South Australia averaged >100% net wind+solar vs demand over the past week….>90% wind+solar over the last 28 days…75%renewables over the last 12 months…synchronous generators & transmission soon allow true 100% renewables when fossil ‘engines’ turned off.
South Australia averages 100 pct wind and solar over week, 90 pct over last 28 days
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South Australia might be the leading renewable big grid, 100% clean electricity experiment on earth – with the state of Australia being right behind. The various colors at the bottom of hte image represent firm capacity like coal and gas which are currently needed to stabilize the grid during these high silar and wind generation periods.
The australian state is installing gear to support greater stability, such as synchronous generators – which is sorta just the large spinny thing in the middle being run by wind and solar instead of fossils, and more powerlines so they can export to other states, plus lots of batteries – including grid forming.
One recent challenge arising is that during high solar periods, you cna have greater than 100% rooftop solar pounding the grid – making stability a question. When these times are projected – and they happened last week, with the amount of generation in the state, powerlines, and other supporting gear, they’re asking big batteries to empty themselves before the sun rises, and stay ready to accept cheap electricity in order to create electricity demand and stabilize the grid.
There are challenges, and the markets are tough, but the levers are working to push people forward.
Related I think … a few years ago Victoria installed [what was then one of the world’s largest battery-based energy storage systems,](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/australia-switches-on-victoria-big-battery-powered-by-tesla-megapacks.html) precisely to counterbalance the annoyingly intermittent nature of renewably sourced electricity.