Broken Hill, Where the Dream of Wind, Solar and Batteries Went to Die and the Fantasy Was Exposed As A Lie

Judith Curry puts up some fantastic in-depth reports from other experts on her Climate Etc. site. A couple of days ago she posted a great article by Planning Engineer Rus Schussler. Following is a condensed version:

Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid

In October of 2024, the isolated small city of Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia with a 36 MW load (including the large nearby mines) could not be reliably served by 200 MW of wind, a 53 MW solar array, significant residential solar, and a large 50 MW battery all supplemented by diesel generators.

Many people falsely believe that wind, solar and batteries have been demonstrated to provide grid support and deliver energy independently in large real word applications. Few people realize that we are a long way away from having wind, solar and batteries support a large power system without significant amounts of conventional spinning generation (nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, geothermal) on-line to support the grid.

Broken Hill Outage – Wind, Solar and Battery Can Not Support the Grid

The recent outages occurring in Broken Hill help illustrate the inability of wind, solar and batteries to support electric grids without significant help from machines rotating in synchronism with the grid. (Note – wind power is produced by rotation but not in synchronism with the grid).

Around 20,000 people live in the Broken Hill area. Over $650 million in investment made Broken Hill home to a 200 MW wind plant, a 53 MW solar array, and a large battery that could provide 50 MW of power for 100 MWh through advanced grid forming inverters. Broken Hill is home to over 6,000 small-scale solar systems providing a per capita energy small solar production level almost twice the Australian average. The area also contains two poorly maintained diesel-powered gas turbine generators in the area, one which was off-line for maintenance.

Broken Hill became renewable energy industry’s Potemkin Village:

In 2018, Broken Hill City Council announced its goal to become Australia’s first carbon-free city by 2030. Three years ago, then mayor Darriea Turley welcomed the announcement that AGL was proceeding with plans to build a grid-scale battery, which the company claimed would be a reliable backup power source for 10,000 homes. “This is a great opportunity for Broken Hill and renewable energies,” Turley told the ABC. “What they will see is when there is an outage, the battery would click into operation.”

In October of 2024 this area was separated from the larger grid when the interconnecting transmission towers went down in a bad storm. Loads in Broken Hill are limited to about 20 MW of mining load and 17 MW that serve the local town for a combined load of 36 MW. The over 300 MWs of renewable energy from wind, solar and battery storage, along with a diesel generator were not able to provide reliable power to support the town alone.

A 25 MW gas plant or a 25 MW hydro plant would have done a much better job than the combined efforts of 200 MW of wind, 53 MW of solar, the 34 MW of distributed solar and 50 MW battery. The consequences for Broken Hill were serious. The Australian ran an article entitled: Broken Hill: Powerless and left to live like mushrooms where it described the situation:

The power comes on from time to time, but goes out just as quickly. It gives us just enough time to power our phones and read emails from energy providers sent the day before, alerting us to the fact the power was about to go out. They also warn we don’t have much time, and to avoid using unnecessary electrical devices – air conditioners, fridges or fans that need a power point.

In theory the area could be served, but in reality as noted by Jo Nova , “The fridges in the pharmacies failed, so all medications had to be destroyed and emergency replacements sent in. Schools have been closed. Freezers of meat are long gone… Emergency trucks are bringing in food finally.“

Haven’t I Seen Many Reports Where Large Systems Ran Just on Wind and Solar?

It is common to see articles describing how wind and solar served all or nearly all of areas load during some time period. These descriptions are all misleading. They may accurately describe how many kWhs of energy wind and solar produce as well as how many kWhs of load were served, but they do not provide information on all the conventional rotating machinery that was also deployed to support the grid with needed essential reliability services. They imply (or sometimes falsely state) that just “renewables” served the load, but in fact benefits from conventional rotating machinery connected on-line where needed in order to support the grid and maintain stability. Broken Hill produced much more “renewable” energy then it used and exported large amounts. But despite the huge green resources, Broken Hill has remained dependent on the interconnected grid to support its own small load.

It means nothing to talk about how much wind and solar has contributed if you don’t also share how much rotating machinery was also interconnected on-line. So, the question remains, “has anyone demonstrated that wind, solar and batteries alone can effectively supply reliable service to a general load of any significance?” I’ve never come across anything like that, perhaps because what’s been done so far is nothing to brag about. Partial and misleading information makes for better press.

Advocates and Academics Tend to Ignore the Real Problem

As described here, academics and advocates don’t usually get around to the crucial question as to whether the grid can survive without rotating machines. The first question Academics address is “can wind and solar provide the needed kWh?” If their studies suggest this is nominally possible, they jump to the conclusion that such resources can replace conventional generation. Clearly in Broken Hill, the resources there were sufficiently large to provide energy/kWhs far in excess of the demand. But having enough kWhs is not enough to reliably serve loads…

Many can argue that the grid at Broken Hill could or should have worked better (although the failure was likely beyond their worst fears). That’s typically true for any grid during any outage. To quote Nick Cater again., “If wind, solar and storage can’t keep the beer cold in a small city like Broken Hill, how will it perform when called upon to power the rest of the country?” Policy makers pushing for standalone power systems built primarily on wind, solar and batteries are lurching towards disaster and will only avoid calamity to the extent that they are unsuccessful in their goals of removing conventional rotating machinery or are able to lean on the despised conventional technology of their interconnected neighbors.

Read the whole thing here.

#NewSouthWales #NSW #Australia #Wind #Solar #BatteryStorage