Australia's grid hits 80% renewables for first time on Saturday
Record renewable penetration achieved despite heavy curtailment of wind and solar output.
What to know
- Australia's National Electricity Market reached 80.5% renewable energy penetration on Saturday—the first time crossing 80%—with rooftop solar alone providing over 50% of demand.
- The grid curtailed over half of available wind output and nearly half of large-scale solar due to inability to manage 100% renewables without shutting down all coal and gas generation.
- The milestone demonstrates the energy transition now requires complex simultaneous management of batteries, flexible loads, and renewable curtailment rather than simple coal replacement.
- Coal generation was reduced to just 18.8% of demand, approaching its operational minimum before units would need to shut down.
“The record might have been a lot higher: More than one half of available wind output was being curtailed and nearly half of large scale output was being curtailed.”
Renew Economy · Renew Economy ↗
Geoff Eldridge GE Nemlog analystNational Electricity Market (NEM) Australia's main grid operator
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage postscomments
-
background
Eldridge describes transition from simple coal-replacement model to complex system management — Geoff Eldridge characterized the event as showing the evolution of Australia's energy transition beyond a straightforward renewables-displacing-coal narrative, requiring simultaneous management of flexible loads, battery storage, pumped hydro, and renewable curtailment to maintain grid stability.
-
background
Analysis shows curtailment prevented even higher renewable share — Data from GE Nemlog's Geoff Eldridge revealed that approximately 8.42 GW of large-scale wind and solar output was available but curtailed, with more than half of available wind output and nearly half of large-scale solar being held back due to grid constraints and negative pricing.
-
1
Grid reaches 80.5% renewable penetration
At 12:25 pm on Saturday afternoon, renewable energy met 80.5% of total grid demand (one data source recorded 81.5%), marking the first time the 80% threshold was crossed. Rooftop solar alone supplied over 50% of demand during this period.
“Renewable energy has broken through another key milestone on Australia's main grid, meeting more than 80 per cent of demand for the first time on Saturday afternoon.”
— Renew Economy -
first by Renew Economy, 5d ago
1 more headline
-
T
Australia's main grid reached a new instantaneous record of over 80% renewables. Including more than 50% rooftop solar The record might have been a lot higher: More than one half of available wind output was being curtailed and nearly half of large scale output was being curtailed The curtailment occurred because rooftop solar was meeting more…
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
-
Your submission in /r/australia was automatically removed because the site is a blacklisted or paywalled domain. If you feel this was in error, please contact the moderators. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
-
Australia - Renewables hit more than 80 pct of grid demand for first time - despite heavy throttling of wind and solar
-
-
background
Previous renewable record of 79.6% set on grid — Australia's National Electricity Market reached 79.6% renewable energy as a share of total demand, establishing the benchmark that would be broken the next day.
What people are saying 8 voices from 2 sites · best of 11 · verbatim
- Sep 22
-
S
Solar and wind energy meet 80%+ of Australia's grid energy demands and new records are likely https://www. theguardian.com/environment/20 26/sep/22/solar-and-wind-generation-record-80-percent-australia-national-grid Just checked my own figures for the month so far and solar has met 79.8% of demand. (ground mounted panels + battery for…
- Sep 20
-
In order to go harder, you'd have to be going hard in the first place. We're going in reverse. Perhaps it's time to start moving forward?
-
Right here: "Australia’s land-use emissions data revisions are an engine of climate delay". https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-land-use-emissions-data-revisions-are-an-engine-of-climate-delay/ "It was a while ago, but I remember the time that NSW solved the problems of late trains by changing the definition of late. It didn’t make our lives as…
-
You're using data from OWID. Who are funded by right wing billionaires. I'm believing the doom, thanks. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/26/the-unbearable-anthropocentrism-of-our-world-in-data/ Renewables are less than 10% of our energy use. Even if our emissions are going down, our fossil fuel exports aren't. Mother nature knows exactly what…
-
They won't be doing that; they'll find a new angle to kick down on. 'Chinese spyware and the bomb in your garage! Why these cheap EV's will destroy our country and the economy'
-
https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/australia Excluding land use. Still declining, and that’s only till 2024. 2025 and 2026 are going to show bigger drops given the solar battery and EV shifts. Could we be doing better? Ya, but it’s very far from hopeless and we’re headed in the right direction. Don’t believe the doom
- Sep 19
-
No, they still are coming down as more parts of the day reach 100% renewable, it's just that the 80% figure doesn't matter - at any given point it's either 100% or you're paying gas prices.
-
Nice to see progress is still happening in spite of gina rinehart and her cultists b3st efforts to hamper it