplusses as we see with electricity.

Gold Plating will ensure the system can be reliable for the hot or cold days and perhaps encourage industries which require reliable power supplies (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).
But, wait, aren't we killing off those industries by becoming less competitive by paying for a carbon tax and subsidised green power?
Build more hydro and deal with the peaks sensibly (when the solar panels are in the shade)

What is the point of trying to make electricity cheaper if you want a carbon tax to increase its cost(and discourage demand)? (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21.)

It never ceases to amaze me that politicians assume the aura of experts on every subject under the sun but whose background usually does not include any specific knowledge (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21). They pontificate at length only to prove at some later date how stupid they are and yet they expect our respect.

Of course the system needs to be able to cope with days of extreme load. What would have been the cost to businesses and our economy if power were to have failed during the recent heatwaves around the nation? Imagine day after day of closed retail, commercial, construction and restricted emergency services operations that would result from such loss of power (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).
Those losses would make the cost of keeping the power on look like money well spent.
Gillard and her crew were simply trying to blame shift about where the responsibility for the increases in power costs really lie. She should take a leaf out of Harry Truman's book and realise the buck stops with her and her governments policies.

Pyrite is the word that comes to mind when thinking of any Gillard or Labor promise (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).
They just don't have a clue about the detail of any of the infrastructure or responsibilities under their care. So Gold plated Gillard Labor promises will always be actually Pyrite promises or under it's more frequently used name 'Fool's Gold' is all we should ever expect from them. They just don't know any better.
Bright and shiny on the outside but worthless on the inside.

Keith
You wouldn't be overstating things a little would you?
NEM-wide peak demand this year is still about 4600 MW lower (or about 13% lower) than the level set three years ago (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).
A cursory glance at Annual Planning Report would conclude that network service providers have predicted peak demands very much higher than what has occurred.
Its not clear why you attack this interesting policy with such personal vitriol?

Graham Plowman, that $300 that you quote is not about carbon tax - you need to read your bills more closely. What is stated is "NSW Government estimates that Federal carbon tax and green energy schemes [not all of which are federal, by the way] add about $316 a year to a typical 7MWh household bill..." (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 22.)
The carbon tax represents a tiny portion of the quoted $316. It should be noted that this note is not the work of the electricity retailer but has been crafted and inserted by an LNP State Government and is thus essentially a party political statement intended to provide electoral advantage, rather than clarity and verifiable truth. In fact, the web site which this note quotes contains absolutely nothing by way of verification. I know, because I have searched the site.
Clearly, Mr Plowman has been fooled by a message from a political spin master.

I refer to Bruce Embury and others advocating more (much more) hydro, including pumped storage.
More hydro, especially pumped hydro, requires particularly good dams coupled with reliable river flows. Further, even with good catchments and modern construction techniques, Australia has precious few opportunities for economically viable projects of this nature.
In short: The "More Hydro" option will always be too small, too expensive and too environmentally disruptive to be much use to us Australia. (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).

Why does anyone take anything that Labor says seriously? This was an excellent article Keith. It's just a pity that it's still necessary to refute Labor's spin (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).

It isn't only the level of capacity expansion (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 21).
It is the high cost of that expansion AND the excessive rate of return which is being applied.
Even if all the investment was justified on technical grounds, the issue is that the community is being overcharged for it!
Ch 6 of the NER has been set up to allow the state government owned network companies to recover a capital cost of 10%. By law the network companies must borrow from the state government who borrows at under 5%. The difference becomes revenue for NSW Treasury. That is right... it is an indirect tax levied by state governments via electricity bills.
Couple the overcharging with the excessive costs and low efficiency levels of the government owned distribution companies and the community ends up paying MUCH more than it should for electricity services.
The only solution is privatization of the network companies to get the government out and private operator in to deal with the unions and excessive costs associated with the sweetheart union deals which have come about under Labor.

"Gold plating" is a bull term invented by government spin doctors with the sole aim of deliberately misleading the public into accepting an electricity network that cannot cope (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy,. January 21).
If this attempt to deceive is successful, the end result will be massive prolonged blackouts.

Gillard is a hypocrite with her gold-plated NBN that is totally unnecessary and her chants against electricity capacity that obviously is (Crushing Gillard's gold-plated fantasy, January 22).