Solar pain: Australia’s largest coal plant does unthinkable — tests switching off for lunchtime

Solar power destroys efficiency of the rest of the system

The Eraring power plant produces up to 2,880 MW. That’s 20 per cent of Australia’s largest state’s (NSW) electricity and about the same (percentage-wise) as the entire fleet of 94 wind farms in Australia plus our couple-of-million solar panels. It’s been running four giant turbines almost non-stop for 35 years. But the intrusion of subsidized mass solar energy arriving in the middle of the day means it is now testing whether it should stop and start the turbines during lunch time. These turbines weigh hundreds of tons, and spin at 3,000 rpm.

There are hundreds of small and large hot metal parts with operating temperatures above 500 degrees C. As the temperature changes, all of those parts will expand and contract, and at slightly different rates. Because it spins 50 times a second, everything is finely tuned. There is no way maintenance costs will not be rising, and coal use per MW will rise too, just like a car in the city uses more fuel per mile than the same car in the country.

The great efficiency of scale of coal generation comes from doing one thing well and keeping on […]