Power and gas is to expensive.

[Pete79]

Interesting read.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336


Cheers Glen

Very interesting reading..... Thanks Mate.

Now the only thing the alternative power producers need is a few billion dollars for lobbying to combat the billions of dollars that the mining/coal industry uses every year to keep the politicians singing the same songs.

[Bird]

small exert ... funny read the whole article though

Sam Borazio recently opened a coin laundry in the south-east Melbourne suburb of Bentleigh.

He has received high gas bills based on estimated use instead of actual use, because his energy provider alleges his meter is blocked by a gate.

He received two gas bills while he was still setting up the business, before he had even hooked up the appliances and started using the fuel.

"My last two gas bills have been estimated," Mr Borazio said.

"They were ridiculously high. When I enquired with my gas company, Origin, I was told that the meter reader could not access the gas meter because the gate was locked."

Yet he does not have a gate at the premises. Instead, the "very large" gas meter sits next to the front door of the business, which is open from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week.

Asked about Mr Borazio's case, an Origin spokesman said: "As a retailer, Origin does not read gas meters, but we do work with customers and network businesses to help resolve issues when they occur.

"Wherever ... possible, we expect to receive timely and accurate meter reads from network businesses from which to bill our customers."





http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/they-were-ridiculously-high-flood-of-complaints-over-eyewatering-gas-bills-20171010-gyygm4.html

[Garfish]

Accc released their initial findings suggesting that network costs are one of the main contributors to cost increases
https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/accc-retail-electricity-pricing-inquiry-preliminary-report

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[Pete79]

Some more fact facts.
Once again they don’t fit in with some political/editorial agendas, but the truth often doesn’t fit in with agendas.....

http://abc.net.au/news/2017-11-17/curious-adelaide-the-problem-of-power/9158240?pfmredir=sm

[Fizzie]

So it certainly appears that the primary focus of the whole set-up is to make as much money as possible for the power companies, & to buggery with the household budget

[Pete79]

It just blows my mind that politicians try and defend the way this market works.

Essentially, the final megawatt of energy dispatched by the market operator to meet the required demand sets the price paid to every other operating generator.

Now read that carefully;
The most expensive energy supplier sets the price for every other operating generator...... Seriously... WTF...!!

let's pretend you need to buy 100 apples.
One wholesaler might be willing to sell you 99 apples at 10 cents each. But you still need one more apple.
If the next most expensive wholesaler is offering his apples at $10 each, you will have to pay $10 for each and every one of those apples!

The same goes for electricity.
If the last generator to be dispatched is offering its energy at $14,000 then everyone gets paid $14,000 — even those who had offered their electricity to the market for nothing.

How do you like them apples?

[prodigyrf]

The most expensive energy supplier sets the price for every other operating generator...... Seriously... WTF...!!

Well it's a bit like your boss having to pay you the last national wage case amount even though you mightn't be worth it or perhaps you're worth over award but you know how it is. If we as a community don't pay the price of the last worst case marginal cost supplier then some of us will miss out on the particular good or service, which is a real problem with a good like electricity whereby we need a certain voltage and frequency or the whole grid is no use to any of us. Unlike mobile phones, electricity is an homogenous good and you don't get a choice between a second hand Windows phone and an iphoneX. If it costs iphoneX prices to satisfy everyone then that's what we all have to pay, particularly if Gummint has mandated a Green tick standard that only the iphoneX measures up to. We put our hands up for that remember.

But that's not fair that in order to fill our bellies and save us all from starvation some farmers have more productive land than others and with lower costs of production they're getting a big quid while the most marginal farmer is on the bones of his backside. Ah yes but that's always been the way whereby our farming ancestors grabbed the low hanging fruit and drove those current land prices accordingly. Go for your life with the cheap cost of land in the Simpson Desert if that's what floats your boat but the marketplace for food and the cost of inputs for production is what it is. Mind you if you can get some politicians to get your snout in the taxpayer trough in doing that then so much the better and Devil take the hindmost 
http://reneweconomy.com.au/world-first-solar-tower-powered-tomato-farm-opens-port-augusta-41643/

[prodigyrf]

Oh I get it now! (smacks forehead). Some of you thought you deserved to only pay the cheapest cost of producing electricity and leave the rest of us to pay for the dearer cost stuff 

[Pete79]

Oh I get it now! (smacks forehead). Some of you thought you deserved to only pay the cheapest cost of producing electricity and leave the rest of us to pay for the dearer cost stuff 

Nope...
Just want to pay what the actual supplier is charging.

