Antinuclear

The massive new projects propelling South Australia towards 100 per cent net renewables

 The season of renewable records has begun early in Australia, sending
average coal power down below 50 per cent for the first time, establishing
new records for wind output, and sending grid demand to new lows across the
main grid.

The state at the forefront of the country’s energy transition
is, without a shadow of a doubt, South Australia. It kicked out coal in
2016, and is steadily reducing its dependence on gas. When a new
transmission link to NSW is completed in the next two years, the state
expects to run at 100 per cent net renewables – reducing gas to a support
role and becoming the first multi-gigawatt scale grid in the world to reach
such a milestone through wind and solar, rather than more conventional
renewable sources.

Big industry is lining up to build new factories and
production facilities to take advantage of cleaner power and lower
wholesale prices, and BHP is talking of doubling its mining production at
the giant Olympic Dam – and its smelting and refining capacity. The
latest data shows that wind and solar provided enough power to meet more
than 70 per cent of the state’s electricity demand in the last 12 months
– although the government says it is 75 per cent.

Over the past 30 days
it has been 86.4 per cent, and over the past week it has been more than 105
per cent. Rooftop solar now supplies the equivalent of all state demand on
occasions, presenting a complication for the market operator which prefers
to run the grid with assets it can control. It’s working on that solution
with new inverter standards and grid protocols, including solar
switch-offs. South Australia also led the country, and the world, in the
installation of the first big battery, the original “Tesla Big Battery”
now properly known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve.

 Renew Economy 6th Sept 2024

September 8, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | energy, South Australia