Residents asked to switch off appliances this afternoon due to heat [AU]

[Halcyon]

The Australian Energy Market Operator are in the news today asking for residents to consider switching off home appliances and increasing the temperature on air conditioners between from 1530H this afternoon as Sydney and parts of New South Wales experience high temperatures (and naturally everyone is going to want to keep cool).

According to the AEMO website, they are estimating a peak demand of over 14,000MW as people get start to arrive home from work.

Here are some temperature observations as of 1300H today:
Sydney Airport - 39.6°C
Holsworthy (Liverpool) - 39.2°C
Gosford - 40.5°C
Nowra - 40.3°C
Sydney Olympic Park - 39.2°C

There is even talk of load shedding (where power is deliberately turned off to small groups of customers for short periods). It'll be interesting to see what happens as they expect it to reach 44°C in Western Sydney and over 45°C in central and far-west NSW this afternoon.

Attached is data from my place at the moment.

[Ampera]

Yea and YOU have the issues. Try running an air conditioner in 10-20 inches of snow. Not that easy.



But is it seriously so that NSW can't supply enough power? I mean did they never have this issue before?

[Halcyon]

But is it seriously so that NSW can't supply enough power? I mean did they never have this issue before?

We're usually pretty good here as we still run coal fired power stations. South Australia had issues in December where the entire state was blacked out. I think for NSW they are anticipating the demand to be about 77MW over capacity. I think part of the problem is also keeping the actual substation equipment cool enough. Maybe someone else with a bit more knowledge can contribute?

[digsys]

And some of your towns are expecting 48C+ today !! just shy of 50C !!
OZ used to have NO bulk supply problems for most our history, just the usual maintenance / union crap. Then we started selling it all off to private companies,
and splitting it up further and further, and adding more middle men and it all started going sour. Then, the IDIOT greenies got involved (I have NO issue with
going full renewable one day - these idiots acted like the end was near) for the last several years, and started shutting everything down without ANY backup plans.
THEN, to top it all off, our 2 main parties have spent 80% of their time arguing about "who has the biggest balls" and often cancelling billions$ of projects (that their
opposition started) and pretty much turned all progress to shlt! And sadly, there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel !

[Ampera]

50C is hardly even human survivable.

[anfang]

LOLStralia, dimboid central.

[Halcyon]

Current demand is about 13,500MW. With the temperature still increasing in most parts of Sydney. It's currently 42.9°C outside where I am with parts of Sydney hotter still. NSW has a total generation capacity of around 20,000MW which includes roof-top PV systems. Two of the four coal fired turbines at Liddell power station (which supplies a maximum of 2,000MW) are currently off-line for maintenance.

[noidea]

I can see a bigger push to implement DREDs (Demand Response Enabling Device AS4755) in air conditioners and other appliances if this trend keeps up in Summer.
Yay let the power companies nobble your device because they can't be bothered / too cheap to upgrade infrastructure to keep up with demand 

[Ampera]

You just need to know how to remove such devices. Nobody can sell you something that is completely tamper proof, especially in something as simple as an air conditioner.

[Halcyon]

It just seems that the electricity infrastructure isn't keeping up with the increases in population growth and more people adopting luxuries such as air conditioning. When I was growing up, we were fortunate enough to have a single split-system unit at home. These days big ducted systems are becoming the norm, if not expected in homes.

Same issue with the road and public transport infrastructure. It's not rocket science, stuff is reaching capacity.

[NiHaoMike]

So much can be saved by making the HVAC only do what really needs to be done. That is, sense where the people are and direct the heating or cooling as needed, keeping energy use to a minimum. Sit right in front of even a small window A/C and it would easily feel too cold. Add a VFD to turn it down so it doesn't get too cold, then add some servos to direct the airflow. A low resolution thermal imager can sense where the people are and provide temperature feedback at the same time. Finish it off with a Raspberry Pi or similar to do the computation.

[Wirehead]

So much can be saved by making the HVAC only do what really needs to be done. That is, sense where the people are and direct the heating or cooling as needed, keeping energy use to a minimum. Sit right in front of even a small window A/C and it would easily feel too cold. Add a VFD to turn it down so it doesn't get too cold, then add some servos to direct the airflow. A low resolution thermal imager can sense where the people are and provide temperature feedback at the same time. Finish it off with a Raspberry Pi or similar to do the computation.

Much easier to insulate the house better, and keeping everything shut. Heat stays in in the winter, heat stays out in the summer.

[Brumby]

Much easier to insulate the house better, and keeping everything shut. Heat stays in in the winter, heat stays out in the summer.

I don't have an outside thermometer, but according to weather services, it's 44ºC outside.  In my non-air-conditioned hall, the ceiling temperature reads at 35.6ºC.  This has insulation above it.  The manhole cover does not have any insulation behind it - and it reads 46.5ºC.  No brainer.


I still like the Hobbits' approach best.

