Curtailment

Sydney-headquartered start-up WinDC has partnered with United States-based Armada in a move designed to address rising levels of utility-scale solar and wind curtailment in Australia and also satisfy ballooning demand for energy-intensive data centre infrastructure.

Curtailment remains one of the clearest signs of the challenges that face both existing and new solar and wind projects in the NEM. Rising levels of curtailment are increasingly shaping development decisions for both greenfield and brownfield projects across the solar and wind fleet. While interest in ‘hybrid’ projects is growing, they still represent only a small share of current installed capacity.

The 185 MW / 370 MWh Koorangie battery energy storage project in northwest Victoria has reached a major milestone with developer Edify Energy confirming the system, featuring grid-forming inverters, is now fully operational.

Uptake of an ENGIE and SA Power Networks trial offer to help manage periodic oversupply of household rooftop solar energy – by rewarding customers – has seen its cap of 50 households double to 100.

I recently came across an article about renewable curtailment that sparked a significant amount of online discussion, stating that a total of 4.5 TWh of energy was curtailed in Australia’s National Electricity Market in 2024.

It’s time to assess curtailment, as rising amounts of excess generation are being wasted in several markets. This can be problematic for the solar industry but Toby Couture and David Jacobs, coordinators of think tank Global Solar PV Brain Trust, argue that curtailment is not always bad.

In Australia’s electricity system, more and more energy from sunlight and wind is being “spilled” – or not converted to electricity. In the past year, the amount of renewable energy spilled was roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of 750,000 typical households, or three months of consumption for the state of South Australia. Some have attributed these dynamics as being driven by a “solar power glut”.

Modelling by The Australia Institute asserts that if the country’s commercial and institutional buildings shifted just one third of their electricity consumption to the middle of the day when there is a peak in solar supply it would deliver new peak capacity in the energy market of almost 12 GW.

The operators of an energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining centre in the South Australian industrial city of Whyalla believe it offers a solution to curtailment issues that haunt many developers of solar PV projects in the National Electricity Market.

While curtailing solar and wind energy production can be viewed as a lost opportunity, NREL argues that it may be an important feature in the future energy grid dominated by low-cost renewable energy.