THE GREAT BATTERY CON JOB – EXPOSED
To keep the subsidies flowing and the public hoodwinked, green-rent-seekers have peddled the delusion that the intermittency of solar/wind can be solved with ‘’big batteries’’.
This conjob was first sold in South Australia, as with their experiment of a 50% Renewable Energy Target descending into a costly farce, and to cover-up the fact they needed spend several hundred million on emergency diesel generators to keep the lights on just before the state election, with Hollywood fanfare SA announced they were installing ‘’the world’s largest battery’’ to save the day.
And unsurprisingly, the greenies have swallowed this hook, line and sinker – as rent seekers continued to go laughing to the bank to cash their millions from subsidies.
Well the performance of the ‘’world’s largest battery’’ last Thursday exposed what a complete con job it’s been – and delusion that we can power our economy on solar panels, wind turbines and big batteries is as dangerous to the economy as rabies is in a dog.
Let’s look at the evidence from 24th Jan …
As wind power collapsed into the afternoon, prices in South Australia surged to $14,500 Mwh (they averaged around $40 Mwh before all these ‘cheap’ renewables flooded into the grid) at around 4.30pm ‘’the world’s biggest battery’’ started to dribble in 30MW to the grid.
The 30MW was less than 1% of South Australia’s total demand, and less than 0.1% of the National grid’s demand.
The world’s biggest battery continued to dribble out around 30MW until 7.30pm, then it ran flat, rendering it completely useless as peak demand hit at 7.30pm.
Meanwhile the emergency diesel generators (chewing through a reported 80,000 litres of diesel an hour) were doing the real work in SA, pumping out over 400MW at a time on demand – and they continued to so as demand peaked at 7.30pm, when the world’s largest battery had given up the ghost.
So at peak demand, in the renewables paradise of South Australia, 97% of their electricity was coming from fossil fuels.
Over the afternoon, I estimate the ‘’world’s biggest battery’’ delivered only around 100 Mwh of electricity – compared to 2000Mwh by the diesel generators.
The facts should be clear from the evidence that it’s a dangerous delusion that Australia can run the economy with solar/wind backed up by big batteries.
But sadly once leftists have been radicalised by green propaganda – evidence, engineering & economics no longer matter, because their belief is a semi-religious one based on feelings and emotions and their minds are closed to rational thoughts and logic.
Ray Payne OAM
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