Rooftop solar smashes output records in all Australian states

The string of records from Australia’s renewable energy transition continue to tumble, particularly with rooftop solar, which has set new output records in every Australian state over the past month.

The new benchmarks have been highlighted by the Australian Energy Market Operator in the map above, and comes as new data show the number of rooftop systems across the country has grown to more than three million.

“Rooftop solar PV installed on millions of homes and businesses has set new generation records across Australia in the last few weeks, and we expect these records to be broken through the upcoming summer,” AEMO observed in a tweet this week.

The map shows the aggregate output and their share of local demand at the time. In South Australia, that share has actually reached a peak of 88 per cent, although total demand was not as high at the time.

Rooftop solar is having a profound impact on the operations of the grid. It has set new record lows for “minimum operational demand” in many states, including in Western Australia this week where a new of 830MW was set, with rooftop solar providing 63 per cent of total demand at the time.

In South Australia, it has sent operational demand on local networks to negative territory for the first time, including in late October when the network was dealing with negative demand (when the output of rooftop solar exceeds the demand in the network) for more than four hours.

This negative demand was on the local network only, and doesn’t include some large load centres such as BHP’s Olympic Dam, which is connected directly to the broader transmission network.

See also: Cheaper, cleaner, more reliable: The stunning success of South Australia’s renewable transition