Tuesday, March 14, 2023

South Australia reaches 77% renewables

 So far this year, 77% of South Australia's electricity has come from renewables.   The percentage tends to be higher in the first quarter of the year, and falls in Q2 and Q3.  But last year in Q1, it was 69.3%, and the year before in  Q1, 64.2%.  In 2008, renewables totalled 5.8%, and the percentage has risen every year since then.   The state's last coal power station was closed in 2016.  SA is very well-endowed with wind and solar, like many places in the mid-latitudes, and its government plans that it will end up producing 5 times its own electricity needs, exporting the surplus to NSW and Victoria.  It is likely to exceed an annual average of 100% renewables in 4 years.  It will have taken 19 years to go from zero to 100%.  

It shows you what can be done.  At every step along the way, the Right mocked the state's renewable ambitions, and blamed every blackout on renewables, even when it was storms which blew down electricity pylons.  Yet renewables have triumphed.

For the whole NEM (national electricity market), the percentage of renewables (including hydro) is lower than in SA, but it is rising fast.  In Q1, it was 38.4%, compared with 33.7% in  Q1 last year and 29.6% in Q1 2021.  Victoria's offshore wind farms will likely push that state's renewable percentage over 100% by 2030, and NSW has ambitious renewables targets too.  

[The data and the chart come from OpenNem]


Pale yellow = rooftop solar
darker yellow = utility-scale solar
green = wind
orange = gas
purple = imports
(Source)
Chart is clearer if you click on it.  No doubt Blogger has a good reason for this quirk.





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