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Today's Topics:
1. Long-duration storage, eg large-scale batteries & pumped
hydro, set to play a fundamental role (Stephen Loosley)
2. Shadow Comms Minister on Optus failure -man made system vs
nature made ecosystem (Marghanita da Cruz)
3. Re: Planned nbn outage comms (David)
4. Re: Planned nbn outage comms (Marghanita da Cruz)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2025 15:36:20 +0930
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Long-duration storage, eg large-scale batteries &
pumped hydro, set to play a fundamental role
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
What is ?dunkelflaute?? And how will a new long-duration battery change
Australia?s energy grid?
Limondale project designed to store excess renewable power during day and
dispatch when demand is high
By Petra Stock Mon 29 Sep 2025 10.00 AEST
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/29/limondale-long-duration-battery-energy-storage-system-bess-what-is-dunkelflaute-energy-grid-nsw-australia
Australia?s longest duration battery will come online this year, a major
milestone as the power grid charges towards a mostly renewable energy future.
When fully charged, the Limondale battery in south-west New South Wales will be
able to pump 50MW of power back into the grid over eight hours.
?Long-duration storage technologies, such as large-scale batteries and pumped
hydro, are set to play a fundamental role in supporting Australia?s transition
to clean energy,? says Veronika Nemes of the Clean Energy Council. This type of
storage will be critical for grid stability and security, she says, as coal
retires over the next decade.
But what is a long-duration battery, and why does it matter? And can it help
with rare and unpredictable periods of renewable drought called ?dunkelflaute??
Last year the average duration for grid-scale batteries commissioned in
Australia was 2.7 hours. The Limondale project, supported by a NSW tender for
long-duration storage, achieves more hours with additional battery cells and a
control system optimised for the task.
The project is designed to store excess renewable energy during the day and
dispatch it in the evenings and mornings when demand is high.
Daniel Belton, the chief executive of RWE Renewables Australia, said projects
like Limondale were ?helping to unlock the full value of renewable generation
by ensuring energy is available when it?s needed most?.
What is long-duration storage and why is it useful?
Grattan Institute?s Alison Reeve says while definitions vary, long-duration
energy storage generally refers to technology that can dispatch eight or more
hours? worth of electricity.
It?s useful because as the amount of wind and solar in the grid grows the power
system needs to manage that variability.
Reeve says there are two options: ?One is to be cleverer about when you use the
energy ? make your demand match your supply pattern. But you also want the
flexibility to be able to shift the supply to different times of the day, and
that?s what storage does.?
Australia?s energy market operator anticipates a mix of what it calls shallow
(up to four hours), medium (four to 12 hours) and deep storage (12+) will be
needed as the nation?s share of wind and solar increases.
Shallow helps to manage daily fluctuations and frequency stability, while four-
to 12-hour systems bank surplus wind and solar for use during morning and
evening peaks.
What is ?dunkelflaute? and can we avoid it?
Seasonal, or deep storage (beyond 12 hours), is more like an insurance policy,
a strategic reserve for managing rare but unpredictable periods when cloudy and
still weather conditions persist over several days.
The phenomenon known as ?dunkelflaute? (dark doldrums) is specific to highly
renewable grids.
?That?s the bit that is hardest to solve,? Reeve says.
In Australia this risk is low and it can be minimised by the geographic spread
of solar, wind and hydro generation, or managed with seasonal storage like
pumped hydro, like Snowy 2.0.
What are the other energy advantages of eight-hour batteries?
?Storage economics is quite complex,? says Prof Bruce Mountain, the director of
the Victorian Energy Policy Centre.
Mountain says different combinations of short- and long-term batteries can meet
the needs of a highly renewable system. But as coal leaves the grid, creating
longer periods of high prices in the evening, longer duration batteries become
more attractive.
?What solar firmed with batteries offers is a certain energy resource,? he
says. It can be dispatched on demand to meet higher prices, whereas wind only
has a certain likelihood of being available.
The arrival of eight-hour batteries is significant, Reeve says, because they
start to compete with pumped hydro.?
Pumped hydro, which stores energy by pumping water uphill, is long and complex
to construct and only possible in specific locations. In contrast, Reeve says,
batteries are easy to deploy.
?It would mean we could move a bit faster with letting more renewables into the
grid, because we?ve got less worries about reliability, if the storage is
there.?
Nemes says strategic deployment of medium- to long-duration storage will ?lower
the total cost of grid infrastructure to be built, keeping the impact to
consumer energy bills as low as possible?.
--
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2025 08:35:02 +1000
From: Marghanita da Cruz <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Shadow Comms Minister on Optus failure -man made
system vs nature made ecosystem
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Just heard the Shadow Comms Minister demanding an ecosystem review into 000.
