4 ms·

Is the only reason that a behind the meter subsidy is more efficient because it reduces the upfront for an equivalent kWh storage (with the consumer footing the

by m101 1mo ago

Is the only reason that a behind the meter subsidy is more efficient because it reduces the upfront for an equivalent kWh storage (with the consumer footing the difference)? I would have thought few, larger, batteries at local substations was more efficient otherwise.

dhx 1mo ago
Distribution infrastructure capacity is a current and ongoing concern for summer peak loads (every house turning on air conditioners at once) even with the large government subsidies that have existed for residential solar panels, residential batteries, reverse cycle heat pump cooling/heating and insulation. The cost to rebuild every distribution substation, change every pole-top transformer and rewire suburbs would be much higher if these subsidies never existed. For most of Australia's population you can look up an annual report that each transmission and distribution operator is required to publish annually for their predicted demand on substations, transmission lines and distribution lines. For example in Victoria this report is the TCPR, an example available at [1]. For many distribution substations, the 10th percentile maximum demand is predicted to occur in the early 2030's, meaning that at least transformers at substations would need upgrading, or the substation rebuilt or expanded. The reasons include higher density development in urban areas, electric vehicle charging and for winter, electrification of gas heating. As an example of the impact of residential solar generation, [2] states that for an urban growth corridor of Melbourne being built largely in the era of residential solar panels being a standard housing feature, a distribution substation ATS West has 2x 150MVA transformers operating at combined peak of 200MVA, also with 125MW of embedded residential solar generation. Without that 125MW embedded residential solar generation, this substation and feeders perhaps would have had to be replaced years earlier to allow import of ~325MVA rather than ~200MVA. Also not mentioned explicitly in this report is residential battery storage which may be reducing maximum demand from predictions made before residential batteries were widely installed. As a side note, perhaps Australia perhaps has the most open and transparent electricity market in the world? I don't know any other country where the entire electricity grid down to 230/400VAC distribution lines running on poles in every residential street is available publicly on a map, including serial numbers of poles and ratings of pole-top transformers. And substation schematics and constraint reports, etc are all available through various public reports. I think the transparency demonstrates a great deal of confidence in the electricity grid and how it is managed. [1] https://www.powercor.com.au/network-planning-and-projects/network-data/ https://www.powercor.com.au/network-planning-and-projects/ne... -- refer to the PDF document in the TCPR zip file download for a substation-by-substation analysis in easy to read format. [2] https://media.powercor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/12194001/ATS-West-PADR.pdf https://media.powercor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/121...
- throwaway2037 1mo ago
  > As a side note, perhaps Australia perhaps has the most open and transparent electricity market in the world? I did some light research. I would mostly agree. Other honorable mentions: The Nordic Pool, Europe, Great Britain. They are all excellent. How do you know so much about the Australian power grid? Is it a hobby (personal interest) or profession-related?
  - dhx 1mo ago
    I've contributed a bit on the infrastructure side of things to OpenStreetMap--high voltage transmission lines, pipelines, etc. I also have contributed to alltheplaces.xyz which whilst mostly known for collating shop locations, also collates infrastructure point data such as substations, traffic cameras, bins in parks, etc. As I'm in Australia, I naturally have more of an interest in Australia. Sometimes when trying to improve OSM with a new substation, wind farm or otherwise, you might have missing information such as a wind farm that is covered with stitched imagery--left half is a 2024 swath showing construction underway and concrete foundations prepared, or a pad excavated, right half is a 2026 swath showing turbines installed and operating. Sometimes it can be helpful to double check assumptions made about an excavated pad being a wind turbine foundation against public data--e.g. press release stating how many turbines have been ordered for the wind farm, or a low resolution map in a company report indicating rough placement of turbines. Or for a new substation with a 330kV bus and 110kV bus confirmed by tracing transmission lines to other substation buses, there could be a dangling transmission line traced to a tower next to the new substation, but it's not clear which bus it may connect to. This is where some more detailed public data, in the rare case it may be available (such as in Australia), can be useful to combine together to confirm an assumption. A real case I found recently was in Saudi Arabia where a press release from a company stated something to the effect of "We just successfully installed a 330kV feeder 9281 to substation G40", which confirmed how the the transmission lines connected to the substation. I have however mostly mapped in countries where OSM is most lacking--and for electricity infrastructure that is China--by orders of magnitude. An example I worked on previously is Hainan, which was previously mostly missing from OpenInfraMap.[2] China publish nothing and even require their street view imagery providers to blur substations. Even so--this is largely a pointless effort because with a bit of extra puzzle solving (such as switching between 4 historic satellite images to find the one where a shadow or a tower or pole is visible) it's almost always possible to get an accurate map produced. Gaps are mostly limited to out of date satellite imagery which for China is a huge accuracy problem because the scale of electricity grid expansion is absurd. It's commonplace to start tracing a transmission line to only find half way along, the transmission line disappears on a stitch in satellite imagery, and then more recent imagery on the other side of the stitch shows 3 new 500kV+ (including HVDC) transmission lines routed in parallel, replacing the old line. You can open an OSM editor almost anywhere in China and scroll around for a minute to find an unmapped high voltage transmission line, wind farm, substation, etc (having a list of coordinates where new satellite swaths are available would help most here). For a global list of electricity grid data sources, [1] is very detailed list that is well maintained. Countries in Africa are particularly challenging--some you'd be lucky to find even a single 800x800px image of the electricity grid... or even a website for the transmission network operator. [1] https://github.com/open-energy-transition/Awesome-Electrical-Grid-Mapping https://github.com/open-energy-transition/Awesome-Electrical... [2] https://openinframap.org/#8.28/19.121/110.058 https://openinframap.org/#8.28/19.121/110.058

