03/07/2020 City of Sydney Goes Renewable! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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“We do not believe any group of men adequate enoughor wise enough to operate without scrutiny or withoutcriticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is todetect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free toinquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected willflourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

City of Sydney Goes Renewable!

JULY 2, 2020tags: Australia

By Paul Homewood

 

h/t Joe Public

 

Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney, NSW has announced

"As of today, the City of Sydney is powered by 100% renewable electricity.” 

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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 (https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/image-13.png)

https://twitter.com/CloverMoore/status/1278076256773222402(https://twitter.com/CloverMoore/status/1278076256773222402)

 

WOW!!

 

Except for the fact that she was lying through her teeth, as one critic inconveniently pointed out:

 

03/07/2020 City of Sydney Goes Renewable! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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https://twitter.com/yestiseye/status/1278109196169306113(https://twitter.com/yestiseye/status/1278109196169306113)

 

This is the current position:

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 https://opennem.org.au/energy/nsw1/ (https://opennem.org.au/energy/nsw1/)

from → Climate Change20 Comments leave one →

1. NeilC PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 10:58 amWell well, a politician telling porkies, who’d have thought it.

REPLYMrGrimNasty PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 2:28 pm

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Let’s be fair, it’s 50/50 if a politician is telling porkies or just thick as pig ****.

REPLY2. OldCynic PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 11:07 amYeah, yeah… What she means is that Sydney Council is paying a premium for its electricity,equivalent to buying all their electricity as if it were generated by renewables, leaving the non-renewable power for the rest of us, who pay the standard price and nominally receive coal-generated electricity. ie nothing new. ACT makes the same claim and I’d expect other state/cityvirtue-signallers to do the same

However what has always intrigued me is whether anyone checks up on how much “renewable”power the retailers sell, and how much they actually purchase. Is it the responsibility of thefinancial auditors? Dunno, do you?

Taking it back one stage further, is anyone checking that the “green generation” certificates etcthat generators sell are sold only to one customer, not several? eg the company sells them to anAustralian purchaser, and a New Zealand purchaser, and a Croatian purchaser… etc

I don’t know. Maybe someone better-read than me can tell us.

REPLYGraeme No.3 PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 12:00 pmOldCynic:Buying 100% “renewable” electricity frees you (or your retailer) from buying the RETCertificates (which would add to the cost). The producer can then sell them for extra money.

The ACT ‘buys’ wind generation from S.A. and Vic. without the Certificates and pays a fixedprice. How that electricity gets to Canberra is another question, as it has much distance totravel (losses in the line), no actual line, and there is no guarantee that those wind farms areworking at the time. In practice Canberra relies on black coal fired generation from N.S.W.(and possibly some brown coal fired from Vic.) as this is the only connection they have. Itwould seem that the City of Sydney is using the same scam.

As far as I know Australian Certificates are only saleable in Australia. All the emphasis foryears has been on locals buying from overseas merchant bankers and friendly Mafia contacts.

The problem for Canberra and Sydney is that in recent years the number of Certificates for salehas risen substantially, and “official” demand has dropped as lots of householders haveinstalled rooftop panels. The result has been a drop in demand & price for electricity, leavingCanberra (and Sydney?) out of pocket. I think Shakespear said something about hoistingpetards.

REPLYBroadlands PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 2:43 pmOldCynic… Checking up? I thought that Michael Moore’s people did that and it wasembarrassing for the greenies so they took the film down. Made it all go away.

REPLY3. Harry Passfield PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 11:31 amShe looks more like a ‘Lady Mayoress’ to me. But then, I’ve always preferred the old ways.

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REPLYBertie PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 1:54 pmWell said – except that she ain’t no lady!

REPLY4. Bloke no longer down the pub PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 11:32 amAs of today, the city of Sydney is powered by 100% more expensive power. There, fixed it for her.

REPLY5. It doesn't add up... PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 12:23 pmI’m sure the cow meant to say “Where’s the beef? We’re in green clover! More please.”

Fictional accounting seems to be an essential green attribute.

I think OPENNEM has one of the best presentations of grid data on the net. They only need toseparate out the inter state interconnector flows and show a net demand line to improve it. Well,perhaps allow drill down by wind farm and power station. But you can isolate the contributionsof individual types of generation, or combinations of them. And they give average values basedon the regional reference prices.

REPLY6. Joe Public PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 12:23 pmC’mon Paul, you can be more sarcastic than that.

New South Wales’ largest operational wind farm (Sapphire) spent part of yesterday actuallydrawing power from the grid.

The irony being that black coal was perhaps helping prevent its turbines’ bearings from brinelling.

