Murra Warra wind farm. Photo credit: Murra Warra.
Wind energy reached a new milestone on Thursday morning, delivering more than two thirds of Victoria’s electricity demand for the first time, and easily beating the state’s previous record wind share.
The new benchmark of 69 per cent of local demand was set at 4.45am, and easily beat the previous record of 63.7 per cent set earlier this month.
Those records are likely to tumble further, mainly because the biggest wind farm in the country, the 530MW Stockyard Hill project, is still ramping up to full capacity after heavy delays, and other projects are also coming on line.
Geoff Eldridge, from GPE NemLog2, also points out that wind energy averaged 50.05 per cent over the 24 period, which is the first time over 50 per cent. A year ago the record was 39.2 per cent.
Spring is also the season for renewable share records, mainly because the conditions are good and demand is normally fairly low, thanks to the mild weather.
Earlier this week, rooftop solar pushed minimum demand in the state of Queensland to a new record low, forcing most of the state’s coal generators to dial down their output to the lowest they can manage.
See: Rooftop solar forces new grid demand low in Queensland, crunches coal output
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