Showtime event scaled back as 40-degree days loom

dungfungus said :

Thanks for the general comment but what about the specific situation with the solar farms in the ACT?

Your understanding is correct in regards to the local solar farms – under the feed in tariff arrangement, if they get wholesale prices above the FIT agreed price, then the difference comes back to the distributor, and ultimately passed back to ACT consumers.

http://www.environment.act.gov.au/energy/cleaner-energy/how-do-the-acts-renewable-energy-reverse-auctions-work

Thus, they don’t have the incentive to game the system per say, like the larger generators in other jurisdictions in particular have – but even without the FIT arrangements, they also don’t have anywhere near the scale to actively achieve it per say, in terms of electricity output.

Light rail supporters please note.

This is the kind of weather that gives the rails sun kink and catenarys acute wire sag.

The tram has to stop running in other words.

dungfungus said :

Maya123 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Maya123 said :

After reading this, I wonder how people managed to survive before air conditioning?

When I was a young ‘un living at home with Mum n Dad, I hated summer. To a lesser extent I still do. We had no air conditioning and no wall insulation in a fibro house with a tin roof. My bedroom was on the sunset side of the house, so my summer nights were spent tossing and turning while my bedsheets soaked with sweat. A pedestal fan didn’t help much, as it just dried up any moisture on my skin and then blew the hot air around. Wet towels sometimes helped, but opening the window did nothing on nights when there was no breeze and it was still 30 degrees after dark.
I don’t miss those times at all and now I run the air con to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t know if some cultures are predisposed to suffering more in hot conditions, but I blame my European blood for hating anything above 23.
As for these recommended power saving tips, no thanks. I had the air con running to keep the house from warming up, as I made noodles on one hotplate, boiled eggs on another and made shrimp sauce on the third. If I pay for the power, I expect to be able to use it how I want to. It isn’t like we can just go outside and crank up the Weber bbq either, there is a total fire ban, duh! The government’s lack of foresight and planning should not dictate our families’ eating habits or comfort levels. If they can’t control how much power is generated because they sold it all off to money making organisations, all I can say is “We told you so!” This is what happens when you privatise essential services. Just imagine what will happen when they sell off hospitals, emergency services and telecommunications. Oh yeah, they already did the last one. See how well that worked out for us?

I lived for about 30 years in one of those little Narrabundah fibro houses, with uninsulated walls and minimal insulation in the ceiling, so I do know about hot houses (and cold houses in winter). Still, I managed by shutting up the house during the day and only opening up the windows late in the afternoon, when finally the inside temperature reached the same as outside. My bedroom too had a western wall with window. Amazing how shutting the blinds and closing the windows held off the worst of the heat…until at least mid to late afternoon. I used a fan. My present house is very efficient and I didn’t open the windows until almost midnight. As long as one is healthy, air conditioning isn’t necessary. Then if one does have air conditioning I think the suggested summer setting is about 25C. That should be comfortable for most, unless there is a health issue, or you are very overweight.
As for cooking, I have been bottling LOTS of fruit and that takes a lot of cooking. Still I haven’t needed air conditioning.
🙂 Trying to convince myself to finish off the fruit (apples) I have and bottle it today, because when the temperature cools off, I will be back to the ‘wilds’ to pick blackberries to bottle. Plus I will have some more plums soon to bottle. I try to process as many as possible at once to be more efficient with electricity.

Your grand parents probably did the fruit preserving without electricity – I lived in a house like yours but without electricity for 7 years. We had a chip heater for baths (no one else on this blog will be old enough to know what that was). All cooking was on a fuel stove and no heating other than that. Do you preserve quinces too?

We have become “wimps”. It’s time we all read some Henry Lawson short stories again to remind us how tough it was 150 years ago. There were few forums then to complain about anything.

