Electrical Power Data In Pictures – Supply And Consumption And Renewables – Part 2

Posted on Fri 09/02/2022 by

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By Anton Lang ~

Again be aware that this data is not for any time far into the past, as this data is current to just two days ago.

Every image you see in this Post is sized at a smaller size to best fit the page. If you click on any of the images, each one will open on a new page, and at a much larger size so you see the detail better.

The last image I showed you from the earlier Post was this one.

Okay, the first thing to note from this image is the dates at the top I have circled in red. Note that this is from 31August to 31 August. So here we have an extra day, as I mentioned that the year starts from the 1st September.

So, what we need to do is now subtract the figures for that earlier date 31 Aug 2021. From those vertical lines indicating daily power and the sources, those figures for that day are as follows:

Total Power – 557GWh, Solar (Rooftop) – 42GWh, Solar (Utility) – 22GWh, Wind – 90GWh, Hydro – 35GWh.

That leaves us with the new totals for just the 365 days as:

Total Generated Power – 207,531GWH

Solar (Rooftop) – 17640GWh

Solar (Utility) – 10428GWh

Wind – 25216GWh

Hydro – 16558GWh

Again, I mentioned the Electrical terms and how they can sometimes be misunderstood by nearly everyone not specifically trained with an Electrical Engineering background. One of those is the actual definition of what those figures are expressed in, that tern GWH. That stands for GigaWattHours. Electrical engineering uses powers of ten because some numbers are so huge, that to express them without using those powers of ten would mean some pretty huge numbers, and here, as an example that top number, the total power consumed across the whole year is (now) 207,531GWH, and that is 207,531,000,000,000 Watts. The powers of ten are expressed Kilo (1000) Mega (1,000,000) Giga (1,000,000,000) and Terra (1,000,000,000,000) As a person not trained in electrical matters, you would actually still be exposed to them every so often, and that would be with your electricity account you receive from your provider. All of the electrical power usage on those accounts is expressed in KWH. So, using that as an example, you can see the immensity of those figures here for what is basically the whole of Australia.

Okay, so here we now have exact figures for the full year.

From those exact figures we can then find an average of them for just one day. Now look, even I know that nothing is average when it comes to electrical power generation or consumption. The numbers required are absolute, and a twenty four hour day’s power consumption for this vast coverage area varies from a low of 493GWH for the lowest day of the year, to a high of 678GWH for the highest day. However, an average is indicative of what is actually being consumed across the year,, and using those averages, I can then show you an image of what power generation and power consumption looks like.

So, using those exact figures, we now can work out the averages for the total power, and those four Renewable sources I want to concentrate on.

The average for those five indicators are as follows:

Total Generated Power – 568GWH

Solar (Rooftop) – 48GWh

Solar (Utility) – 28GWh

Wind – 69GWh

Hydro – 45GWh

Okay, there you have it.

Again, these are just numbers on the page, so what we could do now is to find an image for what that actually looks like.

Firstly, what we need to do first is to locate that one day across those 365 days of the year when all those indicators are the same as for the actual figures we have worked out from the totals.

365 days to choose from. That should be a fairly easy thing, surely.

In fact, there were only THREE days across the whole year where that total of 568GWH was generated/consumed. And not one of those days had those other four indicators even remotely close to the numbers we have calculated as ….. ‘average’.

So now I had to cast an even wider net to find a day where the figures for that day were as close as they could be to all five of those indicators. I settled on firstly finding a day closest to the overall total, and even using a two percent range, it was still not very easy, and here two percent of that 568GWH gives a range between 556GW and 579GWH, and that’s a pretty wide margin considering that gap is 23GWH, and remembering the powers of ten, that’s 23,000,000,000 Watts, so that’s a pretty humugous range.

Okay, that 2% margin gave me now 21 days across the full 365 day year. And from those 21 days, again, none of them had the other four averages even close.

So, the one day when all indicators were the closest to the averages for all five of them was the 7th September 2021. And now, as I mentioned, this is basically to show you images of what power generation/consumption looks like, here’s the image of that day from the same NEM source of all those earlier images. (Reminder, view the image on the larger page)

Okay, first, I have used an arrow to point to that day on the chart of vertical colours indicating power sources. You can (vaguely) see the orange vertical line, indicating that day is highlighted. The actual date is circled, also in red, at the top right. Under that and circled in black are the five data points we are concentrating on.

Now using the blue coloured circles and the line between them I want to show you a very minor perceived anomaly. Note the black circled total is 562GWH, and yet the average for this day shown in the upper blue circle is 558GWH. The lower blue circle is under the heading of Loads, and the two loads are the minute on of battery charging, and the much larger one of Pumps. Now those pumps are the huge pumps used by Pumped Hydro Units at Tumut Three mainly to pump water back up the Mountain to the upper holding water dam. Now some (green leaning) sites would like to think of this is not to be counted as it is used in the generation of power, you know as if the power is there somehow magically. It actually IS power that is being consumed, and in both cases, battery, and pumps, there are losses associated with both anyway, so it’s a little disingenuous to say that the power is NOT being consumed. So that’s why I use the total I have circled, which in reality is actually what IS being consumed.

The numbers for that day were as follows

Total Generated Power – 562GWH (1.1% lower than the average)

Solar (Rooftop) – 52GWh (8.3% higher than the average)

Solar (Utility) – 30GWh (7.1% higher than the average)

Wind – 64GWh (7.3% lower than the average)

Hydro – 48GWh (6.6% higher than the average)

Now, you might think that those those percentages are not all that close to the average, but trust me on this, they are the closest I could find, understanding that there are FIVE indicators to line up. In actuality, what I have found here is probably better all round for what I want to show you, (eventually) because three of those renewables are higher, and the overall total is lower, so in fact, it makes those renewables look a little better. The total generated power from all four of those renewables for the calculated average day comes in at 190GWH, while the actual day I am using as the closest to average, well, the total for those four renewables comes in at 194GWH, so a percentage factor of just 2.1%, so while the numbers look to be not all that close, the outcome is that they are quite close, well, as close as I can find for 365 days, and you think it would be easier than that, eh!

So now we have an ‘average’ day for power generation/consumption. You’ll remember that earlier I wrote that I use three main sources for my electrical data. So, what I can now do is, using one of those other sites, show you what that average day of power usage looks like, and here’s that image which I will explain in the next Post.

This Post, while posted separately on this day, will be added to the main Sticky Post at the top of our site.

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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Posted in: Australia, Blundering Bureaucrats, Electrical Power Generation, Fraud/Waste, Renewable Energy