Renewables at record highs, fossil fuels at record low, with more to come

The share of renewables in Australia’s main grid pushed to a new record high on Wednesday for the first time in nearly a year, with the records set to tumble further in the next few months.

The share of renewables – wind, solar and hydro – in Australia’s main grid, known as the National Electricity Market, reached a new peak of 62.94 per cent on Wednesday at 10.45, with wind and solar providing all but two per cent of that contribution.

The new benchmark just pipped the previous record of 62.88 per cent set last November, and is inevitable given the scale of new additions to the grid since last season – the time of the year when many such records are set because of good conditions and relatively low demand.

As this graph below illustrates, the transformation of the grid has been extremely rapid – the maximum share of wind and solar was just 26 per cent in early 2018. Now the average share of renewables in the main grid is 30 per cent.

As the graph also highlights, most of the new record activity occurs in spring time, because of the favourable conditions and low demand.

The latest record came on the same morning as the new peak for South Australian renewables – 146 per cent of local demand – and a new output records for Queensland large scale solar (1803MW reached at 1.30pm on the same day).

Of course, an increase in the renewables share in the main grid means a reduction in the fossil fuel share, which hit a new low of 37.29 per cent at the same time.

(Note: These records – sourced from data providers GPG NemLog2 are for five minute intervals and may differ from other data based around 30 minute intervals).