“Crickey!” Rooftop solar makes South Australia the world’s first gigawatt-scale system to hit negative demand
Rooftop solar drove two negative demand events in South Australia on Sunday, November 21, events which analysts are describing as a world-first for a gigawatt-scale power system.
Against the odds, South Australia is a renewable energy powerhouse. How on Earth did they do it?
Less than two decades ago, South Australia generated all its electricity from fossil fuels. Last year, renewables provided a whopping 60% of the state’s electricity supply. The remarkable progress came as national climate policy was gripped by paralysis – so how did it happen?
Weekend read: The big PV switch-off
South Australia is leading the nation in terms of renewable energy penetration, with rooftop solar a major contributor. But the state’s hard-won ability to deactivate thousands of rooftop solar systems in response to grid voltage disturbances has caused significant disruptions to solar installers. With a deeper look inside the changes, it appears to be a good thing for solar in the state, as well as other markets in which distributed PV is growing rapidly.
SA Water large-scale solar and native revegetation symbiosis
SA Water’s highly ambitious $300 million solar uptake is proving a golden goose as a partnership with Succession Ecology to revegetate almost a tonne of native seedlings under large-scale solar arrays proves a win-win. The ground-mounted modules mean native vegetation can return to formerly agricultural land, and the native scrub itself protects PV panels from soiling.
