Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread
Reply #118 –
I hope those batteries have better longevity, support and warranty than those '25 year' solar cells, many of which are forked after just 3 to 5 years and the companies that installed them long long gone. They are basically China's rubbish that we are importing!
The company that owns the Yallourn power station is Chinese so you never know.
The one being built at Moorabool is Tesla so that should be reliable and long term. Interestingly, the South Australian Tesla battery has saved SA consumers for than $150M since it commenced operations in 2017. With the recent upgrade to 150MW, the current cost of the SA battery is $160M. SA is almost at break even and that's not considering the benefits of avoiding blackouts when the Heywood Interconnector was out of action for three weeks around this time last year.
The media report about these batteries like the spend is once off, based on my experience with industrial UPS I'll be surprised if that sort of facility isn't fully refreshed with new batteries and cooling fans every 5 to 7 years. The ongoing cost must be horrendous, but I bet that won't appear in the report!
Knowing our politicians, they'll leave it switched off like the Desalination plant and when we go to use it the lot will have corroded and sprung leaks everywhere!
I suspect that the batteries require no more in the way of maintenance and upgrades than any other component of our power network and the SA battery costs include a major capacity upgrade.
I'm not a huge fan of the desalination plant. Using recycled water would be cheaper and more energy efficient. However, the plant has been producing 125GL annually for the last couple of years.