Australian Politics
Australia’s largest grid-forming battery green-lit
How is a battery that lasts only two hours any substitute for a power station that works 24/7?
Australia’s largest grid-forming battery will be built in the New South Wales Hunter region from early next year after a final investment decision was reached by AGL Energy on Tuesday.
AGL, the country’s largest electricity generator, is advancing its green energy ambitions with the construction of a 500MW/1,000MWh, two-hour duration battery on the site of its retired Liddell coal-fired power station.
The battery is twice the initially planned size and will support the proposed Hunter Energy Hub, which is expected to feature renewable hydrogen and ammonia production.
The project is backed by a $35 million conditional grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). It was one of eight projects awarded conditional funding through the $176 million Large-Scale Battery Storage Funding Round in December 2022.
When the funding was announced, the successful projects under the round represented a tenfold increase in grid-forming electricity storage capacity operating in the National Electricity Market, according to ARENA.
AGL is targeting mid-2026 for the commencement of operations on the Liddell battery and is expected to have an asset life of 20 years. It will cost an estimated $750 million to complete construction.
US-headquartered Fluence Energy has been selected as the preferred engineering, procurement, and construction provider.
Grid-forming inverter technology enables energy generators to set their own voltage and frequency which can be maintained without the need to be connected to other generators.
This will enable batteries to restart the grid following a blackout and provide grid stability by adjusting power output to maintain local voltage and frequency, a role historically fulfilled by synchronous power plants fired by coal or gas.
ARENA has previously committed $81 million to eight other grid-scale batteries, five of which had grid-forming capabilities, although they were smaller in scale.
ARENA chief executive Darren Miller welcomed the final investment decision announcement and highlighted the importance of the battery.
“As new solar and wind connects to our grids, we’re going to need increasing amounts of energy storage to continue to provide reliable electricity to our households and businesses,” he said.
“However, as coal and gas generators retire, or start to play a lesser role, we’ll also need these new batteries to provide the crucial system security services that are currently provided by these traditional generators.
“This is why it is important to fund batteries like AGL’s that are equipped with smart inverter technology which can help stabilise the grid as we transition to renewables.
“We look forward to the construction of AGL’s battery in Liddell and expect to see the other ARENA funded grid-forming batteries reach similar milestones in 2024.”
To support development of the green hydrogen facility at the Hunter Energy Hub, AGL has signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) with Fortescue, APA Group, INPEX Corporation, Jemena, and Osaka Gas Australia.
Earlier this month, AGL also signed a MoU with battery recycling startup Renewable Metals to work on a pre-feasibility study on the establishment of a lithium battery recycling facility at the Hunter Energy Hub.
https://www.innovationaus.com/australias-largest-grid-forming-battery-green-lit/
**************************************************Troop boost to Middle East but no ship to Red Sea
Australia is unlikely to send a warship to join a dangerous new mission in the Red Sea but is set to deploy more personnel to the Middle East, amid pressure on the Albanese government to respond to a US request for Australia to be involved.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will announce details within days of Operation Prosperity Guardian – a new multinational task force to combat attacks on commercial shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
The US Navy asked Australia to send a warship to join the operation, but after the Albanese government made it clear in initial talks that its primary focus was the Indo-Pacific, it is understood the US has decided to modify its request.
The growing number of attacks on ships, which forced a US warship to shoot down 14 drones on Saturday, has jeopardised transit through the Red Sea, prompting major shipping countries to suspend voyages through a waterway that carries 10 per cent of the world’s cargo.
Australian Defence officials will speak to US counterparts on Tuesday, when they are expected to be told that an Australian ship is no longer being sought for the operation. A modified request from the US will give political cover for the Albanese government, which was under increasing pressure to explain why it had not agreed to the US Navy request.
Instead of sending a warship, Australia is likely to agree to deploy more defence force personnel to shore-based roles with the US-led Combined Maritime Force in Bahrain. There are currently five ADF personnel working at CMF headquarters.
The Albanese government told US officials the Australian Navy’s priority was in the immediate region where it has been playing a role in securing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea at a time when Chinese navy harassment of foreign naval warships and planes is on the rise.
