Grid Outage Stats

[DIYrich]

You can, you just may not be doing so yet.

Grid batteries are playing an important an ever increasing role in maintaining the stability of the grid in Australia. Along with syncons, they have pretty much replaced gas peakers from their role in the frequency control and ancillary services (FCAS) market. Indeed the ability of grid batteries to perform this task is superior as they are able to respond orders of magnitude more quickly (in microseconds vs handfuls of seconds to minutes). The rate these things are being installed here is astonishing.

That is not dispatching green energy. That is grid storage (the option 3 - bulk storage that I mentioned).

Big Battery Storage Map of Australia

This Big Battery Storage Map of Australia includes all big battery projects of 10MW or 10MWh and above. “Operating” includes those projects currently working; “Construction” means those…

reneweconomy.com.au

Hydro is highly dispatch-able renewable energy but the availability of hydro (and pumped hydro) is highly location dependent.

Most hydro that is economical has already been built. Some hyrdo is being removed because of the environmental effects. Some hydro has limited dispatch ability (river still has to run, silting problems if you slow down the river too much, etc.).

We have some large pumped hydro plants under construction which will also play a key role.

Pump storage is bulk storage, not green energy.

Until all necessary capacity is in place then gas will fill the gaps.

Assuming you have gas peaking plants available.

 

[wattmatters]

That is not dispatching green energy. That is grid storage (the option 3 - bulk storage that I mentioned).

Pump storage is bulk storage, not green energy.

It is if the energy stored being stored is renewable, which it mostly will be (at least it is here). It's how you firm variable renewable energy sources.

Most hydro that is economical has already been built. Some hyrdo is being removed because of the environmental effects. Some hydro has limited dispatch ability (river still has to run, silting problems if you slow down the river too much, etc.).

Australia is building new hydro capacity. The IEA expects 230 GW of new hydropower capacity to be added by 2030. Most of the growth is in Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

All energy sources have their downsides. I'm not suggesting it's a sensible option everywhere.

Assuming you have gas peaking plants available.

Gas peakers are not all that complex or difficult to build.

 

[DIYrich]

It is if the energy stored being stored is renewable, which it mostly will be (at least it is here). It's how you firm variable renewable energy sources.

Easy to make the argument that the electricity being stored is baseload and not renewable. Since renewable is self consumed, and carbon/nuke baseload power is not sold (so stored in bulk storage).

Gas peakers are not all that complex or difficult to build.

Assuming you can get the permits to build carbon power generation. Takes years to get a permit/license. Lots of opposition to carbon based.

 

[wattmatters]

Easy to make the argument that the electricity being stored is baseload and not renewable. Since renewable is self consumed, and baseboard is power not sold.

Not sure I follow but an energy storage facility is mostly going "charge up" with the cheapest available energy, which will be wind and solar PV, especially at times of abundance and when wind and solar farm outputs are being curtailed.

Assuming you can get the permits to build carbon power generation. Takes years to get a permit/license. Lots of opposition to carbon based.

Same applies to all forms of grid scale generation. Lots of opposition to renewables as well.

None of it is easy.

 

[45North]

I'm in a city in eastern canada. Have only had to reset a clock very infrequently over the many years.
In the unlikely event the grid goes down, we'd go into "camping" mode. Other than that, no special measures or backups.
I have a small "hobby" panel I could use to charge my phone, in a pinch.

 

[niktak11]

Our longest outage so far was 14 days. That seems to be a once per decade event. 6-96 hour outages happen a couple times a year.

 

[wattmatters]

6-96 hour outages happen a couple times a year.

What do you use for backup, if anything?

 

[niktak11]

What do you use for backup, if anything?

Currently a Sol-ark 15k with 82kWh of batteries and 20.5kW of panels. I haven't had a long outage since this system has been running but I'm sure I'll get a chance to test it this winter.

