Thanks for a very clear exposition of this difficult topic.
I see the powers that be are now (re-)committing to nuclear, presumably because of the arguments you present above, despite the past 'incidents' and the anti-nuclear lobbies.
Changing horses in midstream never was a good idea.
I agree Victoria has baseload. But I disagree that one has to treat Victoria and South Australia as "one grid". Why? Because going back to figure 2 in the post I shared above, you can see the role of the interconnector and imports (in purple). And while yes, Victoria helps balance South Australia's grid, it's not at the level where one can consider these as "one grid". In fact, what's happening is that cheap solar from South Australia is actually putting pressure on Victoria's coal to retire earlier.
And as for SA's "Cheap Solar Putting Pressure on Coal", that is not true because while surplus VRE from SA does temporarily displace coal in Vic, a few hours later, they can sell coal fired generation at a premium when SA's part-time Wind & Solar Fail as they do daily.
The bottom line is that SA is just as much a part of Victoria's Grid as Wales or Scotland are part of the UK grid.
Thanks for a very clear exposition of this difficult topic.
I see the powers that be are now (re-)committing to nuclear, presumably because of the arguments you present above, despite the past 'incidents' and the anti-nuclear lobbies.
Changing horses in midstream never was a good idea.
This isn't true though. You already have grids that operate reliably without baseload. See figure 2 here. H
https://prismbysugandha.substack.com/p/sunshine-state
Gas peakers balance RE but they're not "always on" (which is the defining feature of baseload).
At first look, I can understand why you would think that.
However, you are wrong as South Australia relies heavily on Victoria (and since Apr 2025, NSW) for their Grid Stability.
South Australia has interconnector capacity of ~99% of average demand. Much of this is AC which means they are synchronized with Victoria and now NSW.
This in effect makes SA and Victoria a combined grid and they must be treated as such.
Victoria provides SA with Base Load.
https://www.goinggreencanada.ca/Respomse_Dr_Suganda_Srivastav_July_8_2025.pdf
I agree Victoria has baseload. But I disagree that one has to treat Victoria and South Australia as "one grid". Why? Because going back to figure 2 in the post I shared above, you can see the role of the interconnector and imports (in purple). And while yes, Victoria helps balance South Australia's grid, it's not at the level where one can consider these as "one grid". In fact, what's happening is that cheap solar from South Australia is actually putting pressure on Victoria's coal to retire earlier.
To understand how much SA relies on Victoria, let's look at what SA would look like without them.
To illustrate, I have updated: https://www.goinggreencanada.ca/Respomse_Dr_Suganda_Srivastav_July_8_2025.pdf
And as for SA's "Cheap Solar Putting Pressure on Coal", that is not true because while surplus VRE from SA does temporarily displace coal in Vic, a few hours later, they can sell coal fired generation at a premium when SA's part-time Wind & Solar Fail as they do daily.
The bottom line is that SA is just as much a part of Victoria's Grid as Wales or Scotland are part of the UK grid.