As a child I lived in Cooma for three years and we had a chip heater. However, I never had to deal with it, as my parents took care of that. No, I don’t preserve quinces, as I don’t have a source for them. The few I have tried I haven’t liked though, but I would experiment with a few and see if they could be improved with processing. Figs improve with processing and cooked with porridge in the winter they are nice. Raw, not so nice.

Maya123 said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

Maya123 said :

After reading this, I wonder how people managed to survive before air conditioning?

When I was a young ‘un living at home with Mum n Dad, I hated summer. To a lesser extent I still do. We had no air conditioning and no wall insulation in a fibro house with a tin roof. My bedroom was on the sunset side of the house, so my summer nights were spent tossing and turning while my bedsheets soaked with sweat. A pedestal fan didn’t help much, as it just dried up any moisture on my skin and then blew the hot air around. Wet towels sometimes helped, but opening the window did nothing on nights when there was no breeze and it was still 30 degrees after dark.
I don’t miss those times at all and now I run the air con to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t know if some cultures are predisposed to suffering more in hot conditions, but I blame my European blood for hating anything above 23.
As for these recommended power saving tips, no thanks. I had the air con running to keep the house from warming up, as I made noodles on one hotplate, boiled eggs on another and made shrimp sauce on the third. If I pay for the power, I expect to be able to use it how I want to. It isn’t like we can just go outside and crank up the Weber bbq either, there is a total fire ban, duh! The government’s lack of foresight and planning should not dictate our families’ eating habits or comfort levels. If they can’t control how much power is generated because they sold it all off to money making organisations, all I can say is “We told you so!” This is what happens when you privatise essential services. Just imagine what will happen when they sell off hospitals, emergency services and telecommunications. Oh yeah, they already did the last one. See how well that worked out for us?

I lived for about 30 years in one of those little Narrabundah fibro houses, with uninsulated walls and minimal insulation in the ceiling, so I do know about hot houses (and cold houses in winter). Still, I managed by shutting up the house during the day and only opening up the windows late in the afternoon, when finally the inside temperature reached the same as outside. My bedroom too had a western wall with window. Amazing how shutting the blinds and closing the windows held off the worst of the heat…until at least mid to late afternoon. I used a fan. My present house is very efficient and I didn’t open the windows until almost midnight. As long as one is healthy, air conditioning isn’t necessary. Then if one does have air conditioning I think the suggested summer setting is about 25C. That should be comfortable for most, unless there is a health issue, or you are very overweight.
As for cooking, I have been bottling LOTS of fruit and that takes a lot of cooking. Still I haven’t needed air conditioning.
🙂 Trying to convince myself to finish off the fruit (apples) I have and bottle it today, because when the temperature cools off, I will be back to the ‘wilds’ to pick blackberries to bottle. Plus I will have some more plums soon to bottle. I try to process as many as possible at once to be more efficient with electricity.

Your grand parents probably did the fruit preserving without electricity – I lived in a house like yours but without electricity for 7 years. We had a chip heater for baths (no one else on this blog will be old enough to know what that was). All cooking was on a fuel stove and no heating other than that. Do you preserve quinces too?

We have become “wimps”. It’s time we all read some Henry Lawson short stories again to remind us how tough it was 150 years ago. There were few forums then to complain about anything.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Maya123 said :

After reading this, I wonder how people managed to survive before air conditioning?

