Power shares

[Getty]

Ah, if only we had a bit of Nuclear...
Just so there's no confusion or division,
I don't mean fusion, I mean fission...

I recently checked out the Marsden site by Ruakaka, and its still at the ready.
The other site under consideration is Blackhead Beach in Hawkes Bay, and its almost ready...

Had a chat to a few in power.
They agree on a Nuke in the North.

Shane is looking for something to replace the imminent closure of Marsden Point refinery, and to give some of the Tiwai boys a chance to move to the winterless north.

[gains]

Had a chat to a few in power.
They agree on a Nuke in the North.

Shane is looking for something to replace the imminent closure of Marsden Point refinery, and to give some of the Tiwai boys a chance to move to the winterless north.

Electrical engineers love Nuclear power, just not for NZ. The joke is always setup a plant in the wops over in aussie and HVDC to NZ.. but that's just it, NZ getting Nuclear power is always a joke. We aren't tectonically stable so Nuclear would be a disaster waiting to happen.

What I'm saying is don't hold your breathe, also what'd consume the power?

[Davexl]

Yes, the consensus is that MEL will be a long term winner from the closure of Tiwai. The question is, though, how long will it be before transmission lines are able to take the "surplus" power North where it is needed? Personally, I don't put a lot of store on a renegotiation with NZAS providing an answer to fill the complete period of surplus.

Gentle reminder:

Originally Posted by Davexl

"Transpower said on Thursday that it intended to complete an upgrade of the South Island transmission network a year earlier than planned, by May 2022.

That will bring forward by a year the time when power from Meridian’s Manapouri hydro scheme could be redirected to other power users in the South Island, in the event that the Tiwai smelter does close."

That's a big improvement...

Also from Jantar re Winners & Losers:

"I can see that there will be some strange pricing signals over the next 5 to 7 years. The stranded energy in the lower South Island will cause wholesale prices there to fall dramatically. The extra transfer over the HVDC will see extra reserve requirements in the North Island and that will push up North Island whole sale prices so that there will be times with huge price spikes in the north. This will benefit Mercury and Genesis, Contact will probably be fairly neutral, and the loser will be Meridian."


Personally, in the Medium term, over that next 2-5 years, if the shutdown proceeds on schedule - it looks to me to be that Renewable, predominately WIND, is likely to be the winner during the time that Geothermal and Thermal (Huntly Coal & TCC) resources are delayed / removed, with the Carbon Price heading upwards towards the $50 point, before the Surplus Hydro becomes available OR am I missing something? Also Fonterra doesn't need so much Baseload Hydro generation in the South Island as it's going to Woodchip upgrades...

Disclosure: Own a big block of TILT & Infratil.

[Getty]

There's enough sand at Ruakaka to absorb a few quakes, without an aquifer for liquefaction, and also to construct a ready made sarcophagus over the top, to drop in the event of trouble.

As for demand, who knows, Rio Tinto may move in, to take advantage of the deep water port, and reduced shipping distances.
With a new operator rather than Meridian...

[Jantar]

….

"Transpower said on Thursday that it intended to complete an upgrade of the South Island transmission network a year earlier than planned, by May 2022....

It also said that the upgrade will allow half of the energy used by Tiwai to flow north.

…..

"CUWLP will increase capacity on transmission lines between Clutha and the Upper Waitaki Valley so additional generation can be exported from Southland. Its completion would enable about half of the electricity now used by Tiwai to be transmitted to Cook Strait."

From Energy News https://www.energynews.co.nz/news-st...-may-2022.....

[bull....]

with ORR announcing more QE yesterday 100 billion now to keep and lower bond yields , also to lower mtge rates and unfortunately term deposits will follow. the benefit i imagine is utility companies will benefit from having stable dividends , those who sell there bonds to the RBNZ will need bond like stocks to supplement this.

[Carpenterjoe]

Found this interesting, I believe that Origin might be bringing them to Australia.

https://orison.com/utilities/

[peat]

This was posted in the wrong thread

The economics of hybrids work because they're not subject to very high road user charges. I predict the looming implementation of RUC will see EV sales stay at very modest level's.

[kiora]

Watch out for black outs if we loose our backups:Extreme
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/day-c...113000960.html

[Snoopy]

Watch out for black outs if we loose our backups:Extreme
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/day-c...113000960.html

I don't follow the power market in California, but that article would suggest that it is structured somewhat differently to what we have in New Zealand.

From your article:

"There’s plenty of blame to go around, from the state’s grid operator who failed to prevent the crisis in spite of market signals presaging it, to regulators who for years ignored pleas from power generators to line up more emergency resources, to a human-led climate crisis that’s producing extreme, unpredictable weather. Breakdowns across the board resulted in a power emergency that could have implications for how the state manages electricity from here on out."

"The California Independent System Operator, which runs most of the state’s grid, asked neighboring utilities if they had any extra power to spare,"

In New Zealand we have one integrated power market, so there are no neighbours to ask for more power. Futhermore the market is operated largely by the big five gentailers, not the grid operator (Transpower and local lines companies). The gentailers via their generation arms, are free to offer power into the market at any time and at any price. Some of the retailers might not like the price. But the offer of power is there if required, and no government threatening is required to get the generators to offer it.

Furthermore our regulators seem to have come to the party as NZ has a reserve demand which is legislated to always be there. Did you see Jantar's explanation of this early this month on this very thread?

New Zealand runs what is called an N-1 security policy. That means that whatever quantity of plant, generation or transmission, is running any single item of plant could fail at any time and there is sufficient spinning reserve connected to the system to take up that loss.

E.g. if Huntly Unit 5 was to suddenly trip off and lose 380 MW of generation, then other plant with spinning reserve capability must be able to make up that difference almost immediately. Within 6 seconds there must be sufficient reserve response to arrest the fall in frequency. This is known as Fast Instantaneous Reserve (FIR) and it doesn't have to be maintained for more than 60 seconds. Within 60 seconds there must be must be sufficient Sustained Instantaneous Reserve (SIR) which is able to return the system to where it was before the excursion. This SIR must be sustained for at least 15 minutes which is sufficient time to start other hydro plant or even Whirinaki diesel fired station.

FIR is provided by plant that is already generating but at less than full load, and has a governor response that allows it to ramp up quite rapidly. The Huntly Rankine units are very good for this purpose as are some hydro stations like Maraetai. SIR is provided by most hydro stations, Stratford peakers and some CCGTs. There is also interruptible load that can be dropped out if the frequency goes low enough, and in a worst case situation blocks of distributed load can be shed to avoid a blackout occurring.

All this reserve must be paid for as generators do not want to be dispatched at less than their optimum generation just to provide reserve. There is a secondary reserve market that operates alongside the physical energy market to allow generators to offer their reserve. Generally there is sufficient reserve offered at a low price to meet the system requirements.

So it looks like hydro is quite capable of providing back ups. It is not just the likes of Huntly and gas.

SNOOPY