by m101 1mo ago

dhx 1mo ago

Distribution infrastructure capacity is a current and ongoing concern for summer peak loads (every house turning on air conditioners at once) even with the large government subsidies that have existed for residential solar panels, residential batteries, reverse cycle heat pump cooling/heating and insulation. The cost to rebuild every distribution substation, change every pole-top transformer and rewire suburbs would be much higher if these subsidies never existed. For most of Australia's population you can look up an annual report that each transmission and distribution operator is required to publish annually for their predicted demand on substations, transmission lines and distribution lines. For example in Victoria this report is the TCPR, an example available at [1]. For many distribution substations, the 10th percentile maximum demand is predicted to occur in the early 2030's, meaning that at least transformers at substations would need upgrading, or the substation rebuilt or expanded. The reasons include higher density development in urban areas, electric vehicle charging and for winter, electrification of gas heating. As an example of the impact of residential solar generation, [2] states that for an urban growth corridor of Melbourne being built largely in the era of residential solar panels being a standard housing feature, a distribution substation ATS West has 2x 150MVA transformers operating at combined peak of 200MVA, also with 125MW of embedded residential solar generation. Without that 125MW embedded residential solar generation, this substation and feeders perhaps would have had to be replaced years earlier to allow import of ~325MVA rather than ~200MVA. Also not mentioned explicitly in this report is residential battery storage which may be reducing maximum demand from predictions made before residential batteries were widely installed. As a side note, perhaps Australia perhaps has the most open and transparent electricity market in the world? I don't know any other country where the entire electricity grid down to 230/400VAC distribution lines running on poles in every residential street is available publicly on a map, including serial numbers of poles and ratings of pole-top transformers. And substation schematics and constraint reports, etc are all available through various public reports. I think the transparency demonstrates a great deal of confidence in the electricity grid and how it is managed. [1] https://www.powercor.com.au/network-planning-and-projects/network-data/ https://www.powercor.com.au/network-planning-and-projects/ne... -- refer to the PDF document in the TCPR zip file download for a substation-by-substation analysis in easy to read format. [2] https://media.powercor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/12194001/ATS-West-PADR.pdf https://media.powercor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/121...

throwaway2037 1mo ago
> As a side note, perhaps Australia perhaps has the most open and transparent electricity market in the world? I did some light research. I would mostly agree. Other honorable mentions: The Nordic Pool, Europe, Great Britain. They are all excellent. How do you know so much about the Australian power grid? Is it a hobby (personal interest) or profession-related?
- dhx 1mo ago
  I've contributed a bit on the infrastructure side of things to OpenStreetMap--high voltage transmission lines, pipelines, etc. I also have contributed to alltheplaces.xyz which whilst mostly known for collating shop locations, also collates infrastructure point data such as substations, traffic cameras, bins in parks, etc. As I'm in Australia, I naturally have more of an interest in Australia. Sometimes when trying to improve OSM with a new substation, wind farm or otherwise, you might have missing information such as a wind farm that is covered with stitched imagery--left half is a 2024 swath showing construction underway and concrete foundations prepared, or a pad excavated, right half is a 2026 swath showing turbines installed and operating. Sometimes it can be helpful to double check assumptions made about an excavated pad being a wind turbine foundation against public data--e.g. press release stating how many turbines have been ordered for the wind farm, or a low resolution map in a company report indicating rough placement of turbines. Or for a new substation with a 330kV bus and 110kV bus confirmed by tracing transmission lines to other substation buses, there could be a dangling transmission line traced to a tower next to the new substation, but it's not clear which bus it may connect to. This is where some more detailed public data, in the rare case it may be available (such as in Australia), can be useful to combine together to confirm an assumption. A real case I found recently was in Saudi Arabia where a press release from a company stated something to the effect of "We just successfully installed a 330kV feeder 9281 to substation G40", which confirmed how the the transmission lines connected to the substation. I have however mostly mapped in countries where OSM is most lacking--and for electricity infrastructure that is China--by orders of magnitude. An example I worked on previously is Hainan, which was previously mostly missing from OpenInfraMap.[2] China publish nothing and even require their street view imagery providers to blur substations. Even so--this is largely a pointless effort because with a bit of extra puzzle solving (such as switching between 4 historic satellite images to find the one where a shadow or a tower or pole is visible) it's almost always possible to get an accurate map produced. Gaps are mostly limited to out of date satellite imagery which for China is a huge accuracy problem because the scale of electricity grid expansion is absurd. It's commonplace to start tracing a transmission line to only find half way along, the transmission line disappears on a stitch in satellite imagery, and then more recent imagery on the other side of the stitch shows 3 new 500kV+ (including HVDC) transmission lines routed in parallel, replacing the old line. You can open an OSM editor almost anywhere in China and scroll around for a minute to find an unmapped high voltage transmission line, wind farm, substation, etc (having a list of coordinates where new satellite swaths are available would help most here). For a global list of electricity grid data sources, [1] is very detailed list that is well maintained. Countries in Africa are particularly challenging--some you'd be lucky to find even a single 800x800px image of the electricity grid... or even a website for the transmission network operator. [1] https://github.com/open-energy-transition/Awesome-Electrical-Grid-Mapping https://github.com/open-energy-transition/Awesome-Electrical... [2] https://openinframap.org/#8.28/19.121/110.058 https://openinframap.org/#8.28/19.121/110.058