"a private consortium has applied for a fast-track consent to revive the scrapped pumped-hydro project at Lake Onslow"
That dinosaur - Onslowsaurus🦕 - cannot be revived other than as a scam to embezzle the Reserve Bank of NZ.
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#NZpol #NZenergy
My "modelling shows renewable electricity can meet NZ’s future demand" too but without the Onslow folly.
Instead, build pumped hydro on the NORTH ISLAND for intra-week storage of 30GWh/3GW.
Triple wind power.
Let the market build solar & batteries.
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Ah Strathdearn pumped hydro - at its maximum build size could store 6.8TWh.
If 10TWh was ever really needed, we could source another 3.2TWh at other sites.
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/w...
Wind energy matches NZ's seasonal energy demand better than solar.
Govt should build -
* triple wind power, 400MW/year for 6 years
* 30GWh/3GW of intra-week pumped hydro storage on the North Island
Let the market build -
* GW solar & batteries
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"pumped hydro storage which is the natural complement to wind"
You got that right, Iron Economist.😁
Throw in a little solar power and biomass for backup power for difficult weather conditions and you have a UK renewable energy system to die for.
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So what's the hold up with building UK pumped hydro?
We have the sites - Scotland mostly but England and Wales too.
The problem is misgovernment, with Labour using the same clueless officials to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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I don't think the UK will need 10 TWh any time soon, but 2 to 4 TWh of pumped hydro would be very useful for a 120GW peak demand grid.
Run your own numbers with this free tool.
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Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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Instead of building 230MW/year of new wind farms to meet the 2030 target.
Next Labour Govts -
* triple wind power, 400MW/year for 6 years
* 30GWh/3GW of intra-week pumped hydro storage on the North Island
Every Govt / market -
* GW solar & batteries
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Count me in, brother! ✊
The UK could share our pumped hydro with the Netherlands - but we aren't building as much as we could or as fast as we should.
Ireland can use these free tools to find good sites for pumped hydro
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/s...
and design a 100% renewable energy grid.
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Or hire me with a budget of over £1 billion
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Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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One option would be to upgrade Tokaanu to pumped hydro operations.
A small 5GWh at Huia would be handy for Auckland.
Dougal McQueen has good pumped hydro plans.
There are other options for Moawhango too.
Only 2 of these many 15GWh sites would be needed, powered for 1,500MW each.
There's plenty of choice but take a closer look at one good site - Lake Waikareiti - but it would need a new transmission line to take the power to and from the substation at Wairakei.
To get rid of fossil fuel in power generation, NZ will need about 30GWh/3GW of 10-hour batteries, which may be cheaper to build as NORTH ISLAND pumped hydro.
However, Onslow was ALL WRONG, wrong island, wrong size (too big), wrong power (too weak), wrong cost (too expensive).
How did New Zealand go so wrong with wind power?
PM Helen Clark got off to a good start.
But in 2010s wind farm building stalled.
PM Jacinda Ardern restarted but she built less than 100MW/year when 230MW/year was needed to meet 2030 target.
Build 400MW/year for 6 years to triple NZ's wind power.💡
How did New Zealand go so wrong with Onslow?
Megan Woods was in a swoon about Earl Bardsley the aging hydrologist (not a renewable energy grid designer) whose folly Onslow was.
All the consultants the Govt hired weren't paid to offend Woods by telling her that she and Bardsley were clueless.
There are plenty of good sites on the North Island for pumped hydro - needing a total of about 30GWh/3GW providing 10 hours duration at maximum power generation - intra-week grid scale energy storage - not Onslow's inter-year.
x 3 wind farms - government to push
x 9 solar - can be left to market
Here's my suggestion for 100% renewable energy electricity.
As you can see, I include an element of grid scale energy storage - "31.2 GWh (North Island)" less than 1/100th of Onslow.
South Island only needs 1.1GW of wind power, which can be balanced by ramping down hydroelectric generation.
Not-dipshit, reporting for duty.
Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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Pumped hydro is needed on the NORTH Island - Clutha River is South Island.🙄
Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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Google's AI Overview is your AI friend.
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You needn't (you SHOULDN'T), they are BUT
An efficient grid will also require about 30GWh/3GW of North Island grid energy storage - pumped hydro and/or batteries.
For suggestions for where on the North Island to build pumped hydro see my blog post
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Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid
Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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Onslow is in the wrong place to serve - throttled by the capacity limit of the inter-island HVDC link, but that's only one of the things that's wrong with Onslow.
Ultimately, like Earl Bardsley, the hydrologist whose folly Onslow is, your field of science is other than #RE100 grid design.
Well I'm speaking to the right country then.
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DO invest in North Island, smaller, more powerful pumped hydro.
Killing Lake Onslow was correct - but incorrect not to go to N.I. and incorrect not to build 400MW/year of wind farms to triple wind power in 6 years.
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Think big, not stupid.
Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid
Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow
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