Graph of the Day: Solar covers all of South Australia demand for six hours straight

South Australia’s rooftop and large-scale solar generation capacity combined to supply all of the state’s demand for several hours over the weekend, at one point hitting a high of 112.7% of demand.

The impressive achievement, notched up on Sunday February 5, was noted on LinkedIn by Jess Hunt, formerly of the Australian Energy Market Operator and currently a senior advisor in electricity market design at the Energy Security Board.

Hunt, who is based in Adelaide, said the new stat was the result of “a mild and sunny Sunday” in the state, combined with high solar output and low demand. And perhaps most impressively of all, “there’s no wind in that stat!”

And as one comment under the post and chart points out, “it wasn’t just for a brief instant either. Solar was covering state demand for about 6 hours!” – which it was, according to OpenNEM, from about 10.30am until 4.30pm.

The vast majority of the solar power was generated from rooftops across the state, including at around 1.30pm when rooftop PV was supplying a huge 93.4% of demand, while large-scale solar supplied 19%.

The state has, on occasions, met all its local demand from rooftop solar alone, as local network operator SA Power Networks revealed last year, including for one period of more than five hours. (Local demand excludes some big loads that get their power from big transmission links).

South Australia has been setting all sorts of renewable energy records over the summer, including in December, when wind and solar contributed just over 85% (85.4%) of the state’s electricity demand over the month.

According to the latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report from AEMO, South Australian renewables peaked at an “extraordinary” high level of 91.5 per cent in November, even despite the state’s grid being isolated by broken transmission lines.