The soil contaminated with arsenic, copper, lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was entombed beneath a concrete slab, at what is now a rail freight depot for Sadleirs Transport.
With a web of scaffolding erected beneath the bridge.
The work reinforced the bridge to carry five lanes in each direction, following the narrowing of traffic lanes from 3.5m to 3.1m wide, with a 0.5m shoulder.
And a holiday related footnote
I headed over to South Australia on holiday.
Where I found The Overland passing through Mount Lofty.
Making a trip down to Victor Harbor for the horse tramway.
In the past decade wind and solar generation has been displacing older coal fired power stations in Australia, with the stability of the electricity grid coming into question. One of the proposed solutions is something called a synchronous condenser – a technology that the State Electricity Commission of Victoria took advantage of fifty years ago.
Power grids are complex machines, dependent on the laws of physics. The national grid is designed to operate at a consistent frequency of 50 Hertz, or 50 cycles a second.
Traditional coal, gas and hydro power stations are considered “synchronous” because they use turbines or spinning wheels to produce electricity. Those spinning parts need to stay close to 50Hz to help keep the grid in synch.
But most of Australia’s installed wind and solar systems are not considered to be. That’s because they use inverters to connect to the grid, rather than spinning wheels.
If too much power is fed in relative to demand, the frequency will increase. If demand outstrips supply, the frequency drops. Regulators rely on a suite of technologies to help keep the grid frequency close to 50Hz.
Synchronous condensers are one of the technologies used to maintain the frequency of the grid, with Energy Networks Australia explaining the technical details in their piece, The age of the syncons.
What is system strength?
System strength is important as it relates to the ability of the power system to withstand changes in supply or demand while maintaining stable voltage levels.
When system strength is low, generators may not be able to remain connected to the grid, control of the power system voltage level becomes more difficult and protection systems (which control and maintain the safe operation of the network) may not operate correctly. This can result in supply interruptions to customers.
System strength is typically provided by synchronous generation such as coal or gas-fired generation or pumped hydro.
What are synchronous condensers?
Synchronous condensers are an old technology, commonly used as far back as the 1950s to stabilise power systems.
They are large machines which spin freely and can absorb or produce reactive (Alternating Current – AC) power in order to stabilise and strengthen a power system.
Synchronous condensers help when there are changes in load as they increase network inertia. The kinetic energy stored in a synchronous condenser contributes to the total inertia of the power system and is beneficial from a frequency control perspective.
What is inertia?
Inertia in the energy system refers to the continuous momentum of energy typically provided by the large spinning turbines of synchronous generators like large coal-or gas-fired power stations. This type of generation helps withstand changes in generation output and load levels to keep the system stable.
The retirement of synchronous power plants and more renewable generation coming into the energy system means there is less inertia available, so flexibility or stability must be found elsewhere in the system to back it up.
But despite all of the old fashioned spinning metal in their power stations, in 1966 the SECV installed a 750 rpm +125 -75 MVar at 22 kV capacity synchronous condenser at the Templestowe Terminal Station in north-east Melbourne.
A few years later a second synchronous condenser was installed at the Fishermans Bend Terminal Station, south of the Melbourne CBD.
And in 1971 a third unit at Brooklyn Terminal Station, in Melbourne’s west, with a salient pole design rotating at 750 rpm, with a rating of +110 -64 MVar at 14.5 kV, and a short time overload rating of 140 MvAr (10 min).
Following privatisation the reliability of the synchronous condensers declined, with availability falling below the 91% target in 2003. As a result network operator SP AusNet launched a refurbishment program to address degradation of stator winding sidewall and rotor pole insulation, but by 2013 only the unit was Brooklyn had been upgraded.
As a result reliability declined, with the end coming in October 2016.
AusNet Services and AEMO agreed in October 2016 that it was prudent to retire, rather than replace, these three synchronous condensers on the transmission network. These assets were in extremely poor condition and studies confirmed that their replacement would not have provided a net market benefit.
Since the agreement to retire the synchronous condensers, all three units have failed due to their poor condition. Given that the synchronous condensers were due to be retired by 1 April 2017, AusNet Services and AEMO agreed that it was not efficient to repair and return the synchronous condensers into service.
Liddell Power Station is a 2000 MW black coal fired thermal power station, commissioned between 1971-73. The site also includes associated infrastructure required for power generation, including water, coal and transmission plant.
In April 2015 AGL released a revised Greenhouse Gas Policy. The Policy outlined AGL’s commitment to the decarbonisation of our electricity generation portfolio, confirming closure dates for our coal-fired power stations. The announced closure date for Liddell is the end of 2022.
