State blows away wind generation records and hits a new big battery high

The clean energy generation and storage records continue to tumble in the nation’s most renewable powered state, with South Australia notching new records for wind generation and battery discharge over the past five days.

According to Open Electricity, South Australia hit a new high in wind generation on Thursday June 05, peaking at 2,155 megawatts (MW) at 11:05pm as a blustery finish to the week wreaked havoc for emergency services.

This record was promptly broken the following day, on Friday June 06, with a new high of 2,165 MW at 6pm.

A third record was added on Tuesday morning, when the highest ever battery discharge in one dispatch interval was recorded at 7:50am, at 485 MW.

All told, as ANU professor Andrew Blakers writes here on LinkedIn, South Australian wind and solar was above 100 per cent almost continuously for three days – and the grid remained stable.

“South Australia has no coal, hydro or nuclear, and is joined to the eastern states with skinny interconnectors,” Blakers says alongside a chart showing the state’s share of wind (green), solar (yellow), gas (orange), batteries (blue) and imports (purple) over the weekend. (Areas below the zero line are exports to the east.)

“South Australia has 75% solar and wind on average now, and is headed for >100% around 2027 as more solar, wind, transmission and batteries are deployed.”

As Renew Economy has reported, South Australia broke its own wind records for the first time in nearly two years in April of this year – thanks in part to the ramp up of Neoen’s 413 MW Goyder South wind project and boosted by the commissioning of the first stage of Australia’s biggest transmission project to date.

Neoen’s recently commissioned Blyth battery – at 238.5 MW, 477 MWh – has also come into play, as the biggest in the state, for now.