Tesla, the world’s biggest electric car maker and leading supplier of utility scale and household batteries, has warned that Australian households face “severe curtailment” of their rooftop solar PV systems under the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plan.
The warning comes in Tesla’s late submission to the select committee on nuclear energy, where it says there is no room for both technologies to operate at the same time.
Tesla says there will be no room in the grid for more than 2 gigawatts of baseload. The federal Coalition announced on Friday that it wants to build 14 gigawatts of “always on” nuclear.
“Nuclear is a complex technology to integrate into the power system, with constraints around ramping and load following (e.g. oscillating the pressurized reactor core) meaning it acts as a traditional baseload supply,” Tesla writes.
“Any large-scale build out of this type of inflexible baseload supply will therefore be impacted by minimum generation levels, resulting in either low-capacity factors for the nuclear plants and/or unit decommitment (bidding out of the market), or severe curtailment of cheaper rooftop solar and renewables.”
The Tesla submission emerges as the same time as industry body the Smart Energy Council, and federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen warn that rooftop solar systems could be curtailed more than 60 per cent of the time to accommodate the planned fleet of nuclear power plants.
They note that there is already little room for large fleets of baseload power plants, given that the output of rooftop solar has already reduced “operational demand” to new lows of around 10 gigawatts.
The Coalition wants to build 13.2 GW of nuclear in the main grid (and 14 GW including Western Australia) which would result in severe curtailment now, let alone in 20 years when the first nuclear power plants. By that time the number of rooftop solar systems could easily double, treble, or even quadruple, according to AEMO forecasts.
“Baseload is continuously being displaced by cheaper renewables, in particular roof-top solar, with this baseload demand reducing year by year,” Tesla notes, reflecting widespread industry observations that the concept of “baseload” is being replaced by a focus on supply and demand flexibility.
“As low-cost wind, solar and storage continues to scale, there is a diminishing role for inflexible, baseload assets, as the (load duration curve) will compress down and displace baseload generation.
“We are already seeing this acutely in the smaller grid of WA – where high penetration solar is challenging the economic operation of baseload coal plants and the SWIS would not be able to support a large, high-capacity baseload generator like nuclear now or in the coming decades.
“This is expected within the wider NEM in the next few years as low marginal cost renewables continue to penetrate the system and drive down prices.”
Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plan includes at least 700 MW of nuclear power capacity in the town of Collie, where the existing ageing coal fired generators are already being replaced by some of the country’s biggest battery storage facilities.
Those batteries are being built because rooftop solar is already reaching shares of 85 per cent of total demand and completing eroding the engineering and economic case for baseload.
In South Australia, where the Coalition also wants to build a small nuclear reactor, or two, rooftop solar has reached a peak of 112.9 per cent of state demand, with the surplus being exported to Victoria or stored in big batteries.
“Given Australia’s world-leading solar and wind resources, and leading rates of rooftop solar PV, the power system’s minimum operating demand threshold becomes an upper ceiling for baseload supply to operate the power system in a secure and reliable state,” Tesla writes.
“Increasing renewable penetration at these times further displaces baseload generation, reducing capacity factors and increasing the cost of supplying energy to consumers.
“It is increasingly difficult to operate a single 1GW baseload generator in NSW or Queensland, with the power systems in SA, Tasmania, Victoria, and WA not able to support that level of (baselaoad) generation.
Assuming an 85% capacity factor, this represents at most ~15TWh (less than 6% of NEM net demand) in 2040 at higher generation costs which would increase market prices.
“Increasing baseload generation capacity above this would require baseload generation to operate as a mid-range generator, reducing their power output during the day and overnight, which decreases capacity factors, increases technical risks and the cost of generation.”
See also:
“You can’t charge your battery and your car at same time:” Dutton does not have a clue about energy
Energy Insiders Podcast: Dutton’s high stakes, low sense nuclear plan
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