Energisituasjonen i delstaten South Australia har nylig vært tema her på bloggen, denne delstaten har kjørt et hardt fornybarprosjekt der kull skal fases ut og erstattes med sol, vind og gass. Her er det bare en fasit, og den ligger i fremtiden. Det er hovedsakelig to spørsmål som må følges.
- hvordan energiprisene utvikler seg i SA i forhold til de øvrige delstater i Australia
- om energiforsyningen er stabil
Så får vi se om disse katastrofescenariene slår til.
Alle som kan litt om elektronikk skjønner at slik grønn vindenergi ikke kan være stabil. Det dreier seg ikke bare om når vinden blåser, men like mye om hvor sterkt den blåser og hvor raskt den varierer i styrke. Det største problemet er å levere strømmen - som er vekselstrøm - i fase, med rett spenning og uten for mange raske spenningsvariasjoner (spikes) i nettet. Dette går simpelthen ikke, om du ikke først likeretter strømmen for så å gjøre den om igjen til vekselstrøm. Dette vil gi store tap, noe som gjør det hele ulønnsomt i forhold til all annen strømgenerering man kan tenke seg.
Så lenge subsidiene er der vil nok utbyggerne flokke seg om denne pengesekken, men de vil neppe ha ansvaret for driften.
Jeg tror egentlig at det holder med å lese noen av de lokale avisene for å få en følelse av hvilken vei det bærer med næringslivet i Australia.
ABC News om nedleggelsen av gjenvinningsqanlegget Plastics Granulating Services (PGS):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/sa-recycling-business-power-bills-rise-causing-closure/8654638Financial Review om utsiktene for den kraftkrevende industrien i Australia (bak betalingsmur):
http://www.afr.com/business/manufacturing/manufacturers-warn-of-more-glencore-type-decisions-20170530-gwge5iGjengitt her:
Financial Review – 30. mai, 2017
Australia is unlikely to win manufacturing capital investment in the future because of high energy costs, some business leaders have warned. Andrey Rudakov
by Peter Ker Mark Ludlow
Australia will be denied new investment and will watch more of its refineries and smelters close unless the price and security of energy can be resolved, business leaders warn.
Speaking after Glencore warned it may shut its Mt Isa copper smelter and its Townsville copper refinery within a year, big manufacturers like BASF and the Tomago aluminium smelter respectively warned there was limited chance of new investment in Australia and that further job cuts were likely.
Tomago chief executive Matt Howell, who runs Australia's largest aluminium smelter, said the company was considering cutting production due to "ridiculously high" wholesale electricity prices which would result in job losses.
"It is under active consideration," Mr Howell told The Australian Financial Review. "We've been quite clear with the government that if the wholesale prices do not come down we will have to reduce our load, exactly the same as [Rio Tinto's] Boyne smelter in Gladstone had to reduce load which means shedding jobs and contractors which we don't want to do."
Mr Howell, who has previously described the National Electricity Market as "dysfunctional", said the company was rolling all of its power needs to a fixed term contract next year to try and deal with the escalating electricity prices.
"The prices are still way too high. They should be coming down by half or more than that," he said. "We should be an energy super power with the cheapest and most reliable electricity in the world. We're not seeing that now."
The Tomago smelter near Newcastle - which is a joint venture between Rio Tinto, CSR, Alcan Australia and Hydro Aluminium - was at the centre of the NSW power scare earlier this year when AGL Energy asked it to cut its production to avoid blackouts during a east coast heatwave in February.
Alumina chairman John Pizzey said company boards across the nation were now making decisions based on energy security.
"The cost of energy is becoming an investment decision criteria, more and more people will be making Glencore-type decisions," he said.
"You will see it first in no reinvestment, you won't keep your plants modernised, and subtly in the background there will be people making decisions that they won't invest here at all, in other words they won't make new investments."
It comes as Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt held a lengthy meeting with Glencore executives in Brisbane late on Tuesday to convince the company not to move its copper operations out of the state.
Mr Pizzey said Australia's traditional abundance of cheap energy helped to create high wages, but the nation was now facing high wages and high energy prices.
"The low energy costs weren't all going out of the country as huge profits, it actually allowed you to pay wages in smelters and other places that were high by world standards and there is a direct connection," he said.
"When you take away the advantage of energy, then what is your other strategic advantage? If you are not careful you have to say our strategic advantage has to be cheap labor, now I don't want to go there and we would be crazy to go down the low priced labor model to compensate for high energy, that is the worst of both worlds."
BASF's Australian and New Zealand chairman David Hawkins said Glencore's suggestion that Australia's investment climate had "materially changed" rang true in terms of energy prices.
"Without any energy security of supply any chance of getting significant investment to do anything other than what we are doing is very limited," he said.
"When I talk to some politicians I hear that Australia being a great place to live should be a driver for capital investment and it simply isn't, capital is inherently mobile and we are looking for the best return commensurate with risk that we can get across the globe."
It comes as Indian energy company Adani said it had reached a royalties agreement with the Queensland government over its $16.5 billion Carmichael mine. Adani said its parent company would consider the final investment decision at the next board meeting.
When asked whether Australian smelters and refineries were endangered species, Australian Aluminium Council boss Miles Prosser said "we hope that is not the case".
Mr Howell said he still believed there was a future for smelters and refineries despite the high power prices which was affecting their international competitiveness.
"I think there is sufficient appetite to ensure Australia is a nation that makes things and not dependant on wholesale imports. There is absolutely no reason with all of the materials that we need for aluminium smeltering in Australia and we can't do it profitably," he said.
Energy industry expert Paul McArdle, who is the chief executive of energy software company Global-Roam, said the Palaszczuk government's policy of merging state-owned electricity companies, the power demands of the $80 billion liquified natural gas industry and a shortfall in gas had contributed to a spike in electricity prices in Queensland.
The state-owned generation companies, CS Energy and Stanwell Corporation, have about two-thirds of market share in Queensland, a point which has troubled Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Rod Sims.
"The effect of the three-into-two merger of government-owned generation prior to the summer of 2012-13 has lead to market power issues at times of tight supply/demand balance since that time," Mr McArdle said.
"This has been exacerbated by two effects of the LNG industry - a significant increase in base load energy consumption in the state [20 per cent of prior overnight minimums] and the removal of large volumes of competitively price gas-fired generation burning 'ramp gas' prior to the LNG."
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