Some new solar output records were set over the weekend, both on the overall main grid and in Queensland, setting new challenges for the incumbent coal generators as spring ushers in sunnier and still wild weather.
The main record to be broken over the weekend was the output of large scale solar, which hit a new peak of 4690MW at 9.45am on Sunday, September 4, up from the previous record of 4564MW on February 13 this year, according to data collector NemLog2.
Most of this improvement appears to have come from Queensland, where several new big projects have joined the grid in recent months, or ramped their output.
Queensland posted a new large scale solar output record of its own on Sunday, 1767MW, well ahead of the previous record set little more than a week earlier on August 26.
The sunny conditions in the “sunshine state” also saw strong output from rooftop solar, taking the total share of state demand from rooftop and large scale solar to more than 60 per cent.
This was not a record share, but occurring so early in the spring, and following recent record minimum demand lows, it points to more problems for the incumbent coal generators forced to ramp up and down significantly (!756MW in Queensland on Sunday) in the middle of the day.
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