South Australia busts wind myths

www.climatespectator.com.au
29 Mar 2012

This week's charts of the week illustrate how wind is making a major contribution to South Australia's electricity needs and reducing consumption of fossil fuels and CO₂ emissions. South Australia represents an unintentional real-world laboratory, testing how large a role wind could play in our future electricity supply. Wind represents 20% of South Australia's electricity generation, and it is one of the highest levels of wind penetration in the world according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). So far the experience in South Australia has helped to bust a number of myths about wind power.

The chart immediately below illustrates sources of power generation in South Australia last Friday (March 23) as a percentage of total demand over the period midnight to 5.35pm. For almost all of this period wind power was the dominant source of power, and averaged about 50% of total consumption. It should be noted that there are extensive periods where the percentages of all sources can sometimes add up to more than 100%. This is because there were large exports of power from SA to Victoria over the period illustrated due to wind reducing South Australian prices to levels below those in Victoria.

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