There's no way the incumbents would allow this thing to be connected to the grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for them.
There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA. The renewables love this because it lets them load shift. That's good for them but good for me too.
AGL has a small gas fired station but screwed up during the outage by not firing up one generator. That lost them any friends they have, especially since they blamed high gas prices, which the Federal Government saw as a criticism of them.
The interstate incumbents hated it enough to get the Federal Government to look at stopping it[1]. But then the Victorian Hazelwood coal fired plant closure was announced, and the coal industry lost a lot of credibility with the federal government. Basically the incumbents are suffering and are rapidly losing political power.
> There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA.
AGL operates 8.562 gigawatts of fossil fuel (coal / gas) power plants, and 2.33 gigawatt renewables (hydro / wind / solar).[1]
The 1.28 gigawatt gas fired Torrens Island Power Station in Adelaide is the largest power station in South Australia.[2]
South Australia has 16 operating wind farms with a total installed capacity of about 1.473 gigawatt.[3]
It definitely looking like we'll see, in our lifetimes, a future where wind + storage provides a significant majority of electricity in South Australia. My argument is there's no way this future will also provider cheaper electricity.
Why charge less when you can make people pay more?
There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA. The renewables love this because it lets them load shift. That's good for them but good for me too.
AGL has a small gas fired station but screwed up during the outage by not firing up one generator. That lost them any friends they have, especially since they blamed high gas prices, which the Federal Government saw as a criticism of them.
The interstate incumbents hated it enough to get the Federal Government to look at stopping it[1]. But then the Victorian Hazelwood coal fired plant closure was announced, and the coal industry lost a lot of credibility with the federal government. Basically the incumbents are suffering and are rapidly losing political power.
[1] http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/03/14/south-...