The stunning wind and solar leaps in Australia’s most advanced renewable grids

It’s been a stunning few months of records for renewable energy shares across Australia’s electricity market, with new benchmarks for instantaneous share in the country’s two biggest grids, and an insight into what a near 100 per cent renewable share looks like over a whole week.

The big headline number for Australia’s main grid was the 68.7 per cent share of renewables observed by the Australian Energy Market Operator a week ago on Friday, Oct 26. (That was for a 30-minute period, the 5-minute period at the same time was slightly higher at 69.6 per cent).

That easily beat the previous record by more than 4 per cent, and highlights how quickly the main grid is moving towards moments of 100 per cent renewables. AEMO expects that to happen in 2025, if not sooner, and intends to be ready for it.

Perhaps an even bigger moment was achieved in the Western Australia grid, which reached 82 per cent renewables for a half-hour period on October 30, as energy advocate Ray Wills tweeted below.

That record has since been confirmed by AEMO.

That is a stunning achievement, made more remarkable because WA is an isolated grid, with no connections to other states, and it is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-scale grid in the world.

That takes us to South Australia. It has established the world’s highest share of renewables – as a percentage of demand – in any gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria.

Some attention was brought to the latest burst of renewables through a tweet from Simon Holmes a Court, noting a share of 95.9 per cent renewables in the week to 9.30 AEDT on Wednesday. That earned a retweet from the state energy minister Tom Koutsantonis, and dozens of messages of unsolicited advice from the nuclear fan clubs.

Impressive as that share is, it is probably not a record.

Geoff Eldridge, from another data provider NEMLog, observes that according to his data  – and the numbers can vary from source to source and whether based on five minute or 30 minute intervals – the maximum rolling weekly renewable share of 93.4 per cent renewable was reached at 13.10 on Wednesday, November 2.

The actual record for maximum rolling weekly (7 day) mean for renewable share in South Australia (which in the absence of hydro is entirely wind and solar) is 97.9 per cent reached at 05:45 on Thursday, December 30, last year – in a holiday period.

It should be noted, however, that over the last 3 months there has been 3 periods where the rolling weekly (7 day) mean has been above 90 per cent. The lowest seven day average in the last three months was 47.8%. South Australia averages more than 66 per cent wind and solar over the last 12 months.

Note that the record for a one day rolling mean is 121 per cent wind and solar, and 102 per cent for a rolling six day mean.

It won’t be long before South Australia reaches an average 100 per cent for a whole week. Indeed, the unofficial state target is 100 per cent before the end of the decade, and maybe 500 per cent (assuming green hydrogen takes off) a few decades later.