Sunshine state hosts best performing solar farms in May, but can’t stop record prices

The best performed solar farms in Australia in the month of May were all located in Queensland – perhaps not surprisingly for the time of year – but had little impact on electricity prices in the state, which were dominated by coal and gas.

According to the latest data from energy analysts Rystad Energy, the top six solar farms in Australia in terms of capacity factor in the month of May were all found in Queensland, as were nine of the top 15.

The clear leader, for the second month in a row, was the 50MW Kidston solar farm, which will soon be joined by the biggest pumped hydro project to be built in Australia in decades which is being built in a former open pit gold mine.

Kidston was followed by the Clare, Haughton, Ross River, Collinsville and Rugby Run solar farms in the top six, with Hamilton, Daydream and Middlemount also getting on the top 15 list.

The other solar farms to perform well included those in the west – Greenough River and Merredin in W.A., and  the Broken Hill and Gunnedah projects in NSW, and the Bungala solar farms in South Australia.

Queensland, despite its excellent solar resources, has been suffering the highest wholesale electricity prices in the country over the past few months, due to its high dependence on coal, and gas and the soaring cost of coal and gas, and multiple outages at coal and gas plants.

Its average price in May was an absurdly high $347/MWh, with nearly all the prices set by coal and gas, and occasionally by diesel and hydro. The share of renewables in the month of May was just 16 per cent, with large scale solar providing just 4.5 per cent.