Do Renewables Have a Future without Baseload?

On April 16th, in Spain and Portugal, both wind and PV combined to generate 100.63% of total electricity demand – a first in Spain’s energy history. Seven dts later 50,000,000+ spanish. Portuguese and some French people were left with NO power for at least 11 hours, and some for more rthan a week.
Red Energie first claimed it was a cyber attack, then moved on to some undefined cosmic atmospheric event.
Then they claimed the four nuclear plants failed, when they were offline because the Government pricing methods prevented them from opening. Spanish Politicins had already been warned of the danger of closing down nuclear plants (read coal in Australia) during high renewable input
Don't forget the failure of the French Interconnector ( that means a powerline fell dowm). France provides a max 4% of Spaiins electricity.
Eleven hours later, hydro kicked in. and so did gas. Does that mean if we extract the black colour from coal and oil, it would be as safe as gas? Apparently Turnbull's uphill solar also helped, but I wonder where it got the electricity in the first place given the early AM failure of the grid.
Anyway, as expected thr real solution is to kick the can down the road.
Get more batteries. Adelaide did that =problem solved.
Melbourne and Sydney have already had brushes with failure.
Broken Hill had a failed interconnectorand and after a week of failure, repaired an old disused coal generator.
In Australia they are not only shutting down baseload generators, they are demolishing them as soon as they are deemed useless.
We will be Spain. Batteries is nothing more than the wet dream of believers

As CLarice said in Silence of the lambs "I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn’t run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn’t run."

We are the lambs.

Comments

  • +187

    What was the actual question?

    • +79

      I can help.>
      "Can you help me recover from a political and ideological smashing, and help me to still push the climate change denying BS?"

      • +1

        Just because you want base load power, it doesn't necessarily follow that you are a climate change denier. Maybe he is. I didn't bother to read his manifesto.

    • +22

      ChatGPT says

      Are we making a serious mistake by shutting down baseload (coal/nuclear) power plants and over-relying on renewables and batteries without sufficient backup or planning?

      • +3

        If you decided to comment 20 hours earlier you would have realised there has been a revision. FFS.

        • +3

          But regardless of how late he is to the party, he has to hang his (invariably inane) comment off the first comment for visibility.

    • +1

      Do you like my poem?

    • I need a drawing for this one

    • The answer is yes, we need lots of batteries to make renewables work. The baseload is fully stored up here and can be drawn upon as required. Once the 40% of Australian households with solar panels buys up labour's 30% discount on home batteries, they will be insulated against blackouts and no longer need to pay for electricity. The remaining 60% can rely on a mix of solar/wind/battery farms. This will probably be a reality around 2035 - 2045.

      • +1

        This means that the entire grid costs are shunted onto renters/working class, who won't have access to batteries. The upper middle class will still want access to the grid when their batteries break down, but they will pay next to nothing for that insurance policy. It would be more equitable to have an access charge, the same as we do for water.

        Batteries are a poor solution for storage at scale. They eventually fail, they have thermal issues, and we have extremely limited abilities to manufacture them ourselves, meaning we would be critically reliant on imports. Pumped hydro is better, much more rugged and reliable, but apart from a few locations we don't have the topography for it.

        South Australia has one large battery installation and another planned. Together, they will be able to supply 24 hours of typical consumption to about 40,000 homes. Its obviously not enough, as is evidenced by the fact that they just signed another set of 10-year rolling contracts with the gas providers. It will be very difficult to get to net zero on the back of solar wind and storage, and extremely expensive.

        • +2

          extremely expensive

          Will it be though? Gencost report says renewables backed by storage (that means spending the money to install storage too) is the cheapest form of generation.

          Pretty easy to do the maths too. Dutton's plan was 6GW of Nuclear base load for (very generously) only $115B to build. Last year batteries were $500/kWh to build at grid scale (and dropping rapidly), so that's $42B to build enough for 14hrs supply of 6GW (i.e. 84GWh capacity) to simulate nuclear power running overnight.

          Solar is ~$1.2m/MW capacity, so you could spend say $24B on 20GW of solar capacity to easily charge those batteries during the day and supply power in place of the batteries while they're charging. That's just over half the cost of the nuclear plan (basically aligns with the Gencost numbers)

          Again, per the Gencost report, brand new coal/gas generation would be somewhere in the middle cost wise.

          Only problem with storage is we don't have enough of it yet.

          • @Alzori: Genuine question, how do we protect against a weather event that rain or cloudy for 2 weeks?

            This is yearly occurence in Sydney and without a baseload generator no amount of battery storage will last that long.

            • +2

              @stevea: Solar still works at reduced output. Wind continues to exist in inclement weather. Pumped hydro can run for many days at a time. And we will still have gas to top up as required.

              Weather and energy consumption records have been used to model how much storage is actually required. It's not as much as you would think.

            • +1

              @stevea: I imagine via diversified renewable types in diverse regions - the grid spans all of the eastern states plus SA and Tasmania. It should be sunny and/or windy and/or other in some parts of the country, or storage from those areas can fill in gaps.

              Plus like klaw mentioned, solar doesn't stop working in storms, it just reduces output. In my last year of having solar, my worst days over winter still got me 2kWh, from an average of 10kWh. We can diversify, over provision generation, and make sure transmission infrastructure is capable. I say this like it's easy when it isn't, but it's definitely achievable.

      • So basically it's just more middle class welfare (a la Johnnie Howard) for property owners and nothing for everyone else. Got it.

        • Well get yourself a property and take advantage then.

          • @JIMB0: That's the Australian way. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

  • -8

    Sorry, left out the Question Mark ?

    • +17

      Mark is not available at the moment.

      • +21

        Oh hi, Mark!

    • +5

      South Australia gets around 25% of its maximum electricity demand from Victoria.

      Victoria is forecast to have a system strength shortfall in 2025/26, largely the result of the expiry of existing contracts.

    • +36

      SA increasingly uses batteries for artificial inertia a d demand response.
      If your understanding of the power system is "baseload" and "off-peak" you might have to do some reading before you can understand the issues.

      Suffice to say, the Spanish operators are getting some criticism that they learned nothing from the SA outage a decade ago.

  • +3

    Although I agree that we need more renewable energy sources, we shouldn't completely cut off our legs by closing down all coal fire power plants. There is just not enough reliability in the grid from just relying on renewables. Once technology does catch up, by all means.

    • +66

      The coal plants are old and decrepit and need very expensive upgrades/repairs. They arent being shut down 'because renewables', they are being shut down because they are very costly and becoming uneconomic to continue to operate (or even simply unable to operate because they are too old and in poor condition because its too costly to repair them). Remember these are all owned by the private sector; they are not going to spend lots of money to fix something when the return (power prices) wont let them make a profit. OPs and others of that ilk are failing to acknowledge this point because it doesnt fit with their narrative, whatever that narrative is (seems to just be 'renewables are bad because its supported by people on the left and therefore whatever they oppose I support'). yes, of course, the government could throw in a lot of subsidies and grants to continue the operation of the facilities, and has done so; but at some stage throwing more money to generate power at even higher prices isnt logical.

      The real issue is what do you replace the coal fired power stations with. Given that there is a need to build something new from scratch, renewables is the cheapest even including the need for distribution upgrades. However just going with renewables wont work without redundancies and storage/back up. Nuclear could work but not economically vs alternatives and even for electrical production is not great when part of a predominately renewable grid. Gas is ideal but mostly as back up rather than primary generators - its the redundancy risk mitigation. Batteries are pretty good but not quite good enough at the moment, but should offer the answer. New coal facilities are expensive and have other issues.

      The concept of 'baseload' is out of date and anyone who argues it has no idea about the issue. The issue today is distribution not baseload. Across Australia with a diverse range of renewable sources, we will never be in a situation where there is no sun, no hydro, no wind for the entire nation. The issue is getting the solar energy from (say) WA to Qld and the wind energy from NSW to Qld when Qld is in the middle of a cyclone. The production will be there, its getting the energy from production to where its needed that is the issue.

      • -7

        Not to mention the amount of black lung and silicosis from mining coal through to power generation is about to explode.

      • +18

        Yup, baseload is just the minimum output you can run a steam turbine at to prevent damage from steam condensing. You have to run it at a minimum level all the time, or shut it down completely

        Thus the "load" part of baseload.

        A poorly understood concept. Mainly by the anti-renewable crowd and dudes who have a hard-on for nuclear.

        • -2

          Why so much +ve for this. What can I say, apart from you got this bit right:-

          A poorly understood concept

          • @megaclix: Can you explain the real meaning behind base load?

            • -1

              @Alzori: Base load is basically the power generation needed to meet minimum demand. The base load power stations will be running constantly to meet this minimum demand (think 2am in the morning). Then, other generation sources are used over and above the base load to meet demand.

        • OK negs people. At least have a go at proving me wrong.

      • -8

        You know what's even more costly and uneconomic than keeping the coal plants maintained? Having no power because the sun went down like it predictably does every single day.

        • +14

          The wind also blows at night.

          We can't go all in on solar, or on wind. We need both, and we need large scale storage, and we need to keep as a backup.

          This isn't a binary thing, and pretending it is, is just plain dumb.

          • +13

            @klaw81: water flows downstream at night too i checked with a torch

      • +1

        "out of date" is probably not the best way to characterise baseload power. Only a few here seem to understand what baseload means. Baseload power is only a requirement of generation, i.e. some generators require a baseload demand. Loads do not need a baseload of supply, load power requires matching generating power at any instant.

        • +4

          Loads do not need a baseload of supply, load power requires matching generating power at any instant.

          This is why the concept of "dispatchable" energy is the current focus of grid design and improvements - ensuring that energy is available to the grid to meet demand, via a mixture of instantaneous generation and storage.

          The previous centralized model of having a few large generators ramping from minimum to maximum but never switching off are over - the economics don't make sense anymore, even if you ignore the environmental aspect. This leaves a technical challenge relating to frequency control and system inertia, but there are both mechanical and electronic methods that can replicate the behavior and capability of traditional turbines.

          In recent years we've had demonstrations of how our regulations need to change to meet this new reality - the Broken Hill outage clearly demonstrated that the old operating manual needs to be re-written.

      • +2

        Your claim that coal plants are being shut down solely because they’re old, decrepit, and uneconomic oversimplifies the issue and ignores the significant role of government policy in driving their decline. While it’s true that many coal plants are aging and require costly upgrades, the lack of investment in modernising these facilities isn’t just a market-driven outcome. For years, Australian governments—through stringent emissions targets, renewable energy subsidies, and regulatory barriers—have signaled that coal is on the way out. This has deterred private companies from investing capital in upgrading coal plants or building new, more efficient ones, as the political and regulatory environment makes such investments unviable. The high costs you attribute to coal’s decline are, in part, a direct consequence of this policy-driven disinvestment, not just the plants’ age or market dynamics. Private companies aren’t unwilling to invest because power prices won’t yield profits; they’re hesitant because government policies have created uncertainty and risk around coal’s future.More critically, your argument dismisses the fundamental importance of supply reliability for a developed nation like Australia.

        You suggest that the concept of baseload power is outdated and that distribution, not generation, is the real issue. However, this overlooks the fact that coal has historically provided consistent, dispatchable power that renewables, even with diverse sources across Australia, cannot yet fully replicate without significant and costly storage or backup systems. While it’s theoretically possible to avoid a nationwide scenario where there’s no sun, wind, or hydro, the practical reality is that renewable output can still be highly variable, especially during extreme weather events like cyclones or prolonged calm periods. The 2016 South Australia blackout, triggered by a storm disrupting wind power and inadequate backup, underscores the risks of over-relying on intermittent sources without robust, dispatchable alternatives. Your focus on distribution assumes a perfect grid capable of seamlessly moving power across vast distances, but Australia’s transmission infrastructure is not yet equipped for this, and upgrades will take years and billions in investment.

        You argue that renewables are the cheapest option for new builds, even accounting for distribution upgrades, and that gas or batteries can serve as redundancy. However, this sidesteps the scale of the challenge: battery technology, while improving, is not yet capable of providing grid-scale storage for extended periods, and gas, while effective, is also subject to government restrictions and global price volatility. Nuclear may be expensive, but ruling it out entirely ignores its potential as a zero-emission, reliable baseload source. Meanwhile, dismissing new coal facilities as too expensive fails to acknowledge that modern, high-efficiency, low-emission coal plants could serve as a reliable bridge during the transition to a more renewable-heavy grid, especially if government policy supported their development rather than penalized it.Ultimately, Australia cannot afford to prioritize cost or ideology over supply security. Shutting down coal plants without adequate, proven replacements risks blackouts and economic disruption, which is unacceptable for a developed nation.

        A pragmatic energy policy would maintain and modernise coal as a dependable backbone while scaling up renewables, storage, and transmission in a measured way. Your argument assumes a smooth transition to a renewable-dominated grid, but without addressing the policy-driven neglect of coal and the real-world limitations of renewables, it underestimates the risks to Australia’s energy reliability.

        Bottom line is that supply must always come first! No narrative, whether pro-renewable or otherwise, changes that imperative.

      • +1

        I agree with some of this. Storage is not going to be good enough for the foreseeable future, the best we can hope for is more or less what Denmark and SA are doing at the moment - about 70% renewables with gas firming supplying the rest.

        Nuclear is not ideal as part of a mix with highly contingent renewables, but is still the only viable form of emissions-free firming for most of Australia that doesn't have hydro. Costs are about double that of coal over a 40-year life cycle and manageable. Coal fired power, despite CSIRO's strenuous and creative attempts to indicate otherwise, is cheap. Eraring is the largest power station in the country and has a marginal cost of $38 per MWh, which quite simply beats the pants off any other form of baseload power. It is decrepit, but only because coal has no future in this political climate. Even so, the NSW government is having to pay the costs of keeping the doors open because its incredibly difficult to manage without it.

        You can get away with not having baseload power to a large extent because we have hollowed out our manufacturing capacity and don't really need it. As long as we are able to juggle the eggs, we can get away with a mixed grid and the underlying latency issues because household and smallscale commercial demand spikes relatively slowly. But we may need to reshore some manufacturing and solar and wind probably won't be enough. The tech companies, not exactly fossil-fuel loving dinosaurs, realised they needed a ton of energy for AI and that solar and wind wouldn't cut it. They went with geo and nuclear:- https://stockhead.com.au/energy/geothermal-and-nuclear-are-t…

        Incidentally, this is why Tasmania is host to a lot of our last remaining manufacturing enterprises in shipbuilding and so forth - abundant baseload hydro.

      • +2

        Yes and no - they are being indirectly shutdown because of renewables, in the sense of market pressure with subsidised greener power sources combined with the regulatory threat, which has meant the companies haven't kept incrementally investing in the coal plants as a result to keep them going. They need the economic certainty to invest as you alluded to, but government policies favouring renewables has played a big role in decisions that have led to their pending closures.

        I've worked in the recent past on power station feasibility studies including solar and batteries, plus looked at gas backups for isolated microgrids in given scenarios, with a company that has worked on some of the largest BESS projects in the country plus engaging with global giants in the industry to consult with us - Green energy was what we were striving for with backers wanting to throw millions of potential investment at it. Projects I was involved in spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on specialist studies I was part of and privy to (I say this only so you know I have a little bit of insight people paid a lot of money for me to get by working for them!). What I can say from learnings in that process, is that I'd personally love to agree with you that batteries are the answer, and obviously by your comments upvotes the popular opinion we all WANT to be true for the sake of the environment is renewables…. BUT you are right about one thing, batteries aren't good enough at the moment. I came away from that role a bit disheartened about what the numbers showed for being able to go fully renewable any time soon.

        The industry is facing significant challenges in this transition with no easy, economic, and green solutions. I've had the advantage of insight from negotiating with large energy off-takers as well who also wanted to be green but had to make their businesses still stack up with what they produce in a global market where energy cost is a key input. It takes time to invest in new technologies and we need to be competitive on a global basis. Not just for business, affordable energy is a key ingredient to modern life and cost of living and living / employment standards in a region, and our competitiveness to sell our commodities in a global arena is a key part of that.

        Yes we should have green initiatives, and address climate change over time, but a dose of reality on economic impacts on people needs to be taken as well. Without it, and moving too quickly, the people will reject change, reject the impact on their lives/businesses and people like Don in US get elected because of pressures on their cost of living / jobs and a vocal politician pointing fingers at things that are easy to blame like green initiatives.

        You talk about base load like it is irrelevant - it isn't completely. Yes the mix and options have changed so purely talking base load is no longer a thing. However of course fossil fuel power stations especially coal can't be turned on and off quickly. They play a role previously known as base load because they work far more efficiently to run for long hours (or ideally never shut off). So with solar all day as we largely now have, it can become uneconomic to maintain and run them through the night only with no revenue during the day - so what can we do? … Sadly, the number of batteries needed to replace 24/7 power from fossil fuels is still very uneconomic and unfeasible and far far more costly than energy currently costs. BESS are mostly playing a role for grid stability and to keep the power on whilst things like gas plants are fired up when we have sudden changes such as bad weather meaning solar isn't producing. As a nation, we cannot feasibly and affordably run off batteries all night. The amount of extra batteries required would be orders of magnitude more than we have AND that's not good for the environment either. Batteries don't last forever and aren't exactly environmentally friendly things to produce and have other risks. Further, our studies revealed that we need 4-5 times as much solar than the nominal MW requirement to be able to reliably keep them charged from the reliable daylight hours also to run all night, all things considered like maintenance, bad weather etc (e.g. to supply 1 MW 24/7 we need 5MW of solar to couple to the batteries). Whereas just using solar when it is available and the sun is shining (like we mostly do now) is a no-brainer, and 5 times less capital intensive for the solar PV array alone, without looking at the batteries cost that are the expensive part and drive that above 10 times more capex to run day and night vs just day. In other words, whilst solar is feasible for daylight hours power - it is a vast leap from that to 24/7 power from it and wind has other challenges and impacts on the community and isn't reliable either.

        And that's without also considering environmental impacts of increasing the solar capacity of the country that much, and things like reduced CO2 sequestration from loss of vegetation from solar farms and reduced ability to produce food on those areas. We had pushback in our regulatory approvals due to impact on agricultural land.

        Accordingly, I think its not good we didn't keep the coal maintained and look at carbon capture and greening options to buy more time for the technology transition. Nuclear isn't popular, but with options that cannot melt down now in existence - it would have been a good idea to invest in 10-20 years ago. Now, it remains proven to be political suicide to go that way because the public are afraid of it… somewhat unfairly if done right (plus because we don't do it already, nor subsidise it, yes its expensive) so its not going to happen now either. So that puts us in a very difficult spot now that's going to hurt. We need a technological miracle in storage cost / options and or fusion.

        We can't just do it the very expensive way with current renewable and battery technology… without the whole world on board with renewables and storage, we are not a big enough player on our own to make a difference and if we go it alone, we'll kill our businesses competitiveness, economy, and therefore earnings, jobs and living standards. Energy is too important of an input. Australia is big, some of it still has a lot of vegetation, and population density is low, so with some of the highest solar uptake in the world, embracing EVs where we can, and just keeping it low density with trees to capture the CO2, we aren't going to be the ones that kill the planet - Other countries will need to solve this before we bust our country trying to. So, we still need fossil fuels for now until the technology improves.

        In summary (TLDR) - We need to keep looking for storage options yes. Economics are important - We don't have the solution yet. We need to preserve coal and gas for a bit longer and make it work better for the interim.

  • +5

    Do Renewables Have a Future without Baseload?

    No, not without a baseload.

    Any country that heads in that direction is commiting economic suicide.

    Countries with reliable and cheap baseload will have a huge economic advantage that will quickly show up in trade deficits.

    • -1

      No economic suicide. Huge advantage!

      • +1

        🤣🤣🤣

    • +1

      sigh.. see dtc comment above "The concept of 'baseload' is out of date and anyone who argues it has no idea about the issue."

