Will South Australia walk the talk and close their coal fired electricity generation?

Last October South Australia was talking big about closing their last coal fired power stations near Port Augusta in March 2016 – Alinta to shut SA coal mine, power plants early – we will see. What do readers think? This chart of daily generation shows they would have to work their gas fired units much harder if coal closed.

NemWatch lets you see real time generation sources but does not show imports and exports. Thanks to Peter Bobroff from the grid.publicknowledge.com.au site for these daily data which reveal much.

9 thoughts on “Will South Australia walk the talk and close their coal fired electricity generation?”

  1. I am surprised in the very large variations in demand. It is seems the low points occur on Sundays when most industry does not work. They could fix that by changing pricing for off-peak, particularly on weekend nights. For examples they could give concession to mines for processing ore at weekends. However, industries with high demand for periods need consistent reliable supply which is not possible with wind and solar. SA needs coal or nuclear if they ever want to have industries which process minerals. I wonder how long Whyalla will last without reliable power. The Olympic Dam expansion at Roxby Downs has been deferred. many reasons but expensive power and high labour costs are amongst the reasons.

  2. Probably contributed to the GMH closure decision too.

    Perhaps they will rename Holden Hill to Bird Chopper Hill.

  3. warwick:
    I think you under-rate the stupidity of the SA Government.
    We have a Premier who’s solution to high unemployment, dodgy future for electricity supply (still chasing that) and very high State debt is a new $250 million Art Gallery.
    A Treasurer who on his appointment to Cabinet as Minister for Roads was revealed to have multiple traffic fines outstanding.
    Another who as Minister for Road Safety decided that the solution to runaway trucks on the Freeway was to reduce the speed limit for CARS and install cameras for fines for CARS. Trucks remained free of restrictions for months and even now the problem of runaway trucks hasn’t been addressed.
    And an “Opposition” for who supine would be praise.

  4. Given the level of self-delusion, vapid zealotry and sheer bastardry of SA’s government and bureaucracy, having overseen the complete slaughter of that State’s economy, any stupid sh*t they do would not surprise me in the least.

    Australia’s Michigan in the making.

  5. Couple of extra charts from above SA daily data
    Adelaide daytime temperatures are a big influence on electricity demand.

    And it looks as though increasing the installed wind power in SA will not displace the requirement for dispatchable electricity generation.

    Homes without power across South Australia after rain – overnight 17-18 Mar
    www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-18/homes-without-power-across-sa/7256816?WT.ac=statenews_sa
    Do any readers have a time for these power outages?

  6. After the fairly recent sudden power loss due to a windless night, the parasitic SA Govt was blaming lack of interconnectors to LaTrobe’s lignite-powered stations

    Yes, it’s peak stupid but the SA population just keep right on voting them back in. Mendicants indeed …

  7. The Victorian brown coal power that SA is becoming increasingly reliant upon was first developed way back in the 1920s to provide independence from the ongoing industrial problems in the NSW black coal industry. In those days, had the NSW coal supply been reliable, it would have been cost effective to build black coal power stations in Victoria and ship black coal from NSW (you need to burn twice as much brown coal as black coal to produce the same energy, hence the boilers are twice as big and double the capital cost). But wise decisions prevailed in post WW1 Victoria and John Monash was commissioned to set up the Latrobe Valley power industry, providing the cheap reliable power for the state’s development, not to mention thousands of skilled jobs. Forget for the moment that our own ALP/CFMEU, Andrews Government is doing its best to make electricity unaffordable here too.
    Unlike SA’s current clueless ALP Government, in times past that state was fortunate enough to have a premier of vision, Tom Playford. He understood that cheap reliable power was fundamental to the development of the state and he set about providing it.
    Power transmission interconnectors are extremely expensive to build and no substitute for having the bulk of generation close to the the main load centers. Interconnectors can serve to share the benefits of surplus off peak power (I mean economically produced dispatchable power, not random spurts of heavily subsidised wind generation) e.g. Bass Link allows sharing of surplus cheap brown coal power from Victoria and excess hydro power from Tassie. Interconnectors can also boost network security by providing reserve capacity during major network disturbances. But as both SA and Tassie discovered late last year following the failure of critical interconnectors, large interconnectors are no substitute for reliable, local, base load generation.
    What this current bunch of ideologically blinkered idiots is doing to SA is truly criminal.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.