If those evil renewables can produce even half of your required demand and the producer only wants to charge you $5 per megawatt, then that's what you should pay for half of your supply.
If the remaining half of you required demand has to come for the other state's gas or coal fired plants and they want to charge $500 or $5000 per megawatt , then that's what you should pay for that half.

From what I understand (and I'm far from an expert) currently you're paying the $500 or $5000 for all of your power regardless of what the other suppliers want to charge you.
If that fits with your ideology on this subject that's fine. Just doesn't make any sense to this layman....

Just wondering if this energy market system can be applied to petrol prices too?
There's an industry standard set to all suppliers of that product, if BP want to charge $15/L for their 98 octane fuel does that mean all 98 octane fuel needs to be sold by every other retailer at $15/L?
Or is that not how free markets work???

[prodigyrf]

Well unfortunately it's like this if you only want to pay cheap prices for renewables like wind-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/june
Now while that wind energy sector produces on average 30% of installed capacity over a year you can see that hides a multitude of marginal sins and some days you won't have to pay anything because you won't be getting anything. As for solar to run just a modest Sawafuji swing compressor and not a modern industrial society I'll leave that to the experienced folk here as to the investment required and the fossil fuel needed to drag it all around with them.

It's like this. We currently have a majority of people in this country who are Hell bent on trying to disprove a fundamental axiom of engineering, namely that you can't build a reliable system from unreliable componentry. If your apprentice mechanic didn't get that iron law by second year you'd have to sack him for the sake of your customers. These being the same customers who if car manufacturers dished up cars like that wind energy sector produces electricity would be screaming for lemon laws.

[gronk]

So it certainly appears that the primary focus of the whole set-up is to make as much money as possible for the power companies, & to buggery with the household budget

That's exactly what happened when the powers that be decided to sell off OUR assets !! A company with shareholders needs to show a continued expansion in profit margins, something the government didn't have to do. Sure, the government could have run the assets a lot better, but it was easier for them to take a quick buck and sell them.

[Bird]

few mths ago we left origin for Lumo.. what a ****in abortion they are.. heading back to origin and not passing go, **** the speed cameras too

[DrewXT]

few mths ago we left origin for Lumo.. what a ****in abortion they are.. heading back to origin and not passing go, **** the speed cameras too

You have to ride Lumo to get their billing right.  Once they do, they're ok, because you don't have to talk to the ****tards in their call centre.

Simply Energy are pretty good to deal with

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[gronk]

Lumo ??  Ha ha, sounds like a kids toy company !!
Never heard of them over here in the eastern states. It's a shame you have to continually chase a cheaper deal because they all try to screw you at every turn.
I agree with the comment that we should only pay for whatever each company bids for each day, not the adjusted high price. One company that bids at $5 knows that even if they could afford to offer it at $5, it will always default to a much higher price, which is exactly what they like.....more profit.
Whether you like coal or not, it was our major source of baseload ( still is ) ,  and at times of need, like a hot summers night, the wick could be turned up easily and cheaply, but especially in SA's case, that now means having to buy expensive baseload power because the companies supplying it have them by the short and curlys.

[vern]

Never heard of Lumo in the eastern states? Have been around for years here, you need to get out more

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[Bird]

You have to ride Lumo to get their billing right.\

this is supposed to be a professional company... Its like its run by 12 year olds. We just got another bill for 1000 which apparently "is a system error"... sick of dealing with them...
if they cant get it right, **** em.

[gronk]

Never heard of Lumo in the eastern states? Have been around for years here, you need to get out more

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Where's here ?

[vern]

Where's here ?

East coast. Vic and nsw

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[gronk]

East coast. Vic and nsw

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I'm at central coast.....lumo has never been offered as a supplier when doing comparison quotes.

[vern]

I'm at central coast.....lumo has never been offered as a supplier when doing comparison quotes.

Central coast isn't exactly the whole east coast. When i lived in vic i was sending paperwork to lumo weekly when in the solar game.  And now on the nsw mid north coast, i see lumo are part of the snowy hydro limited group, but of recent years are now under the red energy banner. So they have been available on the east coast for years, they are just under a different banner now in NSW.