 

[wattmatters]

Nice. That should keep you running for a while, although I guess it depends on your energy demand and production in Winter.

 

[niktak11]

Nice. That should keep you running for a while, although I guess it depends on your energy demand and production in Winter.

We can easily use that in a day in the winter so we'll have to conserve quite a bit during the next big outage. I'm planning on getting an EV truck in the next couple years to bring the battery total up to 250+kWh.

 

[DIYrich]

Not sure I follow but an energy storage facility is mostly going "charge up" with the cheapest available energy, which will be wind and solar PV, especially at times of abundance and when wind and solar farm outputs are being curtailed.

Cheapest energy when there is a production excess is nuclear. They will pay you to take the excess in order to keep from cycling the plant. Wind / solar is good down to $0/watt. When price goes negative, wind and solar will shut down. Nuclear and other base load can't shutdown if their power is needed in the next 24-48 hours.

Negative prices is the optimal time to recharge bulk storage. Get paid to store now, and paid to supply a few hours later.

 

[dougbert]

Right
I've heard that those happen.

same here

 

[rpdom]

Negative prices is the optimal time to recharge bulk storage. Get paid to store now, and paid to supply a few hours later.

You can maximise that when you have advance warning of the negative prices - export most of what is in your batteries before the negative period starts, then when it does start you get a full charge for profit, and yes, export again afterwards if you have surplus to requirements.

 

[Shimmy]

I had an Influx query set up to pull information from my IoTaWatt system to get outage data, but not nearly as advanced reporting as you have. I could get date/time and duration. I was just looking for minutes of downtime over two years to file a claim with my utility. I had something approaching 24 hours in two years. (They were satisfied with 3-9's, although they have since fixed the major source of wind-borne problems.)

It is great information to record, but for myself I need to find a different method of identifying and logging outages; I guess I could use NUT from the UPSs, but part of me wants a dedicated battery-backed brown/blackout logger.

 

[wattmatters]

Cheapest energy when there is a production excess is nuclear. They will pay you to take the excess in order to keep from cycling the plant.

They would only do that because of the presence of wind and solar though. And it's hardly a sustainable practice. While not renewable, at least with nuclear it's low emissions.

We don't have nuclear here, and the coal power plants are closing rapidly because they can't afford to keep paying people to take their energy.

 

[wattmatters]

but not nearly as advanced reporting as you have

It's not particularly advanced, just using Excel to identify outages from my historical data and tally them up.

Mine does not pick up on outages under 5-minutes so I miss counting those short brownout type events and other brief outages.

I hadn't thought about using my IoTaWatt to do something with that. My Home Assistant sends my phone a notification when it detects an outage and when power is restored. Handy for when I am not home.

 

[Shimmy]

It's not particularly advanced, just using Excel to identify outages from my historical data and tally them up.

Mine does not pick up on outages under 5-minutes so I miss counting those short brownout type events and other brief outages.

I hadn't thought about using my IoTaWatt to do something with that. My Home Assistant sends my phone a notification when it detects an outage and when power is restored. Handy for when I am not home.

I have three IoTaWatts, so I look for one minute intervals where all of them are down (no reported data) via Grafana/Influx. I should export outage data to a separate bucket to simplify transformations, but not a big issue. It is easier than an Excel workflow.

 

[MurphyGuy]

I love my IoTaWatt.. It sucks that they don't sell them in the USA anymore. You can still get one but they're twice the price and have to be shipped from overseas..

 

[Shimmy]

I love my IoTaWatt.. It sucks that they don't sell them in the USA anymore. You can still get one but they're twice the price and have to be shipped from overseas..

View attachment 166404

Wow, clean install. Mine could use some TLC like that; gecko poop (and salt air) killed the first one. As much as I bemoan the slow death of the hardware, the software is really what made it awesome. Hoping there is a way to port it to the Emporia Vue one of these days.

 

[wattmatters]

We used a standard Hager panel box to house the IoTaWatt: