I would like to make a few comments on the battery debate.
I would have great hesitation on installing a battery facility in the middle of town.
I feel it would be a very bad idea.
From my reading and research, they are not efficient and fit for purpose.
Firstly, Broken Hill had a total town blackout last year.
They had solar panels on houses, they had a solar farm nearby. They had a battery storage. But what went wrong?
There was a blackout across the city for over a week. Why?
The battery storage was shorting out the house storage solar which shorted out everything.
It needed a more complex system off grid – therefore, not money.
In Narrabri we have had a great take up of rooftop solar panels.
Excellent Chris Bowen would say. Now what is happening is that we are also getting planned large scale solar farms. Great!
Sunny place Narrabri.
Are they putting in a larger grid in order to cope with this greater output. No!! We will be facilitated by the existing grid.
Well that does not work!
If you have a solar panel system and have an inverter which allows you to see how much power you are producing.
It is usually a graph/time that shows you how much you are producing.
The problem is that the household solar systems are very efficient and over produce for the grid.
The substations that distribute the power can’t cope with overload, therefore with their ‘smart meters’ they cut off the home supply.
You are not getting any credits for your power supply.
And if you use any power you are paying the full grid.
So if they put in big solar farms they are going to have a supply contract with the grid they will take more off the ‘home grid’.
Getting back to the battery – the purveyors of this questionable technology say that there are no failures in this technology.
I would like them to survey the results on Waratah battery in the Hunter Valley.
A billion dollars (that’s one with a lot of noughts) which could be totally unviable due to a transformer failure.
A billion dollars blown away.
The thing that makes this debacle even more ‘scary’ is that this battery technology was to replace the Eraring Coal Fired Power Station.
If it had have closed a few years ago as planned, its lifespan was extended wisely.
If this power station had closed, and the subsequent demise of the ‘battery storage’ what a catastrophe there would have been.
Potentially no power for Tomago Aluminum Smelter.
That could/would have closed with catastrophic consequences of possibility, just possibly never reopening.
A total disaster for the Hunter and the Australian economy. And half of NSW in blackout!
Battery storage is not a cheap power.
It is an add on to these totally inefficient solar and wind supplies.
They are not efficient and they are undermining our economy.
And don’t start me on wind farms.
Total, total, total waste of time and technology.
Dr Chris Cole, Narrabri
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