Contact Energy - CEN Chart

[Jantar]

Right at the moment, Long Schedule offers for Wind are for 301 MW. Short schedule, based on persistence is for 269 MW. Actual, right now, is 237 MW. That is 22% less than offered.

With NZ's power system not being cross connected to any other, then dispatch has to be at 5 minute periods, based on 30 minute offers. You can NOT take long term averages.

Edit: I have just looked a bit closer and at present it is Maraetai on the Waikato River that is taking up the short time slack as in intra trading period, and Huntly Unit 1, an old Rankine unit, that is making up the daily difference.

[Dassets]

22% off 269 is 209. Offer in has to be for name plate. All Tararuas(I think) are out, (at least NWF is) due to Transpower upgrades for 5 days. Offer in will still be for those also. Be careful of numbers, they can bite.

[Jantar]

22% off 269 is 209. Offer in has to be for name plate. All Tararuas(I think) are out, (at least NWF is) due to Transpower upgrades for 5 days. Offer in will still be for those also. Be careful of numbers, they can bite.

The offer for that period was for 301 MW, 269 was Transpower's persistence offer. The offer submitted by generators has to be "a reasonable estimate of their ability to generate" The name plate info is NOT the offer but is included in the capability data supplied to transpower for their SPD model. And you are correct that both Tararua and NWF are out, but they are not offered. If the offers included those two sites then the total offers would be considerably higher still.

It is now TP 24 and the Long Schedule offer for North Island wind generation is 323 MW, Transpower's persistence offer is for 309 MW. Actual wind generation is 251 MW. Is that forecast still good for "days out"?

[macduffy]

"We don't know how lucky we are."

Nothing to do with Contact, or any of the NZ gentailers for that matter, but a revealing look from the Guardian on the parlous state of the UK nuclear power industry.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ve-power-plant

Warning: It's a "long read", possibly best left until the New Year!

[fish]

"We don't know how lucky we are."

Nothing to do with Contact, or any of the NZ gentailers for that matter, but a revealing look from the Guardian on the parlous state of the UK nuclear power industry.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ve-power-plant

Warning: It's a "long read", possibly best left until the New Year!

Or possibly best to skim read.
As a summary of a skim read-nuclear power is a very expensive and risky option.It needs govenrment investment/subsidy and leads to massive cost overuns.We are unlikely to see new investment.

[GTM 3442]

Or possibly best to skim read.
As a summary of a skim read-nuclear power is a very expensive and risky option.It needs govenrment investment/subsidy and leads to massive cost overuns.We are unlikely to see new investment.

New Zealand is lucky in that it has enough hydro power to essentially run the country. The U.K. is not so fortunate, and so will continue to require something other than wind and solar to provide power.

Connections to Europe and the Nordics probably won't be sufficient, and if thermal is off the table, then that rather leaves nuclear.

There is also the question of nuclear weapons and submarines. I'm not sure if the U.K. has enough demand in those areas to sustain a stand-alone defense nuclear capability.

But reactor technology is a dying art in the West. I don't know when the U.K. commissioned their last nuclear power station, and I don't think that the US has built a civilian reactor since the early 1980s. I think it's been the Chinese, the Russians, and the Koreans leading the way for quite a while now.

The French are coming to terms with the de-commissioning issue.

So I suspect that nuclear will continue, but at least in part for "national security" reasons.

[value_investor]

A little bit misleading but this is promising http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11954346

I say misleading because a "record 465 electric cars were sold in November 17" but looking at the total November registrations from NZTA was 25,208 and this was just for cars. Add in motorbikes and mopeds and you're over 26k..

I think we are a little disadvantaged with our geography in this space because these cars are expensive already as it is for a NZ market even before importing. Also the fact that EV's are still further from market penetration than we like to think. Perhaps due to the hysteria over Tesla.

Still nice to see some progress being made though.

[fish]

A little bit misleading but this is promising http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11954346

I say misleading because a "record 465 electric cars were sold in November 17" but looking at the total November registrations from NZTA was 25,208 and this was just for cars. Add in motorbikes and mopeds and you're over 26k..

I think we are a little disadvantaged with our geography in this space because these cars are expensive already as it is for a NZ market even before importing. Also the fact that EV's are still further from market penetration than we like to think. Perhaps due to the hysteria over Tesla.

Still nice to see some progress being made though.

I dont feel hysteria over tesla is the real reason for the slow uptake.
A lack of choice ,Expensive batteries, cheap oil ,-could all change soon and the economics,performance and lack of fumes become compelling reasons to buy.
I do wonder,however,how much impact this will have on power demand eg-maybe coupled with solar panels to give free motoring.

[tobo]

I think the uptake of solar panels and electric cars in NZ are both going to be minimal in the short term (next few years) due to only people with wealth and the preponderance to buy expensive things being likely buyers. (I acknowledge remote people buying solar panels, and the likes of Air NZ buying $75k BMW electric bubble cars for image reasons). In that time, even unlikely dramatic oil price increase will not allow people time to move across en mass (insufficient supply will keep prices up.)
Longer term may be a different story: The Logic of owning your own solar panels may combine with falling solar panel costs. And the car companies may bring enough hype to build massive buyer desire combined with regulatory pressure to reduce emissions.
Yes, our geography works against electric cars, and emissions in Auckland and Wellington are not the problem of overseas cities due to continual breeze/wind.
And worldwide production forecasts of electric cars over the next few years are small proportion of total. 78 million cars were produced in 2017 according to
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...es-since-1990/ of which 1 million were electric
Toyota see mass production 4-5 years away. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-t...-idUSKBN1DH28U

[tobo]

the real threat to power generators would be solar panel uptake with no offsetting increase in demand from electric cars.
Solar Electric Cars are in development but not sure if they will be so much more expensive than electric car without the solar that they won't become mainstream.
"(Dutch manufacturer) Lightyear is still in the concept phase. It hopes to build 10 cars by 2019. Cost of the completed cars is said to be €119,000."
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/07...ome-lightyear/
"Toyota is now offering a solar roof on the Prius Prime that uses solar cells manufactured by Panasonic. Tesla is moving rapidly toward making glass roofs available on all its cars. With is close partnership with Panasonic in the Gigafactory project, there’s a good chance that solar-powered Teslas will be offered in the near future."