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[prodigyrf]

That's exactly what happened when the powers that be decided to sell off OUR assets !! A company with shareholders needs to show a continued expansion in profit margins, something the government didn't have to do. Sure, the government could have run the assets a lot better, but it was easier for them to take a quick buck and sell them.

It's a mixed bag really so you have to distil out the truth. In SA's case the State Bank debacle meant selling power assets was a no-brainer but you'll notice most States followed the leader. Why so? Well like water, sewer and gas provision much of our public utility infrastructure was built in the post war period by my parents generation (1920s baby boomers) going without an awful lot of what we enjoyed living off the fruits of their sweat and bloating the public sector in the 70s and 80s. State Govts lived off the dividends of those utilities in the process and failed to put away for their depreciation until the penny dropped a lot of it was wearing out (try the burst water mains in Adelaide) so it was politically easiest to flog them off and let private enterprise be the messenger with bad tidings to shoot. They also know full time public servants with their wages and conditions nowadays would be even worse and hence the rash of privatisations (ie a Labor Govt in SA is privatising the LTO as we speak)

OK so lots of catching up to do with investment in tired and failing infrastructure but in the case of power generation they sunk our dough and debt into saving the planet with these unreliables leaving aging thermal generators to pick up the insurance tab and cross subsidise them. As if their aging infrastructure wasn't bad enough that was the coup de grace as we're seeing them close and being blown up. Just one problem. We now have the highest power prices in the world and we haven't coughed up for the other half of the Green equation. Storage and despatchability and as the man said in that ABC link to all the boofheads and their computer simulations-
"The question isn't really a case of can you do it; it's a question of what cost," says Dr Platt.
You said it doc and we aint seen nothing yet with those power prices.

[prodigyrf]

Here's Australia's wind energy output for November- http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/November
Now the sector averages around 30% of installed capacity over the year so imagine without thermal despatchable power what sort of pumped hydro, batteries, molten salt or pushing heavily laden trains uphill you'll need to smooth that lot out? Then there's particularly low wind months like we had in June to try and balance out-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/june

What I find so staggering is how so many supposedly intelligent people could go on believing for so long that they could disprove a fundamental axiom of engineering, namely that you can build a reliable system from unreliable componentry. If your first year apprentice mechanic hadn't got that fundamental law through his thick head by second year you'd have to sack him for the sake of your customers and if car makers dished it up we'd all be screaming for lemon laws.

[gronk]

Here's Australia's wind energy output for November- http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/November

What I find so staggering is how so many supposedly intelligent people could go on believing for so long that they could disprove a fundamental axiom of engineering, namely that you can build a reliable system from unreliable componentry. If your first year apprentice mechanic hadn't got that fundamental law through his thick head by second year you'd have to sack him for the sake of your customers and if car makers dished it up we'd all be screaming for lemon laws.

I keep banging on about base load, but the greenies will argue till the cows come home that renewables can fix that. Maybe in 20yrs time, but for now, we still need coal.
Ask any renewable advocate if they would be happy paying twice or three times the amount for their elect bill ? Their reply is renewables are just as cheap to build, which MAY be correct, but someone still has to outlay the money, and get a return on it. And it still doesn't answer the problem........base load !!

[prodigyrf]

Well the penny's beginning to drop if you read between the lines as SA with all the windmills wanting to dump on the national grid and ACT living off the taxpayer in fairyland are now on the outer-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/no-resolution-on-energy-after-coag-meeting-but-government-remains-confident-in-national-energy-guarantee/ar-BBFyWid
When the SA Govt facing blackouts with peak summer aircon demand rushed out taxpayer funded diesel gennys and a 'look over there it's a unicorn' Tesla battery you knew the game was up for these unreliables. With Port augusta and Hazelwood gone and Melbourne heat waves highly correlated with Adelaides within 24 hours, if push came to shove with the need for power restrictions and aircon bans, the Andrews Govt wouldn't be remotely interested in bailing out the Weatherill Govt via the interconnector. It's every State polly for themselves boyoh.

[Garfish]

Oh I get it now! (smacks forehead). Some of you thought you deserved to only pay the cheapest cost of producing electricity and leave the rest of us to pay for the dearer cost stuff 

I'm taking the first bid block at negative price levels for all my usage.  But then they would rebid. 😇

Imagine if customers paid in 5 min interval prices.   

Will be interesting to see the outcome of the Qld election and how the outcome drives electricity prices.