[Ampera]

So much can be saved by making the HVAC only do what really needs to be done. That is, sense where the people are and direct the heating or cooling as needed, keeping energy use to a minimum. Sit right in front of even a small window A/C and it would easily feel too cold. Add a VFD to turn it down so it doesn't get too cold, then add some servos to direct the airflow. A low resolution thermal imager can sense where the people are and provide temperature feedback at the same time. Finish it off with a Raspberry Pi or similar to do the computation.

Much easier to insulate the house better, and keeping everything shut. Heat stays in in the winter, heat stays out in the summer.

That's actually not true. It would be a multi quadrillion dollar venture to insulate every house in the US better. There are millions of homes, and a lot of them have poor insulation, and it's not something you can just bolt on, you have to move out all the furniture, pay for somewhere for the family to live, tear down all the walls, add the insulation, re-drywall (Or other wall) everything, paint everything as it was, move back the furniture and family, as well as pay the family a considerable amount for taking their home from them.

And that's just the US. Our houses are fairly cheap which is a good and bad thing. Cheap house = less cost = less quality. They will stand for centuries, but they won't be well doing it.

[Brumby]

I'm talking about ceiling insulation.  That is cheap and easy.


But for including wall insulation - that would have to be done at construction time to be really economic.

[Halcyon]

That's actually not true. It would be a multi quadrillion dollar venture to insulate every house in the US better. There are millions of homes, and a lot of them have poor insulation, and it's not something you can just bolt on, you have to move out all the furniture, pay for somewhere for the family to live, tear down all the walls, add the insulation, re-drywall (Or other wall) everything, paint everything as it was, move back the furniture and family, as well as pay the family a considerable amount for taking their home from them.

And that's just the US. Our houses are fairly cheap which is a good and bad thing. Cheap house = less cost = less quality. They will stand for centuries, but they won't be well doing it.

I guess you can't compare the climate in the USA with Australia. I think fairly decent insulation has been pretty standard (if not, even required) in Australian homes for how many decades? Does anyone know?

[EEVblog]

It just seems that the electricity infrastructure isn't keeping up with the increases in population growth and more people adopting luxuries such as air conditioning. When I was growing up, we were fortunate enough to have a single split-system unit at home. These days big ducted systems are becoming the norm, if not expected in homes.

But they no longer allow big three phase power guzzling aircon systems, and houses have to meet BASICS requirements for energy efficiency etc.

[Ampera]

That's actually not true. It would be a multi quadrillion dollar venture to insulate every house in the US better. There are millions of homes, and a lot of them have poor insulation, and it's not something you can just bolt on, you have to move out all the furniture, pay for somewhere for the family to live, tear down all the walls, add the insulation, re-drywall (Or other wall) everything, paint everything as it was, move back the furniture and family, as well as pay the family a considerable amount for taking their home from them.

And that's just the US. Our houses are fairly cheap which is a good and bad thing. Cheap house = less cost = less quality. They will stand for centuries, but they won't be well doing it.

I guess you can't compare the climate in the USA with Australia. I think fairly decent insulation has been pretty standard (if not, even required) in Australian homes for how many decades? Does anyone know?

Heck yea I can. We may even have it worse. We can do anywhere from -20 to 100F where I live in Schenectady, NY. More southern New Britain states like Connecticut can go around 10 degrees higher, but can still be that cold in the winter (Google has F to C conversions for you)

Now we RARELY get 50c (122F) weather here, but it's not much of a difference, it's unbearably hot here. One difference is that we can get TERRIBLE humidity. It can go up to the 90% range, with 100% being raining (Some days it feels like you could start swimming in the air it's so thick) I am of course referring to Schenectady and most of New York, don't bang down my door complaining you get different results elsewhere. I mean today on a very dry, very cold day, we have 65% humidity 1:18AM.

So no, we may even have it worse than NSW, if not, then we don't have it much far off.

Did I mention we got probably around 6 inches (Around 16-18cm) of snow today? Not fun to shovel it...

[Someone]

That's actually not true. It would be a multi quadrillion dollar venture to insulate every house in the US better. There are millions of homes, and a lot of them have poor insulation, and it's not something you can just bolt on, you have to move out all the furniture, pay for somewhere for the family to live, tear down all the walls, add the insulation, re-drywall (Or other wall) everything, paint everything as it was, move back the furniture and family, as well as pay the family a considerable amount for taking their home from them.

And that's just the US. Our houses are fairly cheap which is a good and bad thing. Cheap house = less cost = less quality. They will stand for centuries, but they won't be well doing it.

I guess you can't compare the climate in the USA with Australia. I think fairly decent insulation has been pretty standard (if not, even required) in Australian homes for how many decades? Does anyone know?

Get settled in for a long read:
https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/energy/files/Evaluation5StarEnergyEfficiencyStandardResidentialBuildings.pdf
Insulation standards in Australia lag behind Europe.

Current demand is about 13,500MW. With the temperature still increasing in most parts of Sydney. It's currently 42.9°C outside where I am with parts of Sydney hotter still. NSW has a total generation capacity of around 20,000MW which includes roof-top PV systems. Two of the four coal fired turbines at Liddell power station (which supplies a maximum of 2,000MW) are currently off-line for maintenance.