While there may be issues with the whole 000 system, I don't think the
fault is not in the ecosystem. Though perhaps the Environment Minister
and their Shadow should be involved. After all we have changed from
timber to concrete poles. And the "green" poles are filled with
copper(to kill trees) or arsenic (to kill termites). Some timber is
water and termite resistant naturally. I just came across these photos:
Hauling logs
Red Cedar logs from Willi Willi Forest
Dated: No date
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2585873603/in/photostream/
Logs being hauled to the mills at Armidale
Dated: No date
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2901449808/in/photostream/
Mullumbimby Soldiers' Settlement Estate - settlers clearing trees
Dated: by 31/12/1921
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2869137936/in/photostream/
Tree loggers
Felling giant Blue Gum, Wauchope
Dated: No date
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2570007244/in/photostream/
Hauling timber
Hauling timber by traction engine, North Coast
Dated: by 11 May 1908
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2633359496/in/photostream/
Marghanita
--
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ramin.com.au
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:11:56 +1000
From: David <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] Planned nbn outage comms
Message-ID: <2036406.56niFO833r@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
On Monday, 29 September 2025 08:56:58 AEST Sylvano wrote:
> Is this the retailer being slack, a lack of data driven comms flow between
> wholesaler and retailer, a generous use of the term ?planned? by the
> wholesaler, or ? ?
...or is it the result of privatising an essential social service which is a
natural government-run monopoly?
Australia has placed the design & implementation of our national communications
infrastructure largely in the hands of for-profit, privately owned companies
which are at least partially overseas controlled. I understand Optus is owned
by Singapore interests. So quite apart from the issue of architectural
integration, what else would we expect?
News reports this morning indicate the Taliban may have succeeded in completely
cutting Internet access from Afghanistan. It occurred to me recently to wonder
what might happen if, for all practical purposes, the Internet in Australia
completely failed. Just think about it... the old manual processes & customs
have been long forgotten, supply chains and ordinary daily commerce is frozen.
I wonder if we have a national fallback plan? Probably not, where's the profit?
The ABC Book Show has just reviewed an interesting novel "What We Can Know" by
Ian McEwan - see
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-27/best-books-september-ian-mcewan-patrick-ryan-lee-lai/105805520#whatcanweknow
As he says, the best way of writing about where we're headed is to _not_
write about it, but his description of England in an exhausted, post-industrial
world should be well worth reading.
> What will people make of us, 100 years into the future?
>
> In Ian McEwan's new eco-novel, the British author (Atonement, Amsterdam)
> finds a clever way to get us thinking about our place in history. His
> narrator, Thomas, is an academic living in the 2120s, whose area of obsession
> is our era, right now ? the beginning of what he and his colleagues know as
> the 'Derangement'.
Cheers!!
_David L_
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:57:07 +1000
From: Marghanita da Cruz <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] Planned nbn outage comms
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 9/30/25 11:11, David wrote:
> On Monday, 29 September 2025 08:56:58 AEST Sylvano wrote:
>> Is this the retailer being slack, a lack of data driven comms flow
>> between wholesaler and retailer, a generous use of the term ?planned?
>> by the wholesaler, or ? ?
> ...or is it the result of privatising an essential social service
> which is a natural government-run monopoly?
next you will suggest commbank should not have been sold off either.
By the way, (declaring I am a shareholder in Telstra) as I understand it
NBN bought back poles and wires and tunnels for cables from privatised
Optus and Telstra.
Oh and PMG telegraph poles and wires. See photo of Annandale Post
Office?(with gaslight and electricity pole which dates photo as between
1902 and 1910)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/2712466810/in/photostream/
"The words "Sydney ELECTRIC LIGHTING" and "SMC 1910" appear on the
facade mounted as single letters."..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substation_No._15
"Why is Annandale Post Office ALWAYS in AusPost ads??! I've counted at
least 3 now!!"
https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/vx74yz/why_is_annandale_post_office_always_in_auspost/
Ofcourse OTC and our sattelites:
> For more than 35 years, Optus has been Australia's preeminent
> satellite provider
>
> Launching 10 satellites, operating 13 spacecraft and providing support
> to over 100 international space programs
>
> Satellite technology is a real area of strength for Optus. We?re
> currently Australia and New Zealand?s leading satellite
> owner-operator, with five satellites currently in orbit and operating
> two NBN? Skymuster satellites with available services across
> Australia, New Zealand and to McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic.
>
> Optus has invested $3 billion in the space sector as a commercial
> operator and we specialise in a range of premium satellite services
> including the provision of launch support and transfer orbit
> operations, fleet management and Telemetry, Tracking and Control services.
from https://www.optus.com.au/enterprise/satellite/about-us
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ramin.com.au
------------------------------
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