Jantar pumped storage sounds good in theory but how efficient is it-how much energy would be lost in the process?
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Generation effiencies are:
Hydro 91%
Pumped storage 71%
Combined Cycle GT 55%
High efficiency GT 44%
Conventional thermal 40%
Conventional GT 35%
Wind 30%
Solar 25%
Consider also that the amount of energy lost by pumping gas back into the ground to recover later resultss around a 30% loss as well. We are already doing that.
Unfortunately, you have just hit on the downside. The Waikato is not suitable as the lakes are all too small. There are only three places in New Zealand that are suitable:
Lake Onslow would be the best at 1200 MW and would treble NZ's current hydro storage at a cost of around $3.5B.
The Neck, between Hawea and Wanaka at 120 MW would provide inter-seasonal storage at a cost of around $350M
Convert one machine at Tokaanu for 50 MW and provide intra-day storage at a cost of around $20M
Holly tripping circuit breakers. Spot price at Benmore at 9.30 this evening, $235Mw/h.
Boop boop de do
Marilyn
I just had a thought, all those people that jumped onto Flick (flick I think? - and maybe some other power retailers) in the hope of 'not being ripped' no more by the big gentailers like Genesis... now finding out the hard way the risks of jumping ship to save a few dollars... (I think I even saw an add guaranteeing you'd save $200 or something in your first year on flick)
(at least this is my crude understanding... please correct me if I am wrong)
Great that companies like Flick exist and shows just how competitive the electricity industry is. But how painful it would be monitoring spot prices all the time and being too frightened to turn the oven on from 5pm to 9 pm (the only time you actually want to turn the oven on).
Looking at the Transpower website, wholesale spot prices have been on average 3x what they were last year over the last few weeks. This might not be the big dry of 2008 but it still seems significant to me.
I see just now the Rankine units are maxed out and diesel/oil generaters have been deployed. Is this also Genesis owned?
Not a good time to be baking a cake by the way if you're on wholesale spot prices.
One of properties has been on flick, substantial savings and you can just change suppliers anytime, switched over a month back and will return when the market returns to previous pricing...