The initial request came just days before the US Congress gave the green light to the unprecedented transfer of three nuclear submarines to Australia under the AUKUS partnership. Anthony Albanese said on Monday his government was giving appropriate consideration to what was a “general request to a range of nations”.
“Of course, our first priority is in our own region, and certainly the United States understands the important role that we’re playing, including freedom of navigation and other issues in our region,” the Prime Minister said.
It’s understood that if the Red Sea security situation worsened and Mr Austin issued a direct appeal to Defence Minister Richard Marles to supply a warship for the operation, the government would prioritise the request.
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"Believe the woman": Innocent men prosecuted as a result
The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions is a woman, Sally Dowling SC.
A third man accused of sexual assault by a woman who has made multiple “pattern” rape allegations will walk free after NSW’s Office of Public Prosecutions discontinued proceedings, just weeks after a damning court judgment called on prosecutors to re-examine her claims.
Charges against the accused – known as JM – are set to be formally withdrawn in court amid scrutiny on the ODPP, which has been accused of taking a “lazy and perhaps politically expedient” approach to prosecutorial decisions.
The prosecution of JM follows the acquittal of two other men who faced near-identical allegations they had sexually assaulted the complainant, who claimed she was too drunk to consent.
But a District Court judge earlier this month found the woman had an “idiosyncratic” and erroneous view of what constituted sexual assault which was not challenged by prosecutors, who put the cases before a jury in what was labelled a miscarriage of justice. The woman had earlier pursued other criminal complaints against a string of other men.
After confirming late on Monday that the case against JM was proceeding despite District Court judge Robert Newlinds calling on prosecutors to “join the dots” and critically analyse the woman’s claims, the ODPP has now confirmed the prosecution has been discontinued.
“The reasons for discontinuing an individual prosecution are privileged and will not be disclosed,” the office said in a statement. “The ODPP is not aware of further prosecutions currently on foot involving the same complainant.
“The decision to proceed with or terminate any prosecution is taken carefully and in accordance with the Prosecution Guidelines. Factors taken into account include matters relating to the victim, the accused and the offence.
“Factors which are irrelevant to the decision include political, individual or sectional interests, including media coverage or public sentiment.”
The discontinuance of the prosecution against JM comes after Judge Newlinds registered a “deep level of concern” over the abrogation of the prosecutor’s duty to interrogate complainants’ allegations amid concerns the ODPP was putting hopeless cases before juries and called upon prosectors to stop further prosecutions of men as a result of allegations levelled by the complainant who had gone to police about a string of men, at least six of whom faced charges in court.
“I think the prosecution took the lazy and perhaps politically expedient course of identifying that the complainant alleged she had been sexually assaulted and without properly considering the question of whether there was any evidence to support that allegation, and just prosecuted so as to let the jury decide,” he said in a costs judgment in the case of R v Martinez, which was dismissed by a jury after one hour of deliberation earlier this month.
“This must stop. Justice has not been served and will not be served by repeated cases being prosecuted based on obviously flawed evidence.”
In the Martinez case, the complainant had alleged she was sexually assaulted because she had been drunk and could not remember the evening in question. However, the court heard that she had initiated sex and enthusiastically consented.
Another case against a defendant dubbed AS also went before a jury in November, with that accused also acquitted. The case against AS involved a very similar scenario, and Judge Newlinds said the men could not receive a fair trial because the jury was prevented from hearing details of the complainant’s history of accusing multiple men.
NSW DPP Sally Dowling SC, responded angrily to the criticism levelled by Judge Newlinds, issuing a statement saying the ODPP would make a complaint to the Judicial Commission.
“The ODPP unequivocally rejects any suggestion that it makes prosecution decisions lazily or on the basis of political expedience, or that it operates according to ‘some sort of unwritten policy’, as the judge has speculated,” the ODPP said in a statement.
“Such remarks unfairly impugn the integrity of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the staff of the ODPP.”
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Schools and the politics of envy
One of the defining moments of the 2004 federal election was Mark Latham’s hit list of wealthy non-government schools and John Howard’s success in describing the ALP policy as the politics of envy. Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, is making the same mistake.
