By Anton Lang ~
Week 45
This is the continuing Post, where each Saturday, I will detail the power consumption for the Base Load in Australia for the previous week. This will show what is actually meant by the term Base Load, and that is the minimum daily power consumption at its lowest point. Power consumption never falls below this point.
Here in Australia, that level of power is 18,000MW. (See data for the Running Weekly Average For Base Load below)
The Bayswater Coal Fired Power Plant In New South Wales
This data I have collated below is for this last week, and is for the five States connected to the Australian grids, every State east of the Western Australian border, and here I will show that data for each of those five States, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
As you can see from these numbers, that huge amount of power is being supplied mainly by coal fired power, and on most days that coal fired power provides 80% or more of that level of power, at that time, when power consumption is at its lowest level, that total of 18,000MW.
All of this data is taken at a single point in time, and that is at 4AM of every day, when nearly all of us are sound asleep.
For the Introduction and background for this Base Load, refer back to the original Post at this link.
This is the permanent link to all the Posts with the data from each week.
For the purposes of this data, the sources are as follows.
Total Power consumption for each State
Fossil Fuel totals and Coal Fired power totals
All these totals are from 4AM on each day, the time of minimum power consumption.
There are no coal fired power plants in South Australia or in Tasmania.
*****
Sunday 6th May 2018
New South Wales – 5950MW (Coal Fired Power – 4900MW)
Queensland – 5110MW (Coal Fired Power – 5100MW)
Victoria – 3730MW (Coal Fired Power – 4400MW)
South Australia – 1070MW
Tasmania – 960MW
Total – 16820MW
Fossil Fuel – 15300MW (Total coal fired power – 14400MW – 85.6% of the overall total of 16820MW)
Hydro – 900MW
Wind – 1000MW (5.9% of the total)
Renewable power – 11.3% of the total.
Sunday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 23830MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 17700MW (74.3%)
Monday 7th May 2018
New South Wales – 6190MW (Coal Fired Power – 4600MW)
Queensland – 5290MW (Coal Fired Power – 4600MW)
Victoria – 3660MW (Coal Fired Power – 3900MW)
South Australia – 910MW
Tasmania – 990MW
Total – 17040MW
Fossil Fuel – 13800MW (Total coal fired power – 13100MW – 76.9% of the overall total of 17040MW)
Hydro – 1200MW
Wind – 2700MW (15.8% of the total)
Renewable power – 22.9% of the total.
Monday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 25440MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 18800MW (73.9%)
Tuesday 8th May 2018
New South Wales – 6260MW (Coal Fired Power – 5300MW)
Queensland – 5070MW (Coal Fired Power – 5300MW)
Victoria – 4010MW (Coal Fired Power – 4400MW)
South Australia – 1190MW
Tasmania – 1010MW
Total – 17540MW
Fossil Fuel – 16100MW (Total coal fired power – 15000MW – 85.5% of the overall total of 17540MW)
Hydro – 1000MW
Wind – 600MW (3.4% of the total)
Renewable power – 9.1% of the total.
Tuesday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 26090MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 18000MW (69%)
Wednesday 9th May 2018
New South Wales – 6260MW (Coal Fired Power – 5000MW)
Queensland – 5290MW (Coal Fired Power – 5500MW)
Victoria – 3990MW (Coal Fired Power – 4400MW)
South Australia – 1170MW
Tasmania – 970MW
Total – 17680MW
Fossil Fuel – 16200MW (Total coal fired power – 14900MW – 84.3% of the overall total of 17680MW)
Hydro – 1000MW
Wind – 800MW (4.5% of the total)
Renewable power – 10.2% of the total.
Wednesday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 25470MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 17800MW (69.9%)
Thursday 10th May 2018
New South Wales – 6180MW (Coal Fired Power – 4400MW)
Queensland – 5370MW (Coal Fired Power – 5200MW)
Victoria – 3790MW (Coal Fired Power – 3800MW)
South Australia – 930MW
Tasmania – 1070MW
Total – 17340MW
Fossil Fuel – 14000MW (Total coal fired power – 13400MW – 77.3% of the overall total of 17340MW)
Hydro – 1400MW
Wind – 2700MW (15.6% of the total)
Renewable power – 23.6% of the total.
Thursday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 26660MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 17600MW (66%)
Friday 11th May 2018
New South Wales – 6420MW (Coal Fired Power – 4500MW)
Queensland – 5190MW (Coal Fired Power – 5100MW)
Victoria – 4080MW (Coal Fired Power – 3900MW)
South Australia – 890MW
Tasmania – 920MW
Total – 17500MW
Fossil Fuel – 14000MW (Total coal fired power – 13500MW – 77.1% of the overall total of 17500MW)
Hydro – 1000MW
Wind – 3100MW (17.7% of the total)
Renewable power – 23.4% of the total.
