red baron wrote on Feb 2
nd, 2019 at 1:37pm:
Labor with one eye over it's shoulder at it's heavy reliance on the Labor Left and the Greens is hellbent on the 50% Renewable Energy target and let the devil take tomorrow
Which, if Bill Shorten becomes Prime Minister the devil surely will
The recent heavy blasts of hot weather has shown just how feeble our national energy grid is
200,000 homes fell over in Victoria, one of, if not the most dependant State on renewable energy
Lefty critics were quick to blame aging Coal Energy areas for the shortfall
That is correct but it doesn't hold up if you put it under the magnifying glass
Labor States have been putting Coal energy to the sword for quite some time now. You can't have it both ways. If you allow older generating stations to fail and don't replace them with modern more efficient facilities then they will surely let you down when you require them to perform like Phar Lap
New coal plants are more expensive than renewable energy. We passed that tipping point a few years ago.
The only reason old coal energy may appear cheap is the old energy generation facilities have depreciated long ago. A new coal-fired plant would be significantly more expensive. That's ignoring the added cost of cleaning up the emissions to modern standards and the possibility that such a plant cannot get financed at all.
As for reliability, it was the coal plants that failed, not the renewable generators.
If there's any failing on renewable energy, it's not the reliability. It's the storage of excess energy. Sometimes solar generates so much energy that surplus energy is simply lost. Adding more batteries to the grid can do a lot to mitigate this. It would have the side benefit of smoothing out supply and reducing peak prices.
But one thing is clear. Coal is not the answer. It is a moribund technology with its best days behind it.