AGL believes that the installed capacity and energy output from Liddell is best replaced with lower emissions and more reliable generation, with a longer lifespan.
As part of our NSW Generation Plan we are investigating the use of one Liddell generating unit as a synchronous condenser.
Many other wind and solar projects in Victoria and elsewhere are having to go back to the drawing board because of connection requirements the developers either ignored, or didn’t know about.
The issue is most acute in western Victoria, but is also being felt in northern Queensland and south-west NSW.
Many new projects are being told that they face significant curtailment without either adding battery storage or old-style machinery known as synchronous condensers to deal with system strength issues.
Both options are causing headaches for developers, because either way they are trashing their financial models, and could cause extensive delays to projects that many expected would begin construction anytime soon.
As a high cost fix for system flaws.
RenewEconomy has been told that a synchronous condenser could add $8-$10 million in costs to projects already tight on margins. A group of solar farms in north-west Victoria have been told, RenewEconomy understands, that their additional costs could total $60 million.
As more energy sources such as wind and solar are connected to the grid, traditional power generation sources such as gas-fired units, operate less often. This has created a shortfall in system strength which was declared by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on 13 October 2017 and a shortfall in inertia which was declared on 24 December 2018.
A secure power system needs adequate levels of system strength and inertia, which to date have been provided by traditional synchronous generators.
Following an analysis of these options, the installation of synchronous condensers on the network was determined to be the most efficient and least cost option to ensure there is adequate system strength and inertia.
On 20 August 2019, the AER approved $166 million to fund the capital cost of delivering the synchronous condenser solution.
The first two of four planned synchronous condensers will be installed at the Davenport substation in mid-2020 and the second two will be installed at the Robertstown substation by the end of 2020. They will be commissioned by early 2021.
A static VAR compensator (SVC) is a set of electrical devices for providing fast-acting reactive power on high-voltage electricity transmission networks. SVCs are part of the Flexible AC transmission system device family, regulating voltage, power factor, harmonics and stabilising the system.
A static VAR compensator has no significant moving parts (other than internal switchgear). Prior to the invention of the SVC, power factor compensation was the preserve of large rotating machines such as synchronous condensers or switched capacitor banks.
Four SVC units are installed on the SP AusNet Network in Victoria – two +100 -60 MVar capacity units at Rowville Terminal Station, and one +50 -25 MVar unit at each of Kerang Terminal Station and Horsham Terminal Station.
Installed by the SECV during the mid-1980s and with a technical life of between 40 and 60 years, the control systems are now obsolete technology unsupported by the manufacturer, so an upgrade program is underway to replace them with modern equipment.
I’ve managed to completely avoid the topic of COVID-19 over the past few months, so here goes – a quick collection of coronavirus related public transport observations.
Changes
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home since March, but I ventured back in early April to pick up some stuff from the office – where I found the Melbourne CBD virtually empty.
Normally parked cars at Tottenham station overflow into the neighbouring grassy patch, turning it into a mud hole, but it’s now empty with everyone staying home.
At railway stations coronavirus posters have replaced the usual promotions.
Encouraging social distancing on escalators.
Victorian Government announcements on repeat.
Recorded by Philip Mallis
And cash payments stopped at the ticket office.
Trams have blocked the front row of seats out of use, to shield drivers.
With Transdev Melbourne taking it one step further – asking passengers to use the rear door to enter and exit the bus.
But V/Line replacement road coaches make do with a government health warning sticky taped to the door.
And the same
Back in early April SkyBus was still serving Melbourne Airport – the passenger on the top deck of this service wearing a mask.
As was the City Circle tram around the Melbourne CBD.
Authorised Officers were still roaming the rail network.
Freight trains have also kept moving.
Transport steel, containers, grain, and everything else that usually moves by rail.
So what have I been up to?
If you’re a regular visitor to my photo gallery you might have noticed I been uploading a lot less photos recently – this graph really shows the decline.
The last time I uploaded so few photos was when I went overseas!
A recent theme on my blog has been “zombie subdivisions” – suburbs that were created but never took off, resulting in empty streets in the middle of nowhere. It turns out Victorian planing policy has an official name for them – “old and inappropriate subdivisions” and a method of dealing with them – “restructure overlays”.
Starting in the land boom of the 1880s, and continuing until the introduction of formal planning controls in the 1950s, speculative subdivision of land into small blocks, many less than 0.1 hectares (1/4 acre) was rampant across Victoria.
The subdivision of Eden Park sits six kilometres to the west of Whittlesea and 40 kilometres to the north of Melbourne. It is located between the lines of a geometric grid that in 1888 was prepared by the Burwood Land Building and Investment. Co. Ltd. The development featured 1324 lots, ranging from one to four acres in size.
