“More cheap, clean sovereign energy:” Bowen and market operator celebrate new renewables record

Federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen and the Australian Energy Market Operator have confirmed, and celebrated, the new milestone on Australia’s main grid this weekend, when the renewables share peaked above 80 per cent for the first time.

As Renew Economy reported on Sunday, citing various data sources, the share of renewables – almost entirely from wind and solar – reached a peak of 80.4 per cent soon after midday on Saturday. This was confirmed on Monday afternoon by AEMO and Bowen.

“:We hit a milestone at lunchtime on Saturday – at 12:30pm the Australian Energy Market Operator recorded that over 80% of the energy in the grid was coming from renewables,” Bowen posted on LinkedIn.

“That’s more clean, cheap, sovereign energy powering our homes and businesses than ever before.

“There’s a long way to go, but expect more and more of these milestones in the future as Labor gets on with the job of the energy transition, and delivering real cost of living relief.”

Bowen, of course, hopes that the 80 per cent renewable share is achieved for longer than the 30 minutes recorded on Saturday. His policy suite is designed to reach an average 82 per cent renewables over the whole year, although this seems unlikely now, given the slowdown in construction, particularly in large scale wind energy.

One of the key barriers to higher levels of renewables is the need for grid security, and how AEMO manages a grid with less synchronous generation.

One of the key debates in engineering circles is the ability for battery grid forming inverters to supply critical grid services, rather than relying on hard to obtain and expensive spinning machines known as synchronous condensers.

As Renew Economy reported on Sunday, the amount of “available” wind and solar would have taken the total share of renewables to 106 per cent of grid demand, assuming those grid services could be satisfied and there was sufficient storage. As it turned out, more than 8 GW of wind and solar output was constrained.

Another striking aspect of the Saturday record was the strong share of rooftop solar, thanks to the still surging uptake of PV by homes and businesses, supported by the success of the federal home battery rebate program.

AEMO said in its own post on LinkedIn that the 80.4 per cent penetration of renewables was measured over a 309-minute period for 12.30pm.

It said contributions at the time of the record were:

☀️ Rooftop solar: 52%
☀️ Grid-scale solar: 16%
🌬️ Wind: 11%
💧 Hydro: 1%
⚫ Black and brown coal: 19%
🔥 Gas: 1%

“Across the day, NEM wholesale electricity prices averaged just over $27 per megawatt hour,” AEMO noted.

And it also confirmed that the following day, the National Electricity Market, as the main grid is formally known, also set a new minimum operational demand record of 9,422 MW at 12.30pm (AEST).

At that time, with rooftop solar contributed 64.3 per cent of total demand. It said Battery charging and hydro pumping also absorbed surplus generation, helping balance supply and demand across the market.

“Together, these records highlight the changing generation mix and evolving operating conditions of Australia’s electricity system,” AEMO wrote.

“As the mix of technologies supplying and supporting the NEM continues to change, AEMO continues to plan and operate the power system to maintain reliability, security and efficient market outcomes.”

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