Electricity prices have killed the economy.

[GASWAGON]

I would'nt bother directly changing my hot water system to gas but, I think if the old one was to die I would look at fitting a gas powered one while I have the Nat Gas line out the front of the house. Every bit of saving adds up!

[MarkAW]

Originally Posted by zilo

I'm sorry...you didn't read my post correctly.

I said to note Alcoa pay 14c per MEGAWATT not 14c per KILOWATT...

Does that change your perception a thousand fold?

It doesn't change my perception but it does cause me to suspect the validity of the original claim. I have to assume that by the term MegaWatt this is meant as a megawatt hour and not a megawatt second (a reduction of 1/3600). I would really want to see this as documented or published price to the public domain and not heresay.

[zilo]

Originally Posted by MarkAW

It doesn't change my perception but it does cause me to suspect the validity of the original claim. I have to assume that by the term MegaWatt this is meant as a megawatt hour and not a megawatt second (a reduction of 1/3600). I would really want to see this as documented or published price to the public domain and not heresay.

Errr...it's the same thing.

A megawatt per second x 3600 = 1 megawatt/hr.

[TheSneakiness]

Originally Posted by Loud_Noises

You've got very cheap rates mate!

Thanks... I thought that was bloody expensive.

Originally Posted by EF_6

Why are your rates so cheap then?

I don't know, was the plan we signed on? Lucky?

Originally Posted by MarkAW

What about the transmission charge?
These days its almost a dollar per day or $90 per quarter.

I'll have to check my bill but from what I read on it supply charge is two parts of stuff all.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by zilo

Errr...it's the same thing.

A megawatt per second x 3600 = 1 megawatt/hr.

Now this shows the difference between academic theory and commercial reality.

For the quantity of energy in a simple no-loss non-reactive model that is correct but for tarrif charging in the real world you have no idea at all.

The tarrifs are quite complex and involve vas, vars, peak, draw, jitter, time and duration not just simply watts per hour.

[flappist]

Leave the party politics out please

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by joolz

So why has Labor ditched the Carbon Tax for an ETS. Even they said the Carbon tax was a burdon on families. Yet for the past 12 months they were saying the opposite. Which way is it??

They are bringing it in early. We were always going to move to an ETS. The only reason that its coming in earlier is because the Carbon price has dropped a fair bit with the crisis in Europe. There is a major political reason why this is happening. If there wasn't an election in a couple of month the Carbon Tax would have not moved.

As for the price of electricity and the CT. It really isn't the major cause of the higher prices. Electricity was jumping in price before it and still is.

[joolz]

Anyways i still have the old meter so stuck with the single tarriff of $0.25 k/w. Im not sure if its a good or bad thing as i cant opt for off peak, peak and shoulder tarriffs as i dont have a smart meter.

[Bowser22]

Originally Posted by MarkAW

I don't agree with paying 14c/kWH but this is what happens when you have an industrial site that consumes more electricity than a medium sized city. They (Alcoa) dictates the price to the supplier and in this case they are tapping the power at the transmission level - 132kV. Alcoa will have their own distribution transformers and switchgear which again cuts the costs of supply.
Energy Suppliers will fall over each other to get contracts like Alcoa and if that means crapping on the little people to subsidize the Alcoa contract then who cares about the little people. Sorry folks but that is how a free market operates with energy.

A thing to consider is that coal fired power stations just cannot simply switch generators on and off like a light. Large consumers like Alcoa and the late Pacific Dunlop use vast amounts of energy during off peak times when we are all asleep and thus they bargain for cheaper rates. SEC actually reward Alcoa in peak periods (summer) to kill power to potlines and feed power back into the grid from their Anglesea power station.

Originally Posted by MarkAW

It doesn't change my perception but it does cause me to suspect the validity of the original claim. I have to assume that by the term MegaWatt this is meant as a megawatt hour and not a megawatt second (a reduction of 1/3600). I would really want to see this as documented or published price to the public domain and not heresay.

I don't think you'll ever see a document stating what Alcoa actually pays. it is common knowledge amongst Alcoan employees what the rate 'is'. Alcoa were smart to tie up a lot of details in confidentiality agreements when they opened thePortland smelter.

[xtremerus]

Originally Posted by zilo

Errr...it's the same thing.

A megawatt per second x 3600 = 1 megawatt/hr.

A megawatt per second = 3600 megawatt/hr

Fixed

[cupic]

Corporation greed is never satisfied

Watch for the next onslaught

[snowcone]

I can only comment on the situation in NSW as I was employed by the previously State owned Electricity Commision of NSW.
In those days we had cheap power and it was very profitable for the government.
Power was cheap for a number of reasons - NSW had copious amounts of clean burning, low ash coal, the power stations were strategically located wthin the Southern and Hunter coalfields, and there was a plentiful water supply available. NSW was also leading the world in coal fired thermal power generation technology and we were exporting this technology to other countries including the middle east.
The Electricity Commision employed thousands of workers across the state, there was plenty of power and even enough left over to put it into Victoria's grid when the need arose, everyone was happy and then..........................
the NSW government decided that it wanted to eat it's cake too and decided it could get a pile of money by selling the Power Stations to private companies (they wanted to sell the transmission lines too but that's another story)
To make the deal look attractive they needed the power stations top show a bigger profit on paper and this started with wholesale retrenchment of employees and their replacement with contractors (at a much higher cost to the tax payers but it showed up in a different set of account books) and the increasing of wholesale pricing of power to the distributors.
As well as this the NSW government decided that it was not going to invest in any new power stations and that responsibility for a major part of the existing transmission lines and substations would be handed over to the distributors (Energy Australia etc).
As power demand increased and the need for a new base load power station was becoming inevitable, the government did 2 things. One of them was to keep increasing the cost of power and at the same time use these increases as a reason for consumers to try and reduce their power consumption. This just kept skyrocketing though because no matter how much you reduced your useage, the cost still went up. More power was still required but rather than commit to a new coal fired power station and upset the hairy armpitted brigade, they elected to supply a few gas turbine generators at existing power stations that could be fired up at high demand times.
Increasing costs to consumers also increased profits and this made the power stations look even better on paper for the big sell off.
Overall, there should never have been the need for any of the increases that have occurred over the past 10-15 years - we still had plenty of good coal, the water was still there, the major power stations were still running efficiently, the technology was still current, but the government didn't do any maintenance (it's maintenace workforce was depleted due to retrenchment) and didn't commit to any future infrastructure, but it still took all the profits that should have been going back into this area.
end of rant

[GASWAGON]

What a bloody joke! This country is going backwards that's for sure...

[MarkAW]

Originally Posted by flappist

The tarrifs are quite complex and involve vas, vars, peak, draw, jitter, time and duration not just simply watts per hour.

Technobabble

The contract between end user and supplier doesn't define any of this as they are functions of the meter design.

The contract equates watts/hour (whether they are kilowatts, megawatts or gigawatts) with a cost in dollars. In some circumstances time of day metering is in effect - not normally done with megawatt end users other than by contractual claims and historical profiles.

[2011G6E]

Australia has some of the worlds biggest reserves of uranium and thorium, yet steadfastly denies itself the chance to build the latest-tech safe and clean reactors to power our country cheaply. "Massive amounts" of nuclear waste? Nope...a large power plant produces less than a bucket full a year, and we have one of the most geologically stable continents with vast areas of nothing with deep, deep bedrock to dispose of it safely. Danger to nearby people? Nope...you actually have a far greater danger from radioactivity living near a coal fired plant because of fly ash. Overall safety? No problem...you can't use the three big accidents that everyone screams about as an example of how things should be done...Japan built a reactor right by the coast on a damn fault zone where they always have earthquakes, Chernobyl was fifty year old badly maintained technology run by drunks, Three Mile Island didn't hurt anyone at all, not one person.
France gets 80% of it's power from atomic power...what do they replace it with if they close them down? Germany is closing it's reactors because of green pressure, but is, funnily enough, replacing them with coal fired power stations...that's much better. China is touted as an environmental beacon because they are closing twenty old dirty coal fired stations...but less spoken of is how they are replacing them with over sixty new coal fired stations as well as more nuclear plants.

