Wind energy overtakes hydro for first time in Australia

The Australian wind energy industry achieved a milestone in January, with wind generation exceeding hydro generation for the first time.

According to data compiled by Green Energy Markets, the wind industry boosted production to its highest level in six months -thanks to good wind speeds – while hydro generation fell sharply from previous years, mostly as a result of the carbon price repeal, which has removed much of the incentive for the hydro generators to increase production.

This graph below illustrates the change. In January, wind energy generated 893,352MWh, while hydro generated 884,730MWh.

wind hydro

The GEM data shows that NEM wind generators achieved more than 36 per cent capacity factor in the month of January, the highest level in six months.Wind farm generators such as Infigen Energy recorded significantly lower generation in the six months to December due to lower wind speeds.

As for hydro, the output from most generators (other than Dartmouth) is well below their average baseline levels at the end of January. Hydro generation from Tasmania in particular, is 38 per cent below levels at the same time a year ago – when hydro plants there generated a lot to take advantage of carbon price.

Total hydro generation over the last three months has been at its lowest level for more than three years. i.e. since before the carbon price was introduced.

However, the overall share of renewable energy in Australia in January fell to 11.7 per cent, compared to its peak of more than 18 per cent in August, September and October in 2013. The figure does not include the nearly 4,000GW of rooftop solar, which accounts for between two and three per cent of overall demand, although much of it is not metered.

Comments

16 responses to “Wind energy overtakes hydro for first time in Australia”

  1. Blair Donaldson Avatar
    Blair Donaldson

    Just watch how our anti-environment environment Minister spins the reduction of generation from hydro since the abolition of the carbon tax.

  2. onesecond Avatar
    onesecond

    So there is unused hydroelectric capacity and people prefer to burn coal instead? That is sick. How can this make economic sense?

    1. Ronald Brakels Avatar
      Ronald Brakels

      The dams get low on water. When electricity prices are low, and they were really low last month compared to what they normally are, they let the dams start to fill back up again so there will be water to use when prices are better. No hydroelectricity is wasted in Australia.

      1. onesecond Avatar
        onesecond

        Ah ok, so the bottom line is, there is not enough water. If there was enough rain, so the basins would be full, it wouldn’t make any sense to stop hydroelectric production no matter how low the price. It may seem kind of obvious, but as the article didn’t mention anything like that I kind of thought it was a crazy Australian coal preferring incentive introduced by Abott or something.You know like paying hydroelectric producers with taxpayer money for not producing so the coal guys can make more money by selling their dirty electricity. From what I have read I really wouldn’t put it past him. 😀

        1. Ronald Brakels Avatar
          Ronald Brakels

          No, the real dirty is being done in Queensland with rooftop solar being limited in how much electricity it can export to the grid. In other words, coal gets burned while clean solar electricity is simply wasted. And just to rub it in, people have to pay extra for the equipment that limits solar electricity exports.

          1. onesecond Avatar
            onesecond

            🙁 Well, what can I say. People should vote Green.

    2. RobS Avatar
      RobS

      Hydro generators were being run at totally unsustainable levels during the carbon tax because they knew it was highly likely to be repealed so they were selling as much power as they could whilst it was in place and recognised record windfall profits as a result. It is simply not possible to have continued hydro generation at the rate it had been in 2012-2014. in tassie for example after building up to storage levels of 65% pre carbon tax the surge in generation and export over Basslink has resulted in a drawdown in our storages to 20%, not only is that not sustainable but if we get drought conditions now we are actually highly vulnerable with such incredibly low storage levels. Had these bumper hydro generations designed to capitalise on the carbon tax not occurred it is highly likely we would have seen wind surpass hydro generation one or two years earlier.

      1. onesecond Avatar
        onesecond

        Thanks for enlightening me on that issue. I really didn’t know, that Australian hydroelectricity had such vast storage capacities, that it could keep up unsustainable production rates for two years, so I was kind of confused to see the sharp drop after the repeal of the carbon tax. A drought of course adds to that, it is a shame that hydroelectricity production will likely go down from now on cause it will get much hotter and drier.

      2. wideEyedPupil Avatar
        wideEyedPupil

        Thanks I was wondering the exact nature of the windfall profits Hydro seemed to be pulling during the Carbon Tax and why they would just stop producing without the extra price premium that CT brought to the market.

      3. Smurf1976 Avatar
        Smurf1976

        Hydro generators most certainly did draw down storage during the high prices, but I must point out that the Tasmanian system hasn’t been full since the late 1970’s and is unlikely to ever be full again. Hydro is all about energy, not peak power, and we just don’t have a surplus of energy in the system and never really have had (the high levels in the 70’s were largely due to sustained high rainfall). That said, there is no credible threat to supply with present storage levels and that is so even if we were to have a repeat of the worst drought on record. Storage declined from 53.8% on 1st July 2012 to 28.1% on 30 June 2014. Storage increased to a recent peak of 34.3% on 10th November 2014 and is presently at 30.3%

  3. Andrew Woodroffe Avatar
    Andrew Woodroffe

    Also last year, PV over took wind in terms of installed MW in Australia. It will be interesting to see how long it takes solar to over take wind in terms of MWh generated, 2020?

    1. Andrew Woodroffe Avatar
      Andrew Woodroffe

      Brown is wind, blue is solar.

    2. Raahul Kumar Avatar
      Raahul Kumar

      If we go by the trends in your chart, we can expect that in 2015. Solar and wind are already neck and neck in 2014, and Solar PV has a higher capacity factor than wind.

      If there is more of it installed, the higher capacity factor will put it over the top even if it is a good year for wind.

      1. Andrew Woodroffe Avatar
        Andrew Woodroffe

        No, that is not correct. PV has a capacity factor of around half of wind – no generation at night for a start. Then there is the variation in rooftop installations, from east to west, differing tilt angles, shading from trees and neighbouring buildings meaning actual generation way short of optimum which would have a CF of around 20% for most of southern Australia. Most wind farms will have a capacity factor between 30 and 45%.

        1. Raahul Kumar Avatar
          Raahul Kumar

          Those are some surprisingly high CF’s claimed there for wind, internationally it’s much lower usually. According to
          Ronald on this website Australian solar has this CF:

          Darwin: 24%
          Brisbane: 21.5%
          Sydney: 19.7%
          Canberra 20.4%
          Melbourne: 18.4%
          Adelaide: 20.5%
          Perth: 21.6%
          Hobart: 17.4%

          http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/07/australias-plunging-cost-solar-energy-graphs/#comment-1323128774

          Wikipedia states that wind ranges from 20-40%, so that is not double.

          Capacity Factor: Wind power typically has a capacity factor of 20-40%

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_energy_source

          Can you provide a citation for your claim? But even if you are correct, that means we just have to wait for Solar PV to be double that of wind, which at this rate won’t be very long.

          1. Andrew Woodroffe Avatar
            Andrew Woodroffe

            Australian wind farms do tend to have higher capacity factors than in Europe, see http://ramblingsdc.net/Australia/WindWA.html for WA Windfarms, note too that the Blairfox projects are behind the meter and their numbers are net off irrigation loads.

            Ronald’s numbers are based on optimum orientation and angles, the reality of actual installations is more modest. Using the figures from the Australian PV Institute website, for WA annual generation was 609,714MWh by 438.2MW giving an
            average of 1392MWh/MW or a capacity factor of 16%, with much the same for Qld and SA.

            Based on the past 10 years growth in Australia, I am saying solar MWhs will top wind MWh around 2020 – time enough for as many as two changes in government, state and federal.

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