Follow a stunning week for renewables in South Australia, Victoria had its own moment when big contributions from rooftop solar delivered a new record low in the state’s operational demand over the weekend.
According to a tweet from the Australian Energy Market Operator on Monday, Victoria on Sunday recorded an operational demand of just 2,195MW in the early afternoon – thanks largely to power generated on rooftops in the state and mild weather.
“Minimum operational demand records normally falling in spring continued into summer in Victoria,” AEMO says in the tweet.
“A new record of 2,195MW [was] set yesterday at 1pm, dropping 3.9% from the previous set in October 2022 (2,285 MW). At the time, rooftop solar contributed 55% of underlying demand.”
To put this in some perspective, this level of demand is less, even, than nameplate capacity of Victoria’s Loy Yang A coal plant, which is 2,210MW. Â The state’s entire brown coal fleet has a capacity of 4,690MW.