      I wouldn't quite go that far, but 'baseload' should definitely mean something different now.
      Yes the "duck consumption curve/profile" is still a thing, but renewables & storage have definitely changed the shape a bit, and power companies have caught on and adjusted, as they are economically forced to.
      If it costs too much to invest in renewables, they simply won't do it.
      The question is just how much government intervention is required - to which I would propose, very little: Renewables are hugely profitable without it.
      Though I'd argue that there is currently a lot of intervention to keep coal & gas afloat - they're paying so little tax while providing not many jobs, for a resource that is limited and should belong to the country.

      • -1

        and anyone who argues it has no idea about the issue

        because Jaspa7 said so….. 🤣🤣🤣

      • If it costs too much to invest in renewables, they simply won't do it.

        Nah…. $imon $ays to…

        • +4

          Gina Rinehart is planning to build a ~30MW solar farm to provide electricity for her Mulga Downs iron ore mine, despite her vocal opposition to renewables.

          Most of the big mining companies get at least some power from on-site wind or solar these days. BHP and Rio Tinto are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on renewables for their mines in the Pilbarra.

          The accusation that it's all a scam to get government funding doesn't hold water.

          • -2

            @klaw81:

            Gina Rinehart is planning to build a ~30MW solar farm to provide electricity for her Mulga Downs iron ore mine

            Must make business sense…

            How will the mine run at night though?

            • @jv: A combination of batteries, diesel generators and/or a grid connection, I presume.

              Much like households, the purpose is to reduce reliance on external energy sources and use as much self-generated energy as possible.

              It's purely an economic and logistical decision - we all know Gina doesn't give a toss for the environment.

              • @klaw81:

                diesel generators

                Are they cleaner than coal?

                batteries

                doubt it…

          • @klaw81:

            The accusation that it's all a scam to get government funding

            Not for government funding…

            Simon just wants to influence everyone to make more $$$$$$ more quickly….

            • @jv:

              Simon just wants to influence everyone to make more $$$$$$ more quickly….

              So does Gina. So does Clive Palmer. It's common knowledge that very wealthy individuals try to influence politics for their own benefit - this is nothing new.

              • @klaw81: They are helping the Australian economy though, Simon will be damaging our economy…

                • @jv: That's an interesting assertion. I'm sure Simon would disagree (and so would an awful lot of others).

                  • @klaw81:

                    I'm sure Simon would disagree

                    Of course he would. That is just self interest

                    The more control the Teals have, the more $$$$ he makes…

                    • +1

                      @jv:

                      Of course he would. That is just self interest…

                      Are you claiming Gina and Clive aren't involved in politics for their own self-interest?

                      The more control the Teals have, the more $$$$ he makes…

                      The more control the Coalition has, the more money Gina makes. Remember Dutton's promise to be the "best friend the mining industry ever had"?

                      What's your point?

                      • @klaw81:

                        Are you claiming Gina and Clive aren't involved in politics for their own self-interest?

                        They're not negatively impacting our economy… You missed the point… 💨

                        • +1

                          @jv:

                          They're not negatively impacting our economy

                          You haven't demonstrated that Simon and/or the Teals are negatively impacting the economy. You've just made the claim without evidence.

                          • -1

                            @klaw81:

                            You haven't demonstrated that Simon and/or the Teals are negatively impacting the economy.

                            They don't have control of the government, that's why.

                            Lucky labor can ignore their whining for the next 3 years.

                      • @klaw81:

                        The more control the Coalition has, the more money Gina makes.

                        Actually, she's made a lot more under Albo than the previous Coalition government…

          • +1

            @klaw81:

            The accusation that it's all a scam to get government funding doesn't hold water.

            Those investments don't make financial sense without the government funding though; direct funding, tax offsets, and carbon certificates.

            • @tenpercent:

              Those investments don't make financial sense without the government funding though

              Can you provide any evidence to support that?

              The fact that mining companies are rapidly building large-scale wind and solar to power their own sites suggests it's economically viable even though their infrastructure doesn't get connected to the grid, and aren't eligible for any subsidies.

