Friday 8 November 2019

Australia’s National Electricity Market breaks 50% renewable milestone

Australia's National Electricity Market breaks 50% renewable milestone.

The market, which is Australia’s main grid, saw clean power make up half of all electricity produced during one trading period on Wednesday.

This is the first time that half of net demand had been met by renewables on the grid, which covers Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

First reported by RenewEconomy, the milestone was reached as the combined output of rooftop solar, large-scale wind and large-scale solar reached a 50.2% share of nearly 25GW being produced.

Rooftop solar provided 23.7% of total power levels, followed by wind at 15.7%, large-scale solar at 8.8% and hydro with 1.9%.

The Australian Government recently announced it is providing fresh investment totalling AUD$1 billion (£500m) for projects that help improve the reliability of the electricity grid.