Data from energy advisory company Global Power Energy (GPE) shows the share of renewables in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) energy mix reached a record 77.9% at 11.20am on Sunday 21 September, eclipsing the previous high of 76.8% set the previous day.
Rooftop solar generation accounted for 43.6% of grid demand at the time with utility scale solar delivering 12.1%. Wind generation provided 19.8% of the energy mix and hydro 2.3%.
“The new instantaneous record highlights how deeply renewables now penetrate the grid during mild spring conditions,” GPE NEMLog energy analyst Geoff Eldridge said.
“Rooftop PV, utility solar, and wind combined to push fossil generation to the margins for extended hours.”
Eldridge also noted that the maximum “rolling seven-day mean” reached a renewable share of 50.8% at 1pm on Sunday, up 0.22% on the previous high of 50.6% set the day previous – the first time it had surpassed the 50% mark. The new high is 2.8% better than the 47.8% recorded this time last year.
Eldridge said the milestone signals that the energy transition is now structurally embedding renewables into the NEM with the rolling seven-day mean providing a stronger measure of renewable integration than momentary peaks.
“The rolling seven-day mean passing 50% underscores that this is no longer a momentary event but a sustained presence,” he said.
“Half of the energy supplied over a week came from renewables, something that would have seemed out of reach only a few years ago.”
GPE NEMLog data shows the rolling seven-day mean crossed 20% on 15 April 2018, 30% on 13 November 2019 and 40% on 19 September 2022.
While the mark has now passed the 50% milestone, it remains well short of the Australian government’s target of 82% renewable electricity generation in the NEM by 2030.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen acknowledged that the 82% goal by 2030 is an “ongoing challenge” but said he is “confident” the target can be met.
“I’m not pretending it’s easy or automatic,” he said. “But if you look at the sorts of things we’re doing, last year, 4.4 GW of new energy added to the grid, a pipeline of 15 GW …. that’s a lot.”
“A thousand Australians a day putting in a home battery now, half of those roughly are putting solar on the roof for the first time as well, so we’re making good progress.”
“But, yes, I’m not here putting my feet on the desk saying that’s done, that remains an ongoing challenge.”
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.