When I was a young ‘un living at home with Mum n Dad, I hated summer. To a lesser extent I still do. We had no air conditioning and no wall insulation in a fibro house with a tin roof. My bedroom was on the sunset side of the house, so my summer nights were spent tossing and turning while my bedsheets soaked with sweat. A pedestal fan didn’t help much, as it just dried up any moisture on my skin and then blew the hot air around. Wet towels sometimes helped, but opening the window did nothing on nights when there was no breeze and it was still 30 degrees after dark.
I don’t miss those times at all and now I run the air con to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t know if some cultures are predisposed to suffering more in hot conditions, but I blame my European blood for hating anything above 23.
As for these recommended power saving tips, no thanks. I had the air con running to keep the house from warming up, as I made noodles on one hotplate, boiled eggs on another and made shrimp sauce on the third. If I pay for the power, I expect to be able to use it how I want to. It isn’t like we can just go outside and crank up the Weber bbq either, there is a total fire ban, duh! The government’s lack of foresight and planning should not dictate our families’ eating habits or comfort levels. If they can’t control how much power is generated because they sold it all off to money making organisations, all I can say is “We told you so!” This is what happens when you privatise essential services. Just imagine what will happen when they sell off hospitals, emergency services and telecommunications. Oh yeah, they already did the last one. See how well that worked out for us?

I lived for about 30 years in one of those little Narrabundah fibro houses, with uninsulated walls and minimal insulation in the ceiling, so I do know about hot houses (and cold houses in winter). Still, I managed by shutting up the house during the day and only opening up the windows late in the afternoon, when finally the inside temperature reached the same as outside. My bedroom too had a western wall with window. Amazing how shutting the blinds and closing the windows held off the worst of the heat…until at least mid to late afternoon. I used a fan. My present house is very efficient and I didn’t open the windows until almost midnight. As long as one is healthy, air conditioning isn’t necessary. Then if one does have air conditioning I think the suggested summer setting is about 25C. That should be comfortable for most, unless there is a health issue, or you are very overweight.
As for cooking, I have been bottling LOTS of fruit and that takes a lot of cooking. Still I haven’t needed air conditioning.
🙂 Trying to convince myself to finish off the fruit (apples) I have and bottle it today, because when the temperature cools off, I will be back to the ‘wilds’ to pick blackberries to bottle. Plus I will have some more plums soon to bottle. I try to process as many as possible at once to be more efficient with electricity.

mcs said :

wildturkeycanoe said :

To avoid catastrophic failure, they may elect to shut down some suburbs for short periods to keep the backbone of the grid going, because without it nobody gets power. This is what I believe the rolling blackouts are designed to do.

That is certainly one reason for rolling blackouts in very hot weather – but usually the driving reason will be a simple shortage of supply compared with demand, which leads to ‘load shedding’ blackouts to ensure the system doesn’t overload, and lead to a bunch of the network problems you outlined.

Thanks to an unsustainable rate of immigration, demand for electricity in Australia is increasing at the rate of the needs of an additional 400,000 extra people every year. That’s equivalent to a city the size of Canberra.

Instead of building and commissioning new power stations and enjoying the proven supply security that gives we are closing them down.

Most people like to stay warm during winter and factories need the reliability of supply.
This was always available through coal but apparently we are now be told told get “a warm feeling” from saving the planet and this means demonising coal yet China is building another 200 coal fired power stations?

Ideology has created a planning fail on a grand scale.

Maya123 said :

After reading this, I wonder how people managed to survive before air conditioning?

When I was a young ‘un living at home with Mum n Dad, I hated summer. To a lesser extent I still do. We had no air conditioning and no wall insulation in a fibro house with a tin roof. My bedroom was on the sunset side of the house, so my summer nights were spent tossing and turning while my bedsheets soaked with sweat. A pedestal fan didn’t help much, as it just dried up any moisture on my skin and then blew the hot air around. Wet towels sometimes helped, but opening the window did nothing on nights when there was no breeze and it was still 30 degrees after dark.
I don’t miss those times at all and now I run the air con to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t know if some cultures are predisposed to suffering more in hot conditions, but I blame my European blood for hating anything above 23.
As for these recommended power saving tips, no thanks. I had the air con running to keep the house from warming up, as I made noodles on one hotplate, boiled eggs on another and made shrimp sauce on the third. If I pay for the power, I expect to be able to use it how I want to. It isn’t like we can just go outside and crank up the Weber bbq either, there is a total fire ban, duh! The government’s lack of foresight and planning should not dictate our families’ eating habits or comfort levels. If they can’t control how much power is generated because they sold it all off to money making organisations, all I can say is “We told you so!” This is what happens when you privatise essential services. Just imagine what will happen when they sell off hospitals, emergency services and telecommunications. Oh yeah, they already did the last one. See how well that worked out for us?

mcs said :

dungfungus said :

HenryBG said :

Masquara said :

Having issued a request for us all to minimise use of our air conditioners today, will Shane Rattenbury and the rest of the LA work with minimal airconditioning in their offices today? Seriously – how will we manage in the heat under 100% green power?

