What has caused wind generation percentage to plateau for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 in South Australia?
Data from OpenNem using ALL data and calendar Years.
This sort of goes against the impression you get from the blizzard of renewables agit/prop that they can not wait to take over from fossil fuels.
graphic presentation of Euro Wind Drought 2021
edmhdotme.wordpress.com/2021-european-wind-drought-analysed/
same problem in DE UK FR
hourly graphics European Wind Drought 2021
I am always interested to hear of wind droughts re renewables.
In this case of the 4 year plateau I am yet to discover the exact reason.
From 2011 to 2018 the wind generation percentage grew steadily indicating to me that wind farms were being planned, permitted, constructed, brought into production – at an approx. steady rate.
Then after 2018 something has interrupted that process.
Or – older windfarms are decommissioning capacity or losing capacity at approx the same rate as new capacity is being added.
> “In this case of the 4 year plateau I am yet to discover the exact reason.”
Geography, perhaps.
SA is a large, quite flat sandy desert. Population, such as it is, is essentially confined to specific coastal areas.
Maybe all the geographical ridges useful to windmills and close enough to population centres are now saturated with them.
[As an aside, I cannot comment further on the earlier thread on Lithgow coal resources as I now have a conflict of interest if I do. Sorry about that, but such is life].
It has been suggested to me from an expert that the issue of “system strength” is the reason for the plateauing.
In other words if too much wind adversely affects frequency then the wind component has to be dialled back and replaced by (in South Oz) gas which maintains a more stable frequency hence a happier NEM. So a lot of expensive stuff has to be installed in many scattered places before wind generation across the NEM could average the ~40% that South Australia now has.
wazz:
I suggest that the reduction is due to the limited capacity of the interconnectors to Victoria. These (if fully utilised) can only take 41% of (supposed) wind turbine capacity in SA.
As AEMO insists on some reliable (gas or diesel) generation at all times (from bitter experience in 2016) this doesn’t leave much room for extra wind output and so wind farms are being shut off when conditions are most favourable for them.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the big interconnector to NSW is finished in time for the MBDD (Matt’s Big Delusion in Dubbo) to come available. SA couldn’t possibly take much of that output, and as wind and solar are almost synchronised across the 2 States there will be little reason to use the interconnector. Oh well! just another few billions wasted.
Here it is discussed:
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/12/limits-to-solar-and-wind-power-in-australia/
Output is curtailed when they are running at high generation.