Intermittent wind and solar are a natural guarantee of grid chaos and rocketing power prices. Every single country that’s chased the wind and solar pipe dream has watched their power prices go through the roof, with no exception.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. STT has been banging on about this since December 2012. The graphic above from Dr Michael Crawford spells it out: add massively subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar to your power grid and watch power prices spiral out of control.
As STT has pointed out a number of times, the gaming that’s the subject of the ACCC’s interest is a natural consequence of a very natural set of phenomena: wind and solar power output collapses, that occur whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in:
Wind Power Output Collapses Send Power Prices into Orbit: The World’s Biggest Joke Just Got Serious
and
and
Crushing Families – SA’s Biggest Smelter Under Threat with 750 Jobs at Risk
Back in July 2018, we produced this detailed wrap-up on how wind and solar output collapses allow generators to game the power market, resulting in skyrocketing wholesale power prices, all passed on to you:
Now here’s another couple of examples of price gouging, of the kind that is only made possible by the great wind and solar scam.
Yesterday Energy Prices Spiked 10,000% in an Hour After Solar and Wind Failed
Advance Australia
Matthew Sheahan
4 May 2022
Life under an Albanese run Labor-Greens coalition won’t be easy.
Taxes will be hiked, jobs will be lost in our agricultural and manufacturing industries, and worst of all, the cost of living will continue to rise…especially when it comes to energy prices given Labor is hellbent on shutting our coal-fired power plants and replacing them with Chinese-made wind turbines and solar panels.
Just ask the people of Queensland and New South Wales!
Yesterday, the east coast of Australia was forced to grapple with sky-high energy prices after the sun went down during peak-demand.
Why?
Well, as shown above, Queensland’s solar panels became useless at around 5pm as the sun set. There also happened to be very little wind. As a result, the onus was on the state’s coal-fired power plants to rapidly scale up to fill the gap left by the renewables – a role they were NEVER designed to play.
The consequence?
Energy prices skyrocketed by 10,000% to $15,100 per megawatt hour with normal demand at peak time, costing energy users a whopping $100 million in electricity in a mere hour…and the exact same thing happened in New South Wales.
Another $100 million was wasted in NSW after wind and solar became useless when the grid needed them the most. Prices skyrocketed by another 10,000% to up to $14,445 per megawatt hour with normal peak-time demand. The state’s coal-fired power plants were forced to rapidly scale up to keep the lights on at their own cost.
Overall, the average 24-hour price for energy in New South Wales yesterday was an insane $780 per megawatt. In Queensland the same figure was $760 per megawatt. Compare this to Monday when the average price in both New South Wales and Queensland was around $220 per megawatt – three times cheaper than yesterday.
This is NOT a sustainable state of affairs and there are TWO key reasons why it’s been allowed to happen.
- Currently renewables get “feed-in priority” into the grid. In other words, when solar and wind are producing power during a period when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, the energy they produce is funnelled straight into the system, so the states meet the renewable energy targets established by Labor governments. This means other generators – whether gas or coal – are forced to scale down to ensure the grid doesn’t become overloaded. The cost of scaling down is on these coal and gas generators – a task they were never designed to fulfil and a cost they were never meant to absorb.
- When the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining – meaning solar panels and wind turbines aren’t producing power – our coal and gas fired power stations are forced to rapidly scale up to keep the lights on. This is an expensive exercise that they weren’t designed to perform given they’re baseload generators that are supposed to generate power at a fixed rate 24/7/365 days a year.
The short point? As Senator Matt Canavan has said, wind and solar are the ultimate dole bludgers.
They rake in up to $20 billion in subsidies every year.
They aren’t punished for only working when the weather suits them.
And they force other base load generators to pick up the slack when they don’t work at peak-time.
No wonder the big bankers are trampling over each other to bankroll green monstrosities.
It’s the ultimate rent-seeking opportunity at the cost of struggling households, small businesses and manufacturers…
Advance Australia
STOP THESE THINGS 
Renewable energy ?This is a word invented by economists who study social sciences and humanities. For those who are really engaged in various energy industries, it is neither scientific nor logical! Wind and solar energy are changing every second! Can time be reborn?