Wind generation overtakes brown coal in June, in month of new records

Wind generation overtook brown coal to become Australia’s second largest source of electricity generation in June, a month of records for wind including highest ever monthly total production nation-wide.

According to the latest data from Rystad Energy’s senior analyst in renewables research, David Dixon, June 2022 was “all about wind,” with all wind assets in the NEM and the WEM generating 2839GWh, wind’s highest month on record.

Records were also set in both Victoria and Tasmania, with the latter state’s wind assets producing an all-time high total of 191GWh for the month, and all four of its operational wind farms operating at a capacity factor greater than 45%.

Previous months have shown wind farms in Western Australia showing the best output, but seasonal factors have switched it now to the south-eastern states.

The best performer in Tasmania for the month was Powerchina/Goldwind’s 144MW Cattle Hill wind farm (pictured above) in the state’s central highlands, which notched up a capacity factor of 49.4%.

Interestingly, Cattle Hill is the same wind farm that has been trialing the use of Australia-first trial of an aerial monitoring and detection system, called IndentiFlight, designed to mitigate the wind farm’s impact on the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.

Victoria, meanwhile, became the first Australian state to generate more than a terawatt-hour from wind farms on a monthly basis, after producing a record high of 1088GWh in June, Dixon says.

In that state, the best performing asset was the Windlab/Atmos Renewables 31MW Kiata wind farm, with a capacity factor of 53.8%.

New South Wales boasted some of the nation’s best performing wind farm for the month, however, with Iberdrola Australia’s Woodlawn wind farm recording a 57.6% capacity factor, followed in third spot by Pacific Hydro Australia’s Taralga wind farm (53.5% CF).

“It was all about wind in June with all wind assets in the NEM and the WEM generating 2839GWh, wind’s highest month on record,” said Dixon on LinkedIn.

“Wind generation overtook brown coal to become Australia’s second largest source of electricity generation in June.

“This is a trend that will continue over the next 24 months as a further 3.5 GW of wind assets at various stages of construction and commissioning become fully operational.”