The issue isn’t green power, the issue is privatisation. Same thing happened in California after corrupt politicians sold off all the State’s power assets to private companies whose primary aim was not to deliver power to consumers, but to maximise shareholder profits.

Does anybody know if there is anything published on the internet that gives us access to generation stats (preferably in near-real-time) for all of Canberra’s new power-generating assets? You’d think those solar farms might be pumping out a bit of power today, wouldn’t you?

Am I correct in stating that all the new solar farms in the ACT are privately operated?

I don’t think their supply contract with the ACT government gives them any scope to “maximise profits” for their shareholders either so I don’t believe you can use the California experience as an example of what is happening here.

In eastern and southern Australia at present there is simply not enough power to meet demand which is a planning error by State governments.

Where is coal when you need it?

Privatisation is very much part of the issue – as it is the privatisation of the major generators (not the newer renewable sources per say), which have significant market power (in terms of their % of total output in the National Electricity Market (NEM), that is a leading contributory factor to many of the negative outcomes being seen – in particular of course the South Australian blackouts.

These firms have significant ability to ‘withhold’ power, even in times of relatively high demand, or shortage of supply due to other reasons – in the pursuit of spiking the spot prices and maximising the profits. The NEM framework doesn’t adequately deal with this at the moment. Whereas when they were publicly owned their ultimate commitment was to provide power to the grid, now as privatised assets, the major commitment is to maximise profits, irrespective of the outcome on the broader electricity grid.

This ability to ‘game’ the system, combined with hot weather and high levels of demand is what leads us to a point where demand may outstrip supply. It is not that there is not necessarily sufficient generating capacity available – although one could argue more ‘backup’ generation sources would be helpful to help reduce the likelihood of instances where supply can’t meet demand across the NEM.

Thanks for the general comment but what about the specific situation with the solar farms in the ACT?

I have close ties with individuals associated with hosting this Showtime in the City event.

Whilst the public has been informed of the difference in previously advertised hours, some of the main stakeholders had no idea of the changes to event timing.

They turned up as originally organised and waited in the heat for the event organisers to show up and advise of the restricted hours due to heat.

While waiting with many bags of melting ice for snow cones to set up for not only providing frozen treats, but to advertise other aspects of the RNCAS Canberra show, they were not made aware of changed event times and were becoming increasingly frustrated waiting in the heat for organisers to meet them.

All is well now, however a lack of effective communication has forced staff facilitating this event to unknowingly wait in todays heat for organisers to tell them the hours had been changed.

So much importance is placed on public knowledge but why is it not a common courtesy for advertisers to inform stakeholders of changes to programming?

I agree wholeheartedly with conveying all possible knowledge to the public regarding previously advertised events, however the same conveyance of knowledge should be extended as a common courtesy to all stakeholders.

Not cool forcing facilitating staff to suffer in the same heat as they advertised for the public to stay away from.

wildturkeycanoe said :

To avoid catastrophic failure, they may elect to shut down some suburbs for short periods to keep the backbone of the grid going, because without it nobody gets power. This is what I believe the rolling blackouts are designed to do.

That is certainly one reason for rolling blackouts in very hot weather – but usually the driving reason will be a simple shortage of supply compared with demand, which leads to ‘load shedding’ blackouts to ensure the system doesn’t overload, and lead to a bunch of the network problems you outlined.