Is Baseload Power an Outdated Concept in Australia's Evolving Energy Landscape?

[Baluncore]

Are you saying there needs to be excess solar even in winter before storage gets adopted at proper scale? That's a lot of waste.

Yes, to an extent. Once there is curtailment, there is an economic advantage in energy storage. To justify installing storage, that curtailment needs to be significant, and to be spread over much of the year. A little waste is justified, as it increases availability during adverse conditions.

Where the curtailment is due to transmission limitations, there is an economic advantage in upgrading the transmission lines, or diversifying the location of new solar farms. Energy storage, located at solar farms, could delay the energy transmission until dusk. In Spain, there are a few big solar farms with molten salt energy storage.

There needs to be some use for excess solar or wind energy.
I am now paid so little for my excess solar energy, that I could get a better return mining cryptocurrency.

 

[Devils]

When you have few sources of power, base load may be a meaningful concept. In Australia this sued to be coal & gas. There are continuous consumers of power eg hospitals, some industrial processes, steel & aluminum smelting.

Now what we see in Australia are millions of producers. Australia has the large rooftop solar power production and some is exported to the grid. In 2024 there was a time when 72% of Australian electricity production was renewables. Matching production and consumption is the problem. The four main alumumium smelters in Australia want to operate 24 hours a day, whereas the Jones family use most of their electricity from 7am-7pm.

The way to match production with consumption, while relying on renewables, is the issue Australia faces. You need storage whether it be home batteries, grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro, or hydrogen-based solutions. You also need the Eastern-state electricity interconnects which are only about 1GW each at the moment.

Getting to 90% renewables in Australia is achievable with current technology. The issue is the 1% of the time when its cloudy and not windy - this is why 1-2 days of electricity storage is needed, maybe 500GWh, and that is hideously expensive. That's where the baseload idea comes in, you need to supply 14GW minimum at all times.