Mid-winter solar records tumble around the country, with more batteries to soak it up

Large-scale solar generated record high shares of electricity in every Australian state but one during the mid-winter month of July, new data has revealed, with much less of that power curtailed than was the case a year earlier. 

Solar power generation records in winter are not as rare as you might think in Australia – late last month large-scale solar supplied a record 38.2 per cent of Queensland’s electricity consumption at around 9am on a Sunday morning, beating the state’s previous record of 37.1% set on April 25.

And according to the latest monthly update from Rystad Energy, Queensland was not alone. Utility PV generation reached a record high in every state except South Australia at one point or another over the course of the month.

And while record amounts of solar generation often go hand in hand with high levels of curtailment, Rystad senior analyst David Dixon says the increasing amount of big and small batteries on the grid is starting to address this conundrum.

Dixon says that curtailed generation from utility solar was 80 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in July, down from 114 GWh in July 2025, “no doubt helped by more battery capacity being online.”

Around the country, the best performing solar farms for the month were predominantly in Queensland, topped by the 204 megawatt (MW) Edenvale Solar Park in Chinchilla, with a capacity factor (CF) of 26 per cent (AC).

The 205 MW Columboola solar farm, also near Chinchilla in Queensland’s Western Downs region, was another high performer, at 25 per cent AC CF.

At a state level, Victoria was in top spot for both utility solar and wind generation at 1,502 GWh with 171 GWh from utility PV and 1,331 GWh from wind. 

In contrast to solar, Rystad reports that wind generation was down relative to July 2025 in all states except Queensland and Tasmania.

The top three best performing wind assets for the month were all in Tasmania, including the almost 150 MW Cattle Hill wind farm (51% CF), the 111 MW Granville Harbor wind farm (49 % CF) and the 168 MW Woolnorth Renewables Musselroe wind farm (46 % CF). 

Dixon also notes that wholesale electricity prices remained relatively low for the middle of winter, a time of high seasonal demand, with the the spot price in all NEM states except South Australia staying below $A85 per megawatt-hour (MWh).

To join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.