Wind output smashes through 10 GW barrier for first time on Australia’s main grid

The combined wind output from the nearly 100 wind farms operating on Australia’s main grid burst through the 10 gigawatt barrier for the first time on Friday, setting a new peak of 10.16 gigawatts (GW) at 9.10 pm.

It caps a week of significant renewable records across the main grid, with battery storage also passing a major new milestone, sending out more than 2 GW across the National Electricity Market for the first time, hitting a new peak of 2,045 megawatts (GW) in the evening peak at 5.55pm on June 20.

The new peak for wind represents a substantial leap of nearly 200 MW from the previous record of 9.76 GW set just a fortnight earlier, and reflects both good wind conditions and the added output from a range of large wind projects now working through their commissioning process.

This includes the two largest wind farms on the Australian grid, the combined 1.33 GW Golden Plains project in Victoria, the 930 MW MacIntyre project in Queensland, and the 400 MW Clarke Creek project in that state, along with the combined 412.5 MW Goyder South project in South Australia.

The surge in wind output in recent days also delivered a new record share of total generation, at 42.4 per cent, although that occurred a few hours later than the output record, at 4.25am on Saturday, when grid demand was lower.

As highlighted by this excellent visualisation from ITK’s David Leitch, the co-host of Renew Economy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast, the output record for wind on the NEM has surged significantly in the last 12 months. This time last year, the record stood at around 8.5 GW, and five years ago it was barely above 5 GW.

As these and other wind farms reach full commercial operation, the output records will continue to fall, as will the overall share of wind generation on the grid.

These were not the only new output records to fall in recent days, with South Australia – the most advanced renewable grid in Australia with an average 75 per cent contribution from wind and solar – setting a new output peak of 2,230 MW, earlier on Friday morning on 6.55 am, according to GPE NEMLog.

Queensland reached a new peak for combined wind and solar (large scale, not including rooftop PV), of 3,524 at 9.20am on Friday.

The battery storage output record compared to a previous peak of 1,983.7 MW a week earlier, and also coincides with the commissioning of a number of new projects, including the Greenbank and Koorangie batteries, and the ramping up of capacity of what will be the most powerful battery on the NEM, the 850 MW, 1680 MWh Waratah Super Battery.

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