Solar reaches 110 per cent of South Australia demand as more records tumble

The records for wind and solar output and market share keep falling. On Monday, we reported how wind and solar peaked at a record share of 135 per cent of South Australia state demand on Saturday, and averaged more than 100 per cent of local demand over a 72 hour period.

It turns out we only just scratched the surface of the new records being posted in that state and elsewhere in Australia’s main grid over the last few days.

Solar alone delivered 110.6 per cent of South Australia’s state demand at 11.10 AEST on Sunday, smashing the previous record of 104.8 per cent set in early October, and also posted a record output of 1304.7MW at 13.00 AEST on the same day.

According to Geoff Eldridge, of NEMLog, South Australia also averaged 100 per cent of local demand met by just wind and solar over a 93 hour period stretching from late Wednesday to early Sunday evening. That too is a record for any gigawatt scale grid in the world.

As we reported on Monday, and last Friday, the records are tumbling because the Australian Energy Market Operator has dialled back the amount of gas generation it needs to keep the grid secure when there are large amounts of wind and solar.

That’s because four new spinning machines known as synchronous condensers have been commissioned, which provide “system strength” and other services without burning fuel.

It means that up to 2,500MW of wind and solar can be supported with as few as two gas generating units operating – usually at a combined capacity of just 80MW. On Sunday, another record to fall was the minimum share of gas in the state grid – just 4.4 per cent.

Remember, this is also a state with no coal generation, and no hydro or pumped hydro either, and only three big batteries in operation.

South Australia was not the only state to set new solar benchmarks over the last few days.

The Australian Energy Market Operator confirmed that the combination of mild weather and sunny conditions in Victoria saw a new minimum operational demand record of 2,333MW on Sunday, just down from the previous  record of 2,402MW record on October 31, 2021.

The new benchmark was achieved at 1pm AEST on Sunday, when rooftop solar contributed 49 per cent of Victoria’s total generation.

Eldridge also notes that rooftop solar in Tasmania also set a new maximum output of 161.9MW on 12pm AEST on Sunday, which was 3.8MW higher than the previous record set a week earlier. That gave it a record share of 14.05 per cent of state demand.

There were also numerous records for rolling day output and average that are too much to go into. But if you are interested, please check them out here.