In December 2016, something unforgettable happened, and was immediately forgotten.
BHP’s Olympic Dam mine site saw its supply of electrical power interrupted by a network fault. It’s the fourth largest copper deposit and largest known single deposit of uranium on the entire planet. It’s a big deal. So when the headlines began pouring out claiming the mine had been “blacked out” by South Australia’s power grid, only three months after a major and also unforgettable (but not forgotten) blackout in South Australia, the temptation could not be resisted.
“The challenge to reduce emissions and grow the economy cannot fall to renewables alone,” BHP Chief Andrew Mackenzie told the Associated Press. “This is a wake-up call ahead of the Coag meeting and power supply and security must be top of the agenda and urgently addressed.”
25 May 2021
To borrow an expression from a former Coalition resources minister, battery storage in Australia is as popular as the Kardashians. The good news is that battery storage is proving to be a lot more useful, particularly in supporting the country’s renewable energy transition.
There are now dozens of large scale batteries operating, being built, contracted, seeking development approvals or just being floated as an idea.
In fact, there is probably more than one hundred – not to mention the hundreds of smaller “community” batteries being installed around the grid by local networks to support rooftop solar, and the tens of thousands of batteries being installed in homes and businesses, and being part of “virtual power plants.”
24 May 2021
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been asked to investigate potential market gaming in the NSW electricity market over the last week, where prices have repeatedly jumped to the market cap despite no big spikes in demand or supply problems.
Market participants have been stunned by the huge volatility in prices in NSW, and the actions that big utilities have taken in keeping gas generators idle or running down the output of their coal generators.
One retailer and several market analysts have also blamed a last desperate effort by energy incumbents to profit before the introduction of 5-minute settlements in October, or as some sort of “justification” for the government’s “gas-led recovery” strategy.