GNE - Genesis Energy

[fish]

At the EUG conference in Vienna this year, it was noted that Europe, with its widely interconnected grid system is starting to notice similar issues to what we have been seeing in New Zealand for some time around mixing wind with other forms of generatiom. Wind does not mix well with thermal or other base load plant, but is a good mix with hydro and fast start GT plant. Europe is considering introducing load shifting, similar to NZ's ripple control, to reduce demand when the wind isn't blowing. Many at the conference were surprised to learn that we have been doing that for decades for load control rather than load shift.

Without further fast start plant Europe is almost at the stage of experiencing grid instability due to excess installed wind capacity, just like South Australia already has on a couple of occassions. We still have a bit of room to move in this regard, but if NZ wishes to go fully renewable then we will need to look at alternatives such as pumped storage hydro. Every MW of installed pumped storage allows for more than 2 MW of additional wind capacity.

Jantar pumped storage sounds good in theory but how efficient is it-how much energy would be lost in the process?

[Jantar]

Jantar pumped storage sounds good in theory but how efficient is it-how much energy would be lost in the process?

Generation effiencies are:
Hydro 91%
Pumped storage 71%
Combined Cycle GT 55%
High efficiency GT 44%
Conventional thermal 40%
Conventional GT 35%
Wind 30%
Solar 25%

Consider also that the amount of energy lost by pumping gas back into the ground to recover later resultss around a 30% loss as well. We are already doing that.

[fish]

Generation effiencies are:
Hydro 91%
Pumped storage 71%
Combined Cycle GT 55%
High efficiency GT 44%
Conventional thermal 40%
Conventional GT 35%
Wind 30%
Solar 25%

Consider also that the amount of energy lost by pumping gas back into the ground to recover later resultss around a 30% loss as well. We are already doing that.

Thanks.
Pumped storage I would imagine would be relatively cheap to build and apart from allowing more wind generation could also be used on the waikato hydro-system to buy electricity when it is cheap to refill dams?

[Jantar]

Thanks.
Pumped storage I would imagine would be relatively cheap to build and apart from allowing more wind generation could also be used on the waikato hydro-system to buy electricity when it is cheap to refill dams?

Unfortunately, you have just hit on the downside. The Waikato is not suitable as the lakes are all too small. There are only three places in New Zealand that are suitable:
Lake Onslow would be the best at 1200 MW and would treble NZ's current hydro storage at a cost of around $3.5B.
The Neck, between Hawea and Wanaka at 120 MW would provide inter-seasonal storage at a cost of around $350M
Convert one machine at Tokaanu for 50 MW and provide intra-day storage at a cost of around $20M

[Marilyn Munroe]

Holly tripping circuit breakers. Spot price at Benmore at 9.30 this evening, $235Mw/h.

Boop boop de do
Marilyn

[trader_jackson]

Holly tripping circuit breakers. Spot price at Benmore at 9.30 this evening, $235Mw/h.

Boop boop de do
Marilyn

I just had a thought, all those people that jumped onto Flick (flick I think? - and maybe some other power retailers) in the hope of 'not being ripped' no more by the big gentailers like Genesis... now finding out the hard way the risks of jumping ship to save a few dollars... (I think I even saw an add guaranteeing you'd save $200 or something in your first year on flick)

(at least this is my crude understanding... please correct me if I am wrong)

[Bobdn]

Great that companies like Flick exist and shows just how competitive the electricity industry is. But how painful it would be monitoring spot prices all the time and being too frightened to turn the oven on from 5pm to 9 pm (the only time you actually want to turn the oven on).

Looking at the Transpower website, wholesale spot prices have been on average 3x what they were last year over the last few weeks. This might not be the big dry of 2008 but it still seems significant to me.

[mfd]

I just had a thought, all those people that jumped onto Flick (flick I think? - and maybe some other power retailers) in the hope of 'not being ripped' no more by the big gentailers like Genesis... now finding out the hard way the risks of jumping ship to save a few dollars... (I think I even saw an add guaranteeing you'd save $200 or something in your first year on flick)

(at least this is my crude understanding... please correct me if I am wrong)

I'm with flick, the last month has been ~$10 a week more than with my previous provider, the 7 months before that were ~$10 a month cheaper. I still expect to save a significant amount over the year.

[Bobdn]

I see just now the Rankine units are maxed out and diesel/oil generaters have been deployed. Is this also Genesis owned?

Not a good time to be baking a cake by the way if you're on wholesale spot prices.

[Raz]

One of properties has been on flick, substantial savings and you can just change suppliers anytime, switched over a month back and will return when the market returns to previous pricing...