Solar output hits new records in main grid, but La Niña gets in way of big round numbers

Rooftop and large scale solar have set a multitude of new output records in the past week, hardly surprising given the scale of new capacity since last year, and because we are entering the peak solar season.

The most notable records of a number of new benchmarks came on Tuesday, when the output of rooftop solar in the National Electricity Market (the NEM, which includes the networks in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania), hit a new record maximum of 9,927MW.

According to Geoff Eldridge, who runs the NEMLog database, this was a significant jump of 752MW from the previous record set earlier this month, on December 3. And rooftop solar might have broken through the 10,000MW barrier were it not for La Niña and the clouds it often generates.

Another record to fall on Tuesday was the combined output of rooftop solar and grid scale solar, which hit a new maximum of 13,940MW, again just shy of a big round number.

One again, Eldridge points out, it was a massive jump of 1,038MW (or eight per cent) from the previous combined output record of 12,902MW set just two days earlier.

At the time of these new output records, rooftop solar was delivering about 36 per cent of total production in the main grid, and solar (the combined grid scale and rooftop solar) was delivering more than 50 per cent of total production.

Those percentage shares will continue to jump significantly in coming years, with rooftop solar tipped to hit 75 per cent of demand at certain times, and the combination of wind, solar and rooftop reaching 100 per cent of domestic demand by 2025, according to AEMO.