Biggest Losers: Power Consumers Pay Insane Cost to Backup Intermittent Wind & Solar

Wind and solar collapses in SA and VIC on 24 and 25 January sent power prices into orbit, as conventional generators cashed in on the chaos. As wind and solar power output hit the floor, the spot price of power hit $14,500 per MWh. The additional cost to power consumers was in excess of $1,100,000,000 […]

Crunch Time: Can Australia Escape its Self-Inflicted Renewable Energy Calamity Before It’s Too Late?

  Everything about Australia’s renewable energy calamity was perfectly predictable and perfectly avoidable. Throwing $60,000,000,000 in subsidies at chaotically intermittent wind and solar was a pretty good start. Placing lunatics in charge of the entire operation sealed the deal. Australia’s Eastern Grid (covering QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, ACT & SA) is on the brink of […]

Reliable Power Rewind: Australia Rebuilds Baseload With New High Efficiency Low Emission Coal Plants

Like pushing on string, adding wind and solar adds nothing to reliable power generation capacity: never there when you need it, and often there when you don’t, wind and solar are just a perpetual irritant to grid managers – the people attempting to keep the lights on and air conditioners humming this summer. On 25 […]

Billion Dollar Blowout: Counting Mounting & Astronomical Cost of Australia’s Wind Power Chaos

In Australia this summer, it’s one thing to have electricity, it’s quite another to be able to pay the bill. Over the last week or so, STT has focused on an event when 200,000 Victorian businesses and households were left sweltering during heatwave, as a collapse in wind power output led to widespread load shedding […]

Antidote to Chaos: High Efficiency Low Emissions Coal-Fired Power Plants Key To Restoring Reliable & Affordable Power

  Electricity used to be taken for granted in Australia, like running water. Not anymore. Thanks to chaotically delivered wind and solar, having power during hot weather is now treated more like winning the lottery. Joni Mitchell sang about not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone in her ditty, Big Yellow Taxi. Likewise, Victorians […]

Blackout Fallout: Wind Power Debacle Leaves Thousands of Powerless Victorians Furious

Everyone ‘loves’ the idea of wind and solar power, until they’re sweltering in the dark. 200,000 Victorian homes and businesses left powerless – after a sudden and dramatic wind power output collapse on 25 January – have got a taste of what wind ‘powered’ South Australians have been putting up with for years. And they […]

New Dark Age: Renewable Energy Debacle Crippling Business, Punishing Households

The stated aim of the Green-left is the destruction of Australia’s reliable and affordable electricity supply. It’s dressed up as a burning hatred of evil fossil fuels, but in reality, it’s just naked contempt for their fellow Australians. A couple of warm days last week – coupled with dramatic collapses in wind and solar output […]

Reality Check: Heatwave Blackout Gives Victorians Taste of the ‘Transition’ to Wind & Solar

The dreamers who think they’ll soon be running entirely on sunshine and breezes, have just been smacked with reality, in Victoria, at least. There’s something poetic about watching infants being forced to grow up. And, so it is, with once loyal RE zealots, being forced to rethink their love affair, after their taste of what […]

Renewable Energy Meltdown: Heatwave Leaves Wind ‘Powered’ South Australians Sweltering In the Dark

If you’re relying on the weather for your power, prepare yourself to live without it: South Australians know the drill very well. In yesterday’s post, we focused on 25 January the day when Victorian wind power output struggled to produce 20% of its nameplate capacity, and 200,000 households struggled to survive without air-conditioning, or any […]

Worthless Wind Power: Australia’s RE Debacle Deepens With 200,000 Victorian Households Left Powerless During Heatwave

  In renewables obsessed Australia these days, whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets, the talk inevitably turns to blackouts. Last summer, load shedding caught power consumers short in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. Energy hungry businesses such as aluminium smelters and even hospitals were forced to power down during a run of scorching […]