              Renewables are the cheapest way of producing energy for industrial use. That's why they're getting built.

              • -1

                @klaw81:

                The fact that mining companies are rapidly building large-scale wind and solar to power their own sites suggests it's economically viable

                Only for a small percentage of their energy needs.

                They require a steady and reliable base load to keep their operations running and profitable.

              • -1

                @klaw81:

                Renewables are the cheapest way of producing energy for industrial use.

                They are not.

                They are also no reliable enough.

              • @klaw81: Yes they are eligible. They will get Australian Carbon Credit Units (basically 'polluters' get paid for reducing their 'polluting' - which is kind of like bribing a serial killer to stop killing), and they will get R&D incentive tax offsets. There may be other government incentives as well.

  • Yes

    If anything renewables help stabilise the grid, epically on hot days when everyone is running their air-conditioning.

    • +7

      epically on hot days when everyone is running their air-conditioning.

      What about hot nights?

      • +1

        Apparently batteries.

        • +2

          Apparently batteries.

          Trains? Trams? industrial sector??

          • +1

            @jv: Batteries? Homes can run off batteries. It's mostly scale that needs to change to cover trains, trams, and industrial sector.

            • +5

              @Piratarzt:

              Batteries? Homes can run off batteries.

              Can the Bluescope steel manufacturing plant run off batteries?

              • +2

                @jv: They'll be upping stumps to the USA anyway. Or Gina will stump up for a rooly big bank of eneloops, recharged via solar and the glow emitted form her expansive heat source. Ironically she's so filthy rich that Trumps tariffs don't concern her. More ironically she can be kissing Xi and Trumps arses at the same time.

                PS; There's a rumour Dutto is heading to Hancock.

                • -1

                  @Protractor:

                  They'll be upping stumps to the USA anyway

                  They'll all have too at this rate…

              • @jv: Can't it not? Bluscope is one the largest users of electricity in NSW, needing about 1000GWh/year(2.7GWh/day or 0.1GW/h [100MW/h]). Worldwide, there are many examples of solar systems can power such demands - and then some. One in China (Talatan Solar Park), has been progressively expanded since 2011, and has a capacity of 15.6 GW! Batteries are not hard to build.

                So yes, Bluescope steel will run off renewables.

                • +1

                  @Piratarzt: Yes it will.

                  Aluminium smelters use as much, and are doing the same. Also there is Sydney Trains, which uses a lot of the power whether the trains run, or not.

                  The Tomago aluminium smelter in NSW uses 850 GW/year, and has always bought energy cheap from Liddell and Bayswater power stations, next door. As this more is expensive than solar, they are transitioning to solar from a group of local solar projects. Without this one customer, Bayswater Coal will likely lose money from 2029.

                  AGL is not very big in solar farms, but after closing the Liddell station, is building a big battery there. Maybe it is allowing Bayswater goes to the wall as its baseload contracts expire to leverage any impacts on the government, and positioned itself for maximum taxpayer funding and government support for that, and its investments in the cost of farming solar around the battery.

                  A lot of steel production has gone offshore over the last few decades where Australian coal powers steel plants nearer end use markets. However cheap power has allowed aluminium smelters to grow, as they can ramp to use excess solar during the day and turn the furnaces down overnight when there is only wind, hydro, battery and gas produced power.

      • +5

        It cools down. The big yellow thing goes to bed.

      • It's always cooler at night so I turn it off.

        • +3

          Factories don't turn off though…

          • -4

            @jv: While we have a few, I don't think you will find Australia has a significant amount of factories that run 24x7.

            • -2

              @gromit: will have pretty much zero without baseload power.

              • +1

                @jv: Yep, but baseload can be renewable too, like hydro.

        • -1

          Try live in the tropics, no aircon is unbearable.

          • +1

            @hawkers89: People have lived in the tropics for thousands of years without aircon.

            Uncomfortable sure - unbearable no.

            • @klaw81: Not to a Western, 1st World standard though. The US South only really developed economically after mass aircon was invented and deployed. The Tiger economies of SE Asia would be kittens without AC. Imagine what Dubai and the other Gulf states would be like without aircon.

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