By 1901 upwards of 100 persons of small means had acquired lots at Eden Park, some no doubt tempted by the subdivider’s persuasive description of the advantages of a rural retreat.
In time many owners sold or surrendered their holdings by adverse possession until about 30 families owned small farms, intersected by the estate’s avenues. In the late 1960s the estate was again actively promoted, and in 1980 there were 450 individual owners and 175 detached houses.
Cemetery Estate in Hastings – approved for housing in 1960 with 230-plus lots sold. The Long Island Point gas fractionation facility was then built next door, rendering the unsuitable for residential development. Six households and 100+ privately owned allotments remain today.
And victims of dodgy developers
Midway between Werribee and Rockbank is Chartwell Estate – a subdivision created in the 1950s and marketed to new English migrants, and since restructured in the 1980s to facilitate limited residential development.
Swallowed by suburbia
The township of Kalkallo is located on the northern edge of Melbourne, on the Hume Highway just north of Craigieburn, and predates current planning rules.
The Kalkallo township was established in the pre-1851 squatting era and is an excellent examples of early rural town settlement. The township was subdivided into small allotments without regard for the provision of services or the effects of inadequate effluent disposal. As a result many of the allotments are incapable of adequately supporting a dwelling.
So as Melbourne has crept towards the township, a restructure overlay has been placed over it, to ensure that sympathetic development occurs.
The objectives of the Restructure Plans under the Restructure Overlay are to:
Ensure that existing old and inappropriate subdivisions are restructured in a manner that reduces development densities, that provides development opportunities consistent with the capacity of the site and the area to absorb such development without adverse impact on the environment and landscape of the area and without creating undue social and utility servicing pressures.
Ensure that the restructure of old and inappropriate subdivisions assists in achieving environmental and landscape objectives for the area generally and that development of these lots is environmentally sensitive in its siting, design and construction.
Ensure that adequate and proper servicing arrangements are made whilst recognising that there are often environmental impacts and high costs associated with infrastructure and utility service provisions.
Recognise that restructure lots generally have poor accessibility and are often in isolated locations removed from community and other service facilities.
Recognise that restructure areas are often located in high fire hazard areas and that any new development must be sited and designed to minimise fire hazard.
The end result – a total of 134 separate restructure overlays.
Holiday homes by the beach
I discovered Summerlands Estate of Phillip Island and the mysterious “This area is subject to a Government acquisition program” note alongside as a child. Developed from the 1920s in the middle of the penguin habitat, environmental concerns saw the “Summerland Estate Buy-Back Programme” launched in 1985, that saw the entire suburb wiped off the map by 2010.
Old and Inappropriate Subdivisions along the coast is an issue that planning has been attempting to deal with for some time. Most subdivisions occurred prior to formal planning laws being introduced. Issues being grappled with include: potential coastal erosion; climate change impacts; and development thresholds.
The Anglesea Neighbourhood Character Study (2003) identified two areas in Point Roadknight where the lots are substantially smaller in width and site area to the general pattern of allotments in the area.
Lots in the area adjoining Great Ocean Road are approximately 9.3m wide and have an area of 523m². Lots fronting Eighth and Eleventh Avenues are approximately 9.3m wide and have an area of 417m². This compares with the predominant lot size of 1000-1500m² in the surrounding areas. These lots result from past inappropriate subdivision, and in the majority of cases are owned in groups of two or three, with an existing dwelling constructed across the boundaries of the lots.
The Study flagged that if the lots in these land parcels were to each be developed individually for a dwelling, or re-subdivided to facilitate this outcome, it would result in an adverse impact on the character of the surrounding area. A recent example of the type of development being discouraged is at 59 Eighth Avenue, where the boundaries of two lots (each 417m²) were realigned to facilitate the construction of two dwellings, resulting in a crowded development that is uncharacteristic of the area.
Since restructured.
Landowners fight back
Attempts to restructure land in South Gippsland saw landowners fight back – Toora being one example.
The story of the development of Ninety Mile Beach is a sorry tale indeed. Thousands of people, mostly migrants, lured by developers with the promise of their own slice of paradise on Victoria’s own Gold Coast. The brochures promise a well-planned resort, with shopping centres and amenities, illustrated by pictures of glamorous women in bathing costumes on the golden sands.
Then as the years wear on the promises unravel. Much of the land cannot be developed, at least in its present form. Some of it is beach dunes. Some of it is flood-prone. Much of it is inaccessible. Successive environmental studies confirm what should have been seen at the outset, that it should never have been sold off in the first place. The original developers have disappeared.
