Sunshine and wind met 80.4% of demand on Australia’s main power grid on Saturday, setting a new high bar for renewable electricity.
Solar panels on rooftops provided more than half of the power used in the national electricity market, the grid that supplies the eastern states, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, for 30 minutes around lunchtime. This was complemented by solar and windfarms, and a small amount of hydro (1%). Fossil fuels, coal and gas, contributed 20%.
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the milestone meant there was “more clean, cheap, sovereign energy powering our homes and businesses than ever before”.
“There’s a long way to go, but expect more and more of these milestones in the future as Labor gets on with the job of the energy transition, and delivering real cost of living relief,” he posted on social media.
Dr Dylan McConnell, an energy systems researcher at the University of New South Wales, described it as “record season” for renewables. Clear sunny days created good conditions for generating power, coinciding with low demand from heating and cooling. It was often the time when a year’s worth of new generation coming on stream was reflected in higher shares of renewable energy.
“These records are probably not going to last very long, they’re probably going to be broken in the next couple of weeks.”
There was more renewable energy than needed. Some of the excess was being stored by pumped hydro and batteries, and quite a lot of the surplus was curtailed, due to system security rules, network constraints and low prices. Coal generation in Queensland also hit a record low over the weekend, McConnell said.
While the renewables record was a sign of progress and illustrated that Australia was “marching towards a higher penetration renewable energy system”, it was not the main game in terms of emissions, he said.
“From an emissions perspective, what matters is the annual contributions and how much coal we are burning.”
The average renewable share in the year to June was 44%, according to the Australian energy market operator.
More than 4.3 million Australian households now have rooftop solar.
The weekend record followed new analysis, which highlighted the insufficient investment in new capacity needed to meet Australia’s 82% renewable energy target by 2030.