The public has been blatantly lied to by activists and green groups for decades, and unfortunately it will take a LOT to change public opinion.


As for our energy, the biggest mistake could be to privatise it all in the name of "efficiency"...because once you have shareholders, only one thing matters, and that's increasing profits, year on year, who cares about the cost to the public.

"Green" energy sources are a lie...pure and simple. Solar is wonderful...for individual houses. Wind has more problems than you can list, and none of the alternatives is, well, an alternative to coal or nuclear...none has the constant, on demand, base-load capacity that coal and nuclear have, and probably never will.

[MarkAW]

Don't seriously quote me on this but I believe the world wide known reserves of uranium ore are somewhat limited at approx 200 years on current consumption. If Aus were to go nuclear generation the reserves would be consumed somewhat quicker, let alone if the rest of the world wanted atomic power. Consumption could also be offset by decommissioning weapons grade plutonium.

The biggest obstacle is the "not in my backyard" syndrome. This worked at Lucas Heights until the neighborhood started being populated with residences and these people have the gall to demand Lucas Heights be decommissioned. By the time you get far enough away from populated areas, your load losses from transmission (wires) become a significant loss.

Me personally I agree with Nuc Power but I also work within state government and get a very close view of how the tendering process works - its what I do.
Do you really want a nuclear power plant built by the cheapest tenderer?

Maybe what should be considered are gas fired turbines combined with solar field technology (mirror farms - not PE cells). The mirror farms can provide the low end energy input coupled with natural gas to top the system off.

[XW-BAXR6T]

This is the future...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPPBkhjp1fY

[jpblue1000]

having worked with the UK nuclear industry and had discussions with barbara lady judge the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority Im nowhere near convinced. the known fuel is very limited and would not satisfy a 100% conversion for current and predicted consumption globally. It would however bridge a gap between fosil fuel use and a renewable future, one that does scare the nuke brigade and fossil fuel lobby as they know their time is limited.
But nuclear going wrong is still better globally then coal when its working fine!
But the question needs to be asked do we want to leave a legacy forever for cheap easy solution. is our 20 year economic benefit worth the cost to the next milleneum or two worth of generations to look after our mess. Even if there is no 'disaster' they pay for the upkeep, maintenance and whatever is necessary of our nbuclear waste. Modern reactors are so far pretty well designed, but they still produce waste and risk and as when they get older we don't know the implications.
I know when a nuke plant fails I don't want to be anywhere near it...ever, when a coal plant is going right I dont want it anywhere near me, but when renewablkes fail...they fall down, they burst or they sink. no dramas. I believe a mandadted move to renewables with appropriate redeployment of investment capital in our country will save the economy.

JP

[zilo]

Originally Posted by xtremerus

A megawatt per second = 3600 megawatt/hr

Fixed

That is incorrect.

[Charliewool]

Love a slab on it Zilo?
3600 mw per second = 1 mw per hr. Fact!!

[Charliewool]

Oooops, Other way around
1 mw per second = 3600 mw hr!
(5 carltons too many)

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by zilo

That is incorrect.

No it's not...

[karj]

Units guys... Megawatt hours (MW.h) or megawatt seconds (MW.s) are completely different units to megawatts per hour (MW/h) or megawatts per second (MW/s).

1 MW/h = 1 MW/(s*60*60)
1 MW/h = 1 MW/(s*3600)
3600 MW/h = 1 MW/s

1 MW.h = 1 MW.(s*60*60)
1 MW.h = 1 MW.(s*3600)
1 MW.h = 3600 MW.s
1/3600 MW.h = 1 MW.s