Blackout Nation: Australians Latest Victims of Subsidised Wind & Solar Chaos

That Australia’s Eastern Grid is on the brink of collapse with a complete ‘system black’ on the cards comes as no surprise. The $7 billion in annual RET subsidies pocketed by wind and solar generators were designed to allow them to underbid Australia’s reliable and affordable coal-fired generators, destroying their profitability and, ultimately, driving them […]

Beyond Help: Power Rationing New Normal in Wind & Solar ‘Powered’ South Australia

South Australians know an awful lot about sweating in the dark and, thanks to their fixation on wind and solar power, its hapless proletariat will get to learn a whole lot more. Renowned by the renewable cult as Australia’s ‘wind and solar capital’, SA suffers Australia’s highest power prices and, quite naturally, Australia’s highest rate […]

Sweating It: Renewable Energy Crisis Means Australians Can’t Run Air-Conditioners During Heatwaves

  Once upon a time Australians enjoyed reliable and affordable power, but that was before heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar entered the scene. Over the last few summers, Australians have been treated to power rationing and load shedding, as well as the odd mass blackout. These events have an uncanny correlation with […]

Terminal Diagnosis: Wind & Solar Chaos Places Australia’s Power Grid On Life Support

Australia’s self-inflicted wind and solar calamity has just got serious; very serious. Managing electricity grids is a finely balanced affair, requiring the ability to control what goes in and what goes out on a second-by-second basis. The generation and distribution of electricity was relatively simple when synchronous, dispatchable conventional generation sources (in Australia, coal, gas […]

Service Failure: Australians Swelter During Summer Heatwave Because Intermittent Wind & Solar Simply Can’t Deliver

Thanks to its obsession with intermittent wind and solar, Australian’s power is neither reliable, nor affordable. A warm spell across Australia this week – with temperatures in the 40°C range – has seen the demand for electricity hit the roof. Across South Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland air-conditioners have been cranked into furious action to […]

Power Supply Crunch: Mass Blackouts Guaranteed When Demand Spikes Coincide With Wind & Solar Collapses

  Pin your power needs to the weather and expect results to vary. Last summer saw mass load shedding and blackouts across Victoria, South Australia and NSW when spikes in demand combined with collapses in wind and solar output. Demand patterns are as predictable as the delivery in wind and solar are chaotic. That chaos […]

Daily Debacle: Intermittent Wind & Solar Guarantee More Summertime Blackouts

An obsession with intermittent wind and solar is the prime cause of Australia’s power pricing and supply calamity. A ludicrous Federal Renewable Energy Target laid the foundation; Green/left Labor State Governments in South Australia and Victoria doubled down, and did the rest. Wind and solar obsessed South Australians suffer the world’s highest power prices and […]

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 […]

Renewable Energy ‘Transition’: More Wind Power, Higher Prices, More Blackouts

The chaos that comes with intermittent wind and solar get serious in summer, when demand surges, the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in. This summer, the barbecue stopper will literally be another round of what’s euphemistically called “demand management”: Soviet era power rationing, an integral part of Australia’s ludicrous attempt to run on sunshine […]

Blackouts Beckon: Calm Weather & Sunset Deliver Chaos in Renewables Obsessed Australia

  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 run a scorching days […]