Aemo says there is only 16,300MW of generation in NSW but its fun to see almost the entire snowy scheme come on to try and ride this out:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
Right now I'm seeing 5,300MW of hydro (out of around 8,000MW capacity) dumping into the NEM on that site and we're a long way from the peak of the evening. Industrial users have already been curtailed multiple times and it would be interesting to know if the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor or any hospitals have been disconnected/curtailed too.

[Halcyon]

It just seems that the electricity infrastructure isn't keeping up with the increases in population growth and more people adopting luxuries such as air conditioning. When I was growing up, we were fortunate enough to have a single split-system unit at home. These days big ducted systems are becoming the norm, if not expected in homes.

But they no longer allow big three phase power guzzling aircon systems, and houses have to meet BASICS requirements for energy efficiency etc.

I guess that depends on the council? My house was built just over a year ago and I've got a 3-phase system. It's the ActronAir SRA173C 17KW model (3-phase, 20 amp). Was ticked off by all the relevant authorities. The only thing BASIX dictated was that I had to have a 15KL water tank.

[Halcyon]

Aemo says there is only 16,300MW of generation in NSW but its fun to see almost the entire snowy scheme come on to try and ride this out:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
Right now I'm seeing 5,300MW of hydro (out of around 8,000MW capacity) dumping into the NEM on that site and we're a long way from the peak of the evening. Industrial users have already been curtailed multiple times and it would be interesting to know if the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor or any hospitals have been disconnected/curtailed too.

I got my figure of 20,000MW from http://www.resourcesandenergy.nsw.gov.au/investors/investment-opportunities/electricity-generation

I guess PV and whatever other generators are out there are making up the difference?

That said, give it a few hours and most of those PV arrays will be generating next to nothing so we'll be probably closer to your figure by this evening. Currently my 5KW (realistically about 4.7KW) array is generating about 1KW (about 4.2 amps) as the sun sets. All of my panels face directly north.

[Brumby]

Heck yea I can. We may even have it worse. We can do anywhere from -20 to 100F where I live in Schenectady, NY.

That's the point.  You DO have it worse, so comparing isn't really going to show much.

At the high end, there's not a lot of difference between 100ºF and 113ºF (45ºC) - and the insulation efforts aren't any different.

There are, however, not a lot of places in Australia that get down to -20ºF (-29ºC approx) let alone any with significant population - so there's not a lot of common experience around.

Most Australians don't spend a lot of time thinking about dealing with the cold ... just the heat.

[Someone]

Aemo says there is only 16,300MW of generation in NSW but its fun to see almost the entire snowy scheme come on to try and ride this out:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
Right now I'm seeing 5,300MW of hydro (out of around 8,000MW capacity) dumping into the NEM on that site and we're a long way from the peak of the evening. Industrial users have already been curtailed multiple times and it would be interesting to know if the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor or any hospitals have been disconnected/curtailed too.

I got my figure of 20,000MW from http://www.resourcesandenergy.nsw.gov.au/investors/investment-opportunities/electricity-generation

I guess PV and whatever other generators are out there are making up the difference?

That said, give it a few hours and most of those PV arrays will be generating next to nothing so we'll be probably closer to your figure by this evening. Currently my 5KW (realistically about 4.7KW) array is generating about 1KW (about 4.2 amps) as the sun sets. All of my panels face directly north.

APVI have the numbers for small solar installs:
http://pv-map.apvi.org.au/historical#4/-26.67/134.12
Only 1092MW of small solar installed in NSW, and they delivered around 56% of that capacity at peak in the afternoon. Adding in availability and shutdowns, the grid is very stretched at the moment.

[Halcyon]

Current demand is just over 14,000MW but I think the data is delayed quite a bit. I think we'll see a sharp increase as people arrive home and their house is boiling hot. They'll whack on the AC and the compressor will just be running at 100% to drop the temperature down.

I'll be honest, I've had my AC set to a nice 22.5ºC here all day (I like things on the cooler side) but the compressor only kicks in every 30 minutes or so for about 5-10 minutes to maintain the temperature. If I had just got home and turned it on, it'll be running flat out for a good 45 minutes.

I did however completely shut down two of my servers that I run in Sydney to conserve energy. (One is just a Minecraft server.)

[Ampera]

Current demand is just over 14,000MW but I think the data is delayed quite a bit. I think we'll see a sharp increase as people arrive home and their house is boiling hot. They'll whack on the AC and the compressor will just be running at 100% to drop the temperature down.

I'll be honest, I've had my AC set to a nice 22.5ºC here all day (I like things on the cooler side) but the compressor only kicks in every 30 minutes or so for about 5-10 minutes to maintain the temperature. If I had just got home and turned it on, it'll be running flat out for a good 45 minutes.

I did however completely shut down two of my servers that I run in Sydney to conserve energy. (One is just a Minecraft server.)

You see this is where you and I differ on a fundamental level.

You turned off your severs to conserve power.

I never turn mine on because I am too busy lazy to configure and use them.