Friday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 26570MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 18200MW (68.5%)
Saturday 12th May 2018
New South Wales – 6360MW (Coal Fired Power – 4500MW)
Queensland – 5110MW (Coal Fired Power – 4800MW)
Victoria – 3750MW (Coal Fired Power – 4300MW)
South Australia – 1010MW
Tasmania – 1030MW
Total – 17260MW
Fossil Fuel – 14200MW (Total coal fired power – 13600MW – 78.8% of the overall total of 17260MW)
Hydro – 1000MW
Wind – 2500MW (14.4% of the total)
Renewable power – 20.3% of the total.
Saturday Peak Power at 6PM – Total Power Consumption – 24770MW and Coal Fired Power supplied 18300MW (73.9%)
*****
This Week’s Average For Base Load – 17312MW
This Week’s Average For Base Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 13936MW – 80.5%
Running Weekly Average For Base Load – 17953MW
Running Weekly Average For Base Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 14539MW – 81%
*****
This Week’s Average For Peak Load – 25548MW
This Week’s Average For Peak Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 18058MW – 70.7%
*****
Comments For This Last Week
This week, again, that figure for the Base Load rolling average fell ever so slightly to just under 18000MW, and that is normal for this time of year. As Winter starts to kick in at the start of next Month, it will again rise to be over that figure. The figures differ little from week to week at his time of year, and about the only noticeable thing is the number of coal fired Units off line as they undergo maintenance in the lead up to the time when they are required the most, during that coming Winter. This was most noticeable in New South Wales, where for most of this week, they had three to four of those large Units off line, and as those Plants in that State have large Units, that takes anything up to 2500MW out of the system. This can be covered easily enough as during the late morning and early afternoon, total power consumption in that State falls by around that same amount when compared to Summer power consumption in that State. While the evening Peak is similar, albeit also slightly smaller than when compared with mid Summer, that total power consumption at the Peak can be covered by the power imports from the adjoining State to the North, Queensland, which regularly supplies anything up to 1100MW into its neighbouring State via the two Interconnectors.
As you can also see, the Peak Power consumption, now solidly back at the Winter time of 6PM also fell slightly, as it has been every week, down from Summer highs as large as 30000MW, and sometimes higher. Even so, coal fired power is still regularly delivering between 70 and 75% of that, and even the amount delivered from coal fired power at that 4AM time of minimum power consumption is still above that figure of 80%, both for the week, and also for that rolling average as well.
The figure for Hydro Power is also still up or 1000MW at 4A and again, that is because the Interconnector between Tasmania and Victoria is still out of action, and all of Tasmania’s power must still be coming from Hydro, as that is all they have, considering that overnight normally, the Island State is being topped up be the coal fired power from Victoria, and they only (ordinarily) ramp up their own Hydro during the day when it is required the most.
Wind power actually had a fairly good week, even though there were still 2 bad days when it was only delivering around 3.5 to 5% of what was the total power being consumed. In fact, it was a little lucky that Wind power did have those three or so big days with those coal fired Units off line, because it meant that fewer natural gas fired plants were needed to top up the system, as the cost of natural gas is so high.
The New Australian Power Electrical Power Data Series
This will be the new Series that was suggested to me a couple of weeks back. I had hoped to have it up and running last week, but it became a little more difficult than I thought it would be at first. I had hoped to make it a weekly Post with all the data for each day of the week. However, during the first week of collating the data and then putting it the one Post, I soon realised that each Post would be absolutely huge, and in doing it that way, it would probably lose some of its effect, so I had to rethink the whole process. While the data collection may be only smallish in nature, the fact that there are eight images for each day soon made the length of the Post absolutely huge if I was to include the data as well.
To that end, I have decided to do the whole thing on a daily basis, with just the eight images, the data and some comments into a single daily Post with just the information for that one day in that Post. At the end of each week, I will then add the totals for a weekly total, average, and percentage for each of the sources of power generation that there are across this coverage area in Australia.
That, of itself, then necessitated a rethink on the daily process, so I had to compile a new template that I can then copy and paste for each day, and then just insert the data and the images into that template for the day.
Hence the reason that it has not yet appeared.
However, what I needed to do even before all that was to write an Introductory Post where I could explain the format and with some text explaining each of the images, and what the image shows, and then to explain how the image can be used to compile the data from that image.
That Introductory Post is at this link below:
The Daily Posts will be starting during this coming week.
What I did find during the early stages of doing the first Post, even before I changed it, was a similar thing I found when doing this Base Load Series of Posts. Coal fired power supplies the major percentage of power not only on the basis of at that 4AM minimum consumption, but across the whole 24 hour period, and that again confirms what I have been saying all along, that when it comes to coal fired power, there just is no substitute.
Anton Lang uses the screen name of TonyfromOz, and he writes at this site, PA Pundits International on topics related to electrical power generation, from all sources, concentrating mainly on Renewable Power, and how the two most favoured methods of renewable power generation, Wind Power and all versions of Solar Power, fail comprehensively to deliver levels of power required to replace traditional power generation. His Bio is at this link.
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Sun 05/13/2018
Reblogged this on Brittius.
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