Lake Onslow Pumped Hydro a goer.

[harm_less]

It sounds like the development of this pumped hydro project has been given a further go ahead. National et al are against the idea so yet another reason to keep them in opposition later this year.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3008315...-price-tag

[Lilith7]

It makes good sense, & National give the impression of only being against it because Labour are for it.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Such great news! At last, something good coming from politics...

[harm_less]

It makes good sense, & National give the impression of only being against it because Labour are for it.

National are on the side of big business which includes the big generating companies who stand to lose by not being able to profit from peak wholesale pricing as storage capacity will level NZ's generating capacity on a real time basis. As with any National strategy just follow the money stream.

[Wainuiguy]

$16 billion to do. Which actually means it will be closer to $30 billion by the time they get around to doing anything. Seems that could build a shit load of wind, solar and hydro surely?

[harm_less]

$16 billion to do.  Which actually means it will be closer to $30 billion by the time they get around to doing anything.  Seems that could build a shit load of wind, solar and hydro surely?

The main point of the project is to provide storage to buffer the intermittancy of wind and solar, together with offsetting hydro shortfall in dry years. Onslow will stop the extortionate peak wholesale rates that are so damaging to our current supply set-up and requires the thermal backup generation which is ruining our emission targets.

Put the cost against the increasing price of providing hydrocarbons for peak generation and the $16b gains a bit of relevancy.

[Wainuiguy]

It makes good sense, & National give the impression of only being against it because Labour are for it.

National are on the side of big business which includes the big generating companies who stand to lose by not being able to profit from peak wholesale pricing as storage capacity will level NZ's generating capacity on a real time basis. As with any National strategy just follow the money stream.

Who is the major shareholder in most of the NZ power companies?

---

$16 billion to do.  Which actually means it will be closer to $30 billion by the time they get around to doing anything.  Seems that could build a shit load of wind, solar and hydro surely?

The main point of the project is to provide storage to buffer the intermittancy of wind and solar, together with offsetting hydro shortfall in dry years. Onslow will stop the extortionate peak wholesale rates that are so damaging to our current supply set-up and requires the thermal backup generation which is ruining our emission targets.

Put the cost against the increasing price of providing hydrocarbons for peak generation and the $16b gains a bit of relevancy.

We need to invest in more hydro, especially in areas where there is plenty of rain I.e. the West Coast.  The dams on the Waikato are quickly approaching their end of life and will need to be replaced or majorly upgraded.  And $16 billion won't be the cost - you know this so stop quoting that price.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

The sooner it is done the lower the cost...

[Lilith7]

The sooner it is done the lower the cost...

And the sooner we can benefit from it. Its similar to any large project here - necessary but costly, & the longer its put off the more its likely to cost.

[Zurdo]

Which is the problem now...and forever, these projects cost so much money. The Auckland rail project, and The Great Interceptor, long, long overdue, and so very expensive...but to delay further the costs would be almost insurmountable.

[harm_less]

We need to invest in more hydro, especially in areas where there is plenty of rain I.e. the West Coast.  The dams on the Waikato are quickly approaching their end of life and will need to be replaced or majorly upgraded.  And $16 billion won't be the cost - you know this so stop quoting that price.

Lake Onslow is "more hydro" and the cost of $15.7b is what is stated in the news article. Do you also have an issue with the expected $2.2b/year for hydrocarbon export cost to cover generation shortfall without the storage potential of Onslow?

All prices/costs are a snapshot and will increase over time due to inflation and changing business modelling. I can remember when petrol cost <$1/gallon in the mid 1970s but the decades since then have made that price totally irrelevant in today's terms. The same will apply for fuel, electricity and construction prices going into the future.

---

Which is the problem now...and forever, these projects cost so much money. The Auckland rail project, and The Great Interceptor, long, long overdue, and so very expensive...but to delay further the costs would be almost insurmountable.

The most important thing is to have the foresight to accurately see the long term value of such projects.

For example at the time of construction the Gas to Gasoline plant at Motunui in North Taranaki I seem to remember a cost of $2b being touted. The reasoning was that the synthetic petrol this plant was to produce would insulate NZ from rising international oil prices but these fears were shortlived and the plant dispensed with the methanol to petrol part of the process and was sold to Methanex who are still converting our remaining natural gas reserves to methanol for export. The short term thinking in constructing that plant has proved to be an expense folly.

Lake Onslow is based on a far longer time frame of self sufficiency with many more advantages for NZ's domestic energy sector. The investment of $16b, or whatever the end cost will be, is far better thought out that the knee jerk reactionary thinking of National's 1980's Think Big projects, which also include the Waitara Valley methanol plant, Ballance's Ammonia Urea plant, the Marsden Point refinery expansion all of which have become white elephants.

Along the same lines how wise is the plan to spend $4b on Auckland Airport in the face of a world that is increasingly reducing their international travels for reasons of emissions, pandemics and reduced personal financial standing considering our location being so geographically isolated?

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Not only is it cheaper to do soonest, but our dry times cost the economy more than the individual, and businesses more still. I wonder if the Nats have thought their opposition through.

[harm_less]

Not only is it cheaper to do soonest, but our dry times cost the economy more than the individual, and businesses more still. I wonder if the Nats have thought their opposition through.

And as we are now heading into a El Niño climatic pattern that dry spell may be all too close. This podcast covers Australia's expected extreme fire season later this year and also explains what strategies the climate change deniers have now adopted as ever increasingly extreme weather events deny them creditability in outright denial. A very interesting listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/dr...0604183126

[nzoomed]

Is this the same technology where they use excess power to pump water back into the lake during low grid demands so as to re-coup some energy back when its needed?
from an efficiency standpoint I would like to see some figures, its still costing power to pump the water back up, and would obviously use more energy to do that than what you get back, but if its electricity that would otherwise be wasted, I guess it makes sense, I guess the dollar for dollar investment needs to be taken into consideration on what it would take to make it a financially viable option.

Personally I think we need to diversify our energy needs more and we rely far too heavily on hydro.
What will our energy demands be going forward with the rise of EV's? There will need to be an incentive to charge vehicles during off peak times to balance grid loads, among other things.
El Nino weather patterns favour wind power really well, but they can be utterly useless when there is no wind. Im quite interested to see the potential that tidal power could offer, its a constant energy source that will never be depleted and is there 24/7. So far no one has developed it on such a large scale, but could be a good thing for Kiwis to develop, we have alot of clever people here!

[harm_less]

Is this the same technology where they use excess power to pump water back into the lake during low grid demands so as to re-coup some energy back when its needed?
from an efficiency standpoint I would like to see some figures, its still costing power to pump the water back up, and would obviously use more energy to do that than what you get back, but if its electricity that would otherwise be wasted, I guess it makes sense, I guess the dollar for dollar investment needs to be taken into consideration on what it would take to make it a financially viable option.

Personally I think we need to diversify our energy needs more and we rely far too heavily on hydro.
What will our energy demands be going forward with the rise of EV's? There will need to be an incentive to charge vehicles during off peak times to balance grid loads, among other things.
El Nino weather patterns favour wind power really well, but they can be utterly useless when there is no wind. Im quite interested to see the potential that tidal power could offer, its a constant energy source that will never be depleted and is there 24/7. So far no one has developed it on such a large scale, but could be a good thing for Kiwis to develop, we have alot of clever people here!

The workings and economics of pumped hydro explained well here:



Also from discussion I've read on Newsroom: "In sum, Onslow is unique in that it would effectively meet all three objectives of the so-called energy trilemma by improving security of supply, reducing electricity prices and lowering emissions. It is rare in electricity markets for proposed solutions to address all three aspects of the energy trilemma simultaneously." https://pce.parliament.nz/media/ndudvpxt...rategy.pdf

Presently it frustrates me that every electricity outage story prompts an attempt to blame the added load on our grid of (incentivised) EVs but the government stubbornly sits on its hands in regards to offering any incentive for those of us who are addressing the problem of supply in our own DIY approach by installing PV and home battery storage. The Lake Onslow scheme would provide stability to our grid supply and wholesale power prices while also being additional storage for exported domestic and excess utility scale PV installations. Incidentally large numbers of EVs also present their own grid storage solution by way of Vehicle to Grid technology. This is very much in its infancy in NZ, AU and UK but is likely to gain popularity and economic viability as the technology and home infrastructure required mature.

To suggest that the answer lies in bringing a lot more solar and wind onstream as National's Nicola Willis is is very poorly thought through as to be able to address peak demand on a daily and longer term basis would entail huge amounts of this generation to cover the intermittency of generation which would result in significant oversupply at times, with nowhere to store it under present infrastructure.

We have a company here in Taranaki who are presently working on a design for tidal generation but like many such projects they are having to deal with the very high maintenance issues presented in marine environments. For a large scale turbine type installation the negative effects on sea life is also problematic and has scuttled plans for such an installation in the Kaipara Harbour and also lead to the closure of a barrage system in Nova Scotia. (I was living in that area in 2004 when a whale and its mother ended up on either side of the turbine.)

[nzoomed]

Is this the same technology where they use excess power to pump water back into the lake during low grid demands so as to re-coup some energy back when its needed?
from an efficiency standpoint I would like to see some figures, its still costing power to pump the water back up, and would obviously use more energy to do that than what you get back, but if its electricity that would otherwise be wasted, I guess it makes sense, I guess the dollar for dollar investment needs to be taken into consideration on what it would take to make it a financially viable option.

Personally I think we need to diversify our energy needs more and we rely far too heavily on hydro.
What will our energy demands be going forward with the rise of EV's? There will need to be an incentive to charge vehicles during off peak times to balance grid loads, among other things.
El Nino weather patterns favour wind power really well, but they can be utterly useless when there is no wind. Im quite interested to see the potential that tidal power could offer, its a constant energy source that will never be depleted and is there 24/7. So far no one has developed it on such a large scale, but could be a good thing for Kiwis to develop, we have alot of clever people here!

The workings and economics of pumped hydro explained well here:



Also from discussion I've read on Newsroom: "In sum, Onslow is unique in that it would effectively meet all three objectives of the so-called energy trilemma by improving security of supply, reducing electricity prices and lowering emissions. It is rare in electricity markets for proposed solutions to address all three aspects of the energy trilemma simultaneously." https://pce.parliament.nz/media/ndudvpxt...rategy.pdf

Presently it frustrates me that every electricity outage story prompts an attempt to blame the added load on our grid of (incentivised) EVs but the government stubbornly sits on its hands in regards to offering any incentive for those of us who are addressing the problem of supply in our own DIY approach by installing PV and home battery storage. The Lake Onslow scheme would provide stability to our grid supply and wholesale power prices while also being additional storage for exported domestic and excess utility scale PV installations. Incidentally large numbers of EVs also present their own grid storage solution by way of Vehicle to Grid technology. This is very much in its infancy in NZ, AU and UK but is likely to gain popularity and economic viability as the technology and home infrastructure required mature.

To suggest that the answer lies in bringing a lot more solar and wind onstream as National's Nicola Willis is is very poorly thought through as to be able to address peak demand on a daily and longer term basis would entail huge amounts of this generation to cover the intermittency of generation which would result in significant oversupply at times, with nowhere to store it under present infrastructure.

We have a company here in Taranaki who are presently working on a design for tidal generation but like many such projects they are having to deal with the very high maintenance issues presented in marine environments. For a large scale turbine type installation the negative effects on sea life is also problematic and has scuttled plans for such an installation in the Kaipara Harbour and also lead to the closure of a barrage system in Nova Scotia. (I was living in that area in 2004 when a whale and its mother ended up on either side of the turbine.)

Thats interseting to see, I didnt know the UK had such a system running, I know they are in europe with the likes of Germany I think.
There should be more incentives for homeowners to install solar PV systems on their homes much like they do in Australia.
I think a big issue from what ive been told is that the grid would not be able to cope with the extra load if there was a surplus amount of solar power going into the grid.
Perhaps this is true, I know a friend tells me that he is unable to put any more than 5kW or something into his street and he has a ton of panels, but no battery yet, and they want him to pay for upgrading the street if he plans to sell all his surplus generation capacity.

Regarding tidal power I would have thought maintenance and installation would be the biggest issue, I feel the issues surrounding marine life is a little overblown, are they concerned about them sucking in dolphins, etc, or just fish?
Could they not simply add some sort of screen or mesh on the intake to stop large objects getting sucked in?

[harm_less]

Thats interseting to see, I didnt know the UK had such a system running, I know they are in europe with the likes of Germany I think.
There should be more incentives for homeowners to install solar PV systems on their homes much like they do in Australia.
I think a big issue from what ive been told is that the grid would not be able to cope with the extra load if there was a surplus amount of solar power going into the grid.
Perhaps this is true, I know a friend tells me that he is unable to put any more than 5kW or something into his street and he has a ton of panels, but no battery yet, and they want him to pay for upgrading the street if he plans to sell all his surplus generation capacity.

Regarding tidal power I would have thought maintenance and installation would be the biggest issue, I feel the issues surrounding marine life is a little overblown, are they concerned about them sucking in dolphins, etc, or just fish?
Could they not simply add some sort of screen or mesh on the intake to stop large objects getting sucked in?

I'm dealing with a 5kW/phase export limit by Powerco presently as we are upgrading our PV from 5kW to ~8.5kW to enable us to fully supply our 7kW EV charger from our own solar generation. Powerco's reason is that more than 5kW per phase runs the risk of unbalancing their phases.

We have multiple phases into our property, just not out to the building where our PV is sited and running the extra phase there isn't practical due to physical constraints. The fact that we have the bulk of our house's circuits on the same phase as the PV (i.e. to maximise our self-consumption) and totalling a fused loading beyond the 63A property maximum (but offset by EV charger and HWC being PV fed) didn't sway them (5kW is only 22A after all). It's looking like we will have to throttle our export if the 5kW limit is breeched which hopefully we can minimise by self consumption at crucial times.

The NZ electricity supply system is far from inviting to those of us with domestic generation but we can only hope that this perspective will change as TPTB realise the value of distributed generation and micro-grids can present in terms of power supply resilience.

Regarding tidal power installations the damage to marine life is real and minced fish and marine mammals isn't a great look for what is promoted as sustainable power generation. It's also not as easy as putting screens in place as these will accumulate weed and other debris over time which then presents a reduction in generation as well as a hazardous cleaning job for maintenance workers.

[nzoomed]

Thats interseting to see, I didnt know the UK had such a system running, I know they are in europe with the likes of Germany I think.
There should be more incentives for homeowners to install solar PV systems on their homes much like they do in Australia.
I think a big issue from what ive been told is that the grid would not be able to cope with the extra load if there was a surplus amount of solar power going into the grid.
Perhaps this is true, I know a friend tells me that he is unable to put any more than 5kW or something into his street and he has a ton of panels, but no battery yet, and they want him to pay for upgrading the street if he plans to sell all his surplus generation capacity.

Regarding tidal power I would have thought maintenance and installation would be the biggest issue, I feel the issues surrounding marine life is a little overblown, are they concerned about them sucking in dolphins, etc, or just fish?
Could they not simply add some sort of screen or mesh on the intake to stop large objects getting sucked in?

I'm dealing with a 5kW/phase export limit by Powerco presently as we are upgrading our PV from 5kW to ~8.5kW to enable us to fully supply our 7kW EV charger from our own solar generation. Powerco's reason is that more than 5kW per phase runs the risk of unbalancing their phases.

We have multiple phases into our property, just not out to the building where our PV is sited and running the extra phase there isn't practical due to physical constraints. The fact that we have the bulk of our house's circuits on the same phase as the PV (i.e. to maximise our self-consumption) and totalling a fused loading beyond the 63A property maximum (but offset by EV charger and HWC being PV fed) didn't sway them (5kW is only 22A after all). It's looking like we will have to throttle our export if the 5kW limit is breeched which hopefully we can minimise by self consumption at crucial times.

The NZ electricity supply system is far from inviting to those of us with domestic generation but we can only hope that this perspective will change as TPTB realise the value of distributed generation and micro-grids can present in terms of power supply resilience.

Regarding tidal power installations the damage to marine life is real and minced fish and marine mammals isn't a great look for what is promoted as sustainable power generation. It's also not as easy as putting screens in place as these will accumulate weed and other debris over time which then presents a reduction in generation as well as a hazardous cleaning job for maintenance workers.

OK, that makes alot of sense with phase balancing, this is probably the issue my friend has.
If more people had solar on the street, it would actually be a better thing in this regard, as they could place neighbours on alternating phases to balance them out and would largely eliminate the problem.
He is the only person on his street with solar, so this wont help things.
If you were to load balance yourself across 3 phases, it would require some expensive equipment.

I once met a person contracted by trustpower who was in charge of capturing eels on the water intake to a power station, he said they were being more proactive around it, but said the eels would typically pass through the turbines fine, depending on their size with some that may get injured, but they have put a screen up and they capture them all and then release down stream of the power station.
I think there is potential to design a tidal system that would minimise risk, I dont think the turbines would spin ultra fast in the ocean currents, especially under grid load, ive seen concepts that look more like a wind farm that sits underwater rather than the turbine in a tube which would present much more issues with the likes of seaweed, etc.
Either way, I think its worth watching what happens with it in Europe.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

We do not have the time to 'watch what happens' elsewhere. We have an increasingly short window of opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the inevitable.

We need to get the guts to act now, and invest heavily in genuine future proofing. Watching what happens with other options risks leaving us way behind, and up to our necks in disaster.

[Lilith7]

We do not have the time to 'watch what happens' elsewhere. We have an increasingly short window of opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the inevitable.

We need to get the guts to act now, and invest heavily in genuine future proofing. Watching what happens with other options risks leaving us way behind, and up to our necks in disaster.

I think we need a stronger dose of Green in govt - here & everywhere. There isn't really another choice.