In the meantime, some owners have continued to pay rates and other charges on their now worthless slices of paradise. Others have refused to pay. Yet others have sold their land back to the council for the nominal sums reflecting the land’s current value, later accusing the council of profiteering. In recent years the anger and frustration of many current and former landowners seems to have escalated, and to date has resulted in 67 complaints to my office.
Since then it has been recommended that blocks on coastal dunes and in flood-prone areas should be acquired by the State Government, while those in ‘urban settlement nodes’ can be developed, but only if the original individual lots are combined with three others to form a single block.
In the area south of the Princes Highway, there are also many areas that were subdivided into 20 acre parcels as part of the draining of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp. These areas often contain high quality productive soils and many are within the Koo-wee-rup Flood Protection District, therefore they are subject to regular flooding. Many of the lots are also held in contiguous ownership and are being farmed as one farming unit.
It is considered that the development of housing on lots at the density of the original subdivision will compromise the long term agricultural productivity of the land and would substantially alter the character of the area. The Restructure overlay has been put in place to restrict the number of dwellings being constructed on lots that are in contiguous ownership.
The lots in these areas mainly comprise old Crown Allotments which are significantly smaller than the minimum lot size allowed under the Farming Zone (40 hectares) and which if developed with dwellings could lead to the entrenchment of these areas as rural living areas.
This is not supported because it would remove land from productive agricultural use and in many cases will also be incompatible with the environmental values of the areas. In addition, some of the areas are relatively remote from townships and services.
Sandstone Island is rural freehold land held in single ownership and is isolated and constrained by its geographical location and lack of infrastructure. The Island is bordered by steep, grassy coastal bluffs. The Island contains an existing dwelling and shed and there is no provision for tourism or commercial uses.
Restructure Overlays are shown on the planning scheme map as RO with a number.
Purpose
To implement the Municipal Planning Strategy and the Planning Policy Framework.
To identify old and inappropriate subdivisions which are to be restructured.
To preserve and enhance the amenity of the area and reduce the environmental impacts of dwellings and other development.
Subdivision
A permit is required to subdivide land.
A subdivision must be in accordance with a restructure plan for the land listed in the schedule to this overlay.
Each lot must be provided with reticulated sewerage if available. If reticulated sewerage is not available, the application must be accompanied by a land assessment report which demonstrates that each lot is capable of treating and retaining all waste water.
Decision guidelines
Before deciding on an application, in addition to the decision guidelines in Clause 65, the responsible
authority must consider, as appropriate:
The objectives of the restructure plan for the area.
Appropriate measures to cope with any environmental hazard or constraint affecting the land, including slope, drainage, salinity and erosion.
The protection and enhancement of the natural environment and the character of the area including the retention of vegetation and fauna habitats and the need to revegetate along waterways, gullies, ridge lines and property boundaries.
The availability of utility services, including sewerage, water, drainage, electricity, gas and telecommunications.
The relationship of the intended use and development to the existing or likely use and development of adjoining and nearby land.
The effect on surrounding uses, especially agricultural uses and nearby public land.
2010 saw Metro Trains ramp up maintenance across the Melbourne rail network, with one projects being the relaying of track through South Yarra station.
While the sidings at ‘E’ gate are now gone – cleared to make room for the West Gate ‘Tunnel’ project.
Ding ding
Malvern tram depot celebrated its centenary this month, with a public open day held to commemorate the opening of the Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust on 30 May 1910.
Heritage trams #44 and #84 were brought down by road from the Bendigo Tramways for the occasion, with tram #44 running special trips between the depot and Dandenong Road.
Unfortunately in the decade since no heritage trams have operated on the Melbourne tramway network.
In the scrapyard
Rail freight operator Pacific National was busy scrapping redundant rolling stock.
Lifting the wagons off their bogies.
Lining them up beside the tracks.
Ready for a claw equipped excavator.
Ripping them up into a pile of shredded scrap metal.
Crash!
On 4 May a suburban train bound for Craigieburn proceeded past two red signals, and crashed into the rear of a stationary freight train.
They came together at a speed of 47 km/h, pushing the freight train forward 30 metres, before eventually coming to a halt 16 metres after the point of impact.
The driver and 14 passengers on the suburban train were treated by paramedics on site, with the driver and four passengers subsequently being taken to hospital.
The recovery of the train continued throughout the night.
The investigation determined that the driver of the suburban train had passed two signals at stop and travelled at speeds up to 69 km/h, in contravention of the normal rules and operating procedures, but the reason for their actions could not be determined.
However the safety issue that led to the crash was only partially addressed, leading to a similar collision in 2014. The ATSB then became involved, and so in 2018 Metro Trains finally put in place engineering controls to prevent a similar collision occurring again.