In response to a recently released report titled Improving Outcomes For All commissioned by Clare, he argues, ‘The growing gap between the rich and poor, largely as a result of segregation, based on wealth into government and non-government schools was unacceptable.’
Based on the argument that poor students are always disadvantaged, Clare also argues ‘we have one of the most segregated school systems in the OECD. Not by the colour of your skin, but by the size of your parents’ pay packet’.
Based on the assumption that school choice, where parents have the right to decide where their children are educated, is inequitable and unjust, Clare’s report offers 10 interventions calculated to level the playing field and ensure all schools, especially non-government, embrace socio-economic diversity and difference.
Reforms include legislated quotas ‘with penalties for noncompliance’, stopping non-government schools from charging fees and forcing them into the state system, stopping schools from selecting students on academic ability, and offering incentives to ‘quality educators’ to teach in disadvantaged schools.
After admitting there is no one solution to solve the issue of segregation the report argues all schools, government and non-government, must be involved to ensure all students, regardless of postcode or wealth, ‘have pathways to enrol in high-quality schooling’.
While justified in terms of equity and fairness by forcing schools to enrol students from a diverse range of home backgrounds, the report denies school choice, reduces all schools to the one level of mediocrity and state control, and stops schools charging fees and controlling who they enrol.
Since the heady days of the late 1960s, schools have been a key target in the cultural-left’s long march through the institutions. Drawing on the sociology of education movement, the argument is schools are complicit in reproducing capitalist hierarchies and concepts like meritocracy are social constructs reinforcing privilege.
Drawing on cultural-Marxism, prominent academics argue schools must be captured if the socialist dream of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ is to be achieved.
Victoria’s Premier, Joan Kirner, argued at a Fabian meeting, schools must be ‘part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change rather than in instrument of the capitalist system’.
The Australian Education Union for decades has characterised Australian society as riven with social injustice and inequality, argued Catholic and independent schools don’t deserve funding, and government schools serving low socioeconomic communities must be given priority.
The flaws in Minister Clare’s attack on so-called wealthy and privileged parents who choose non-government schools are manifest. International covenants and agreements endorse parental choice and argue parents must not be discriminated against because of where they enrol their children.
Given the Woke, extreme secularist nature of government schools and education departments pushing neo-Marxist inspired gender and sexuality theories, climate alarmism, critical race and postcolonial theories, plus identity politics, it is especially vital religious parents are free to choose.
Underlying the billions of dollars wasted as a result of the Gonski funding review, proven by international and NAPLAN tests results either flatlining or going backwards, is the myth a student’s socioeconomic background is the key determinant explaining success or failure.
While promulgating the SES myth fits the socialist belief society is structurally classist and investing more in schools serving disadvantaged communities will remedy the problem, the reality is the opposite.
Research undertaken by one of Australia’s leading education experts and psychometricians Gary Marks concludes SES accounts for 10-16 per cent when explaining outcomes. Analysis undertaken as part of the PISA test makes the same point when concluding SES contributes 15 per cent to test results.
More important factors include disciplined classrooms and setting high expectations, having a rigorous and teacher friendly curriculum, ensuring what happens in the classroom is effective and that teachers are subject experts supported by parents.
Contrary to the myth parents’ wealth is the major factor, research proves student ability and motivation are also keys to educational success. Research puts the impact of genetic inheritance at between 50 to 67 per cent and explains why working-class students are not always destined to under achieving.
Attacking Catholic and independent schools also fails the financial literacy test. On average while government school students receive $20,940 in government funding the figure for students attending non-government schools is $12,442.
Parents paying non-government school fees save state, territory, and commonwealth governments billions each and every year plus their taxes also support government schools. Proven by year 12 results, it’s also true non-government schools, with the exception of selective schools, consistently outperform government schools.
The Albanese government’s record of electorally disastrous polices include the Indigenous Voice, rocketing energy prices caused by climate alarmism, unacceptable rates of immigration and holding small businesses to account with its union-friendly industrial relations regime. Add school choice and school funding to the list.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/the-politics-of-envy/
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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