REPLYIt doesn't add up... PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 3:19 pmYou can do better than that: here is every wind farm in South Australia

http://nemlog.com.au/show/unit/20200625/20200626/?k1=sa1_wind

Another view:

http://nemlog.com.au/nem/stns/sa/20200625/20200626

REPLY7. Frosty Oz PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 1:22 pmIn the Australian National Electricity Market the power retailers don’t actually buy power fromwind and solar farms. Instead, those wind farms and solar farms sell their power to the gridoperator (AEMO) for the half-hourly spot price, at times that those farms are generating.

The grid supplies electric power to the connection points of customers (such as City of Sydney),and for this the retailers pay to the grid operator the half-hourly spot price as at the time that theconsumption by their customers occurs. There is nothing very green about that. The retailers alsopay the network charges for delivery of the power to the customer.

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The accredited reneweable generators in Australia earn a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC)allocated to them by the Clean Energy Regulator for each 1MWh of loss-adjusted renewablegeneration above their 1997-2000 baseline production (for most the baseline will be nil). The UKROC was similar to the Australian REC.

The retailers promise to their “green” customers such as City of Sydney that the retailer willannually purchase Australian RECs equivalent in quantity to the quantity of power consumed bythe customer. The retailers surrender to the Clean Energy Regulator annually the number of RECsequivalent to the current annual prescribed percentage of required renewable energy, or pay ashortfall tax of A$65/MWh. The % percentage prescribed for 2020 is 19.31% in RECs from largeplants, and a further 24.40% in RECs from small (<100kw) plants.

What happens to the 81,69% of large RECs that are not surrendered to the Clean Energy Regulatorunder the mandatory scheme can differ according to the arrangements with the customer:

* the most common arrangement is that the retailer participates in a scheme called the "GreenPower" scheme, under which the retailer surrenders to a special sequestration account with theClean Energy Regular the balance RECs, and is audited annually as to the amounts it has claimedto sell as "Green Power" versus the amount it has surrendered to the sequestration account.

* an alternative arrangement is that the retailer transfers the remaining 81.69% of large RECs intoan account of the customer at the Clean Energy Regulator, and the customer itself surrendersthose RECs to a sequestration account with the Clean Energy Regulator. In this arrangement thecustomer becomes certain that it has seen RECs equal to the total of its power consumption comeinto its hands, but there is no-one particularly checking that the customer transfers its RECs to theRegulator's sequestration account. But making a "green claim" and on-sellling the RECs ratherthan sequestering them would constitute illegal "misleading and deceptive" conduct.

In some cases, the retailer holds power price hedge contracts with the wind or solar farms inaddition to purchasing the RECs, but the volumes hedged under those usually follow therenewable generator's production rather than the customers' loads.

A REC can be generated anywhere in Australia, even a grid unconnected to the grid on which thecustomer who makes the green claim is located.

Some customers just purchase the balance (81.69%) large RECs direct from the renewablegenerators, or from a secondary market, to "green" themselves without the involvement of theretailer that pays for their grid power consumption.

The Regulator reported that in Q1 2020 large RECs were trading at a spot price of A$27.75.

REPLYHarry Passfield PERMALINKJuly 2, 2020 2:21 pmFrosty: You just made my head hurt!

REPLY8. JerryC PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 3:38 pmClimate indulgences, what a racket.

REPLY9. pardonmeforbreathing PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 3:54 pm

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Straight from the Critical Theory marxist handbook, if in doubt lie and lie and lie and the 99%useful idiots will believe you. Claiming the opposite of reality appears to be par for the coursefrom those wishing to ride the Climate pantomime horse!

REPLY10. pardonmeforbreathing PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 3:56 pmIsn’t that a name that you give to a cow? Certainly in Yorkshire the farmers call their cows Cloveror Buttercup and often some less polite things if they have a habit of misbehaving! What were herparents thinking?

REPLY11. Nancy & John Hultquist PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 4:05 pmI can believe the solar panels by which she stands could power her office lights and a copymachine, and her cell phone. In the sense of the “Royal WE”, she may be correct.

I wonder what % of the vehicles owned/used by the City of Sydney are ICE versus EV.

REPLY12. Curious George PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 4:15 pmIn a sufficiently complicated market, no one can tell the difference between renewable and non-renewable. A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from witchcraft.

REPLY13. markl PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 4:40 pmNothing but propaganda like all the virtue signaling.

REPLY14. Coeur de Lion PERMALINK

July 2, 2020 6:21 pmIf Sydney is buying all that renewable electricity, does that mean everyone else has to use coal?Does anyone check that these certificates are actually backed by a quantity of renewable electricityor is this another fraud?

REPLY

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