Population Growth So?
Many people have heard that our population is growing, and most of us have a reaction of it doesn't affect our lives. But more and more are coming and it puts strain on our infrastucture and the main effect is price increase but using data from mtiple sources I have uncovered that if we don't start creating and building more power plants we will run out of power and on peak times power will run out.
Peak What?
Peak demand is the maximum usage of electricity at a given time for Australia (or Queensland). It occurs in the height of summer at around 1:PM, that is called the summer peak and the highest recorded peak was this year (8911 MegaWatts), but each year the demand keeps going up (see below). In winter there is a peak which occurs during early morning at around 7:AM and an evening peak at around 7:PM then during the day it levels off. The graphs below show summer and winter demand graphs for Victoria. While the numbers are different in Queensland, the shape of the curve is the same.
What Do the Energy Companies Do about this?
The electricity industry in Queensland is a mixture of private and government owned electricity companies, which own power generation, transmission, distribution and retailing. The management of the industry is by a body called the Australian Energy Market Operator- AEMO. This group takes a national approach to the everyday operations, long-term planning and system security of the gas and electricity markets in Australia.
Well, How do I do my part
You have probably heard all of these messages before but from different people and for different reasons but they all tie in together and some of them are:
- Buying More Efficient Devices such as LED TVs or Energy Efficient Light bulbs (My Science Report suggest for lightbulbs the wasted energy is heat and come and see the results here)
- Turn off devices when not in use (NOT STANDBY)
- Set your air-conditioner at 24 degrees
Peak Demand and Growth - Do we have enough electricity?
Maximum Installed Capacity (excluding Wind and Hydro because they don't work all year round.) is 24198 Mega Watts (One Hundred Million Watts) and we have 24 power stations, and
I have calculated our future peak growth in these excel spreadsheets.
I have calculated our future peak growth in these excel spreadsheets.
| Queensland Power Usage and Population.xlsx |
| Australian Populaion and Power Usage.xlsx |
The Australia Data has nothing to do with the install Capacity for Queensland.
Future Power Possiblities and Plans
This task is about energy and the future and recently gas has been emerging and has became our second common power source. This keeps continuing especially in Western Australia and South Australia, and for the future gas will keep growing as we find more deposits and coal's dominance will start to decrease slightly and less coal power plants will be built, because of greenhouse gas emissions. Newer technology such as wind and solar will not become large scale solutions to meeting demand needs, but have a place in an electricity system as shown in the layers diagram below. Hydroelectricity will not grow in Queensland as we have already put hydro on most suitable dams and building hydro-electric stations also has major environmental impacts. Hydro works best in the wet season which is good in Queensland because peak demand is in summer. We will also adopt nuclear in the very long term. Nuclear has an image of nuclear weapons and Chernobyl which are fair comments but we have large uranium deposits and it would be just as efficient at coal and we have new safer technology such as the pebble reactor.
Looking at data, we have enough power for the future and we have a large amount of coal for the next 10 years and possibly well after that. As long as we meet demand and continue to build more power stations (probably more efficient design) and eventually transition to a newer (yet to be invented) power source which is renewable.
The public isn't informed about power or peak demand (according to survey results) and the data above is an estimation on predictions by reliable sources. If we are properly regulated by the managing body and the industry competition is fair and we continute to propose and build more power stations we are in a good shape for reliable electricity into the future.
Looking at data, we have enough power for the future and we have a large amount of coal for the next 10 years and possibly well after that. As long as we meet demand and continue to build more power stations (probably more efficient design) and eventually transition to a newer (yet to be invented) power source which is renewable.
The public isn't informed about power or peak demand (according to survey results) and the data above is an estimation on predictions by reliable sources. If we are properly regulated by the managing body and the industry competition is fair and we continute to propose and build more power stations we are in a good shape for reliable electricity into the future.
Layers
Much of the population thinks that wind and solar are effective when really they aren't so, we have to have a large reliable base and add things such as hydro and solar as shown in this diagram.
