Here’s another interesting graph showing the growing impact of rooftop solar PV in Australia. In South Australia, the state with the highest penetration of rooftop solar in the country, rooftop solar PV probably contributed more than 20 per cent of the state’s demand between the hours of noon and 4pm on Sunday. As this graph taken from the APVI’s Solar Map shows us.
Last week, we noted how three states had sources at least 10 per cent of the demand from rooftop solar for large parts of the day. Today’s graph from the APVI’s solar map shows that in South Australia, at least 20 per cent of the state’s demand came from rooftop solar PV, for a large part of the day, with a peak output of more than 22 per cent just before 2pm. Rooftop solar supplied more than 10 per cent of the state’s demand between the hours of 9am and 5pm.
Here’s another view of what happened in SA.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
That last graph shows peak generation at 1am, way above the rest of the day. WTF?
At 1am the temperature in adelaide was 30C, 5C more than it was between noon and 3pm later that day. so i guess everyone had the air con on that evening before the cool breezes came through and people switched them off.
The spike appears to be caused by about 200-300 MW of off-peak hot water coming online, and it occurs every night. If the demand for the following day is not particularly high then it can represent the highest demand for the 24 hour period.
Wow so the highest usage is during off peak! Economic incentives at work!
Yep, it was the off-peak hot water. The highest total electricity use occurred during the day but as over a fifth of that was met by rooftop solar peak grid demand occurred at around 1:00 am as the off-peak hot water systems switched on.