The beginning of Australia’s bright future?
Over the weekend, solar power generated electricity out-did coal powered electricity for the first time ever.
It happened late Sunday afternoon - when coal hit 9,315MW, and solar provided the dominant share of electricity with 9,427MW.
While this is exciting news, we’re still a far way from being entirely supported by renewable energy sources - the crossover point only lasted a few minutes, due to low demand and sunny skies.
Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, Dylan McConnell, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s climate and energy college, said that for a brief moment renewable energy represented 57% of national electricity generation.
Why did it happen on Sunday?
Renewable energy sources are far more effective when there is little demand for heating and cooling, and when the sun is shining bright. This means that in mid-months like the end of winter, spring and autumn are the optimal times for renewable energy to shine.
In other words - Sunday was the perfect storm for renewable energy sources. Excitingly in South Australia, the state’s wind and solar met 100% of their energy demand.
Victoria renewables almost met 102% of energy demand - but not quite.
As the demand for energy was reduced, energy prices dropped into the negatives the same day - unfortunately not something to get too excited about; the drop only lasted a few hours, which will have little to no impact on your energy bill.
However, experts say that if energy prices didn’t drop into the negatives, renewables would have supplied an even larger share of the country’s power.
Why’s that? Well, when negative drops happen, producers are paid to consume, and energy producers pay to keep running.
And unlike solar and wind producers, coal generators are hurt when prices turn negative - shutting down and restarting coal generators is more costly, and so operators will often choose to keep running - even if it’s at a loss.
Because of this, wind producers ramped down power generation, and coal plants took hold of the grid - if coal plants were more flexible and transmission was updated, renewable sources could have gone into the grid.
Renewables could meet 100% demand at certain times of day by 2025
What this news did do was shine a bright light on our country’s renewable future - if large-scale wind and solar development continues at its current rates, renewables could meet 100% of demand at certain times of day by 2025.
In fact, residential and business solar panels could supply up to 77% of total electric demand at times by 2026.
With the retirement of the Yallourn power plant and the expected shutdown of Vales Point power station in 2029, coal may be a thing of the past sooner than we may think - with the future of Australia being powered by wind, sun and hydro.