By Anton Lang ~
This Post details the daily power consumption data for the AEMO coverage area in Australia. For the background information, refer to the Introductory Post at this link.
Each image is shown here at a smaller size to fit on the page alongside the data for that day. If you click on each image, it will open on a new page and at a larger size so you can better see the detail.
Note also the scale change for some of the images. That scale (the total power shown on the left hand axis) has been changed to show the graph at a larger size.
Monday 28th January 2019
Total Power Generation All Sources
Here, the total power generation from every power plant source is the top of the load curve, with each colour indicating a source of power generation. This is also similar to the total power consumption, which is slightly lower after minor grid losses are taken into account.
The dark grey colour is for the black coal fired power generation. The yellowish colour is for the brown coal fired power generation. The purple colour is for natural gas fired power generation. The blue colour is for Hydro (water) power generation. The green colour is for wind power generation. The red colour in the dip between the two peaks is for solar power plant generation. The other colours mixed in with the rest of them are from those smaller Other sources. Rooftop solar power is not included on this graph, as this shows just the power generation from all power plants only.
In the data below, both of those (exact) figures for total power consumption for the daily minimum and the daily Peak are taken directly from the AEMO site, adding up the totals for each of the five States in this coverage area. Also, note the slight difference between Total Consumed Power and Total Generated Power. That indicates some of the losses in the grid system
Daily Minimum Power Consumption – 18910MW (3.30AM)
Daily Peak Power Consumption – 27170MW (5.55PM)
Daily Minimum Generated Power – 19200MW
Daily Maximum Generated Power – 27800MW
Average Total Power Generation – 23300MW
Total Power Generation In GWH – 559.2GWH
All Fossil Fuels Total – Coal Fired and Natural Gas Fired Power Generation
Here, the upper black line is the total from all fossil fuels, and this is the same as for all three colours, the grey, dark yellow and purple colours combined in the image directly above.
The black line just under that top black line is the Sub Total just for coal fired power, and that is the same as the combined colours of the grey and ark yellow on the image above. Note here how closely that coal fired line follows the shape of the upper Load Curve, and this indicates that coal fired power can be ramped up and down to follow actual power consumption.
Daily Minimum Coal Fired – 15270MW
Daily Peak Coal Fired – 19070MW
Average Coal Fired Generation – 17160MW
Total Generated Power – 411.84GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 73.65%
Natural Gas Fired Power Generation
This image for Natural Gas Fired Power Generation shows the gap between the total for all Fossil Fuelled Sources of power generation and Coal Fired Power Generation in the image directly above.
Note here how closely the shape follows the total power generation Load Curve in the top image, indicating how these natural gas fired plants are used to smooth out the load curve to match actual power consumption.
Note also that while coal fired power provides the bulk of the power, these natural gas fired plants are used to add more power to the system during those time periods during the day when consumption rises for the morning peak, and the main evening Peak
Daily Minimum – 1640MW
Daily Peak – 4720MW
Average Natural Gas Fired Generation – 2690MW
Total Generated Power – 64.56GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 11.54%
All Renewable Power Generation Versus Total Power Generation
This Image shows just the gap between total power generation from every source and the total power from the three renewable sources only. It is the same image as the first image at the top here, only with the fossil fuelled total (the grey, yellow and purple colours) and those smaller Other sources removed from the graph, As in that top image, it shows Hydro Power, (blue colour) wind power, (green colour) and solar power. (red colour) This image is used here to highlight the gap between the total power generation (that black line, which also includes RTS as well) and the total from renewable sources alone.
All Renewable Power Generation (Does not include rooftop solar generation)
This image is the same as for the one directly above for all renewable power, only with the total from all sources removed from the graph. As the scale of the left hand vertical axis has now changed, you can better see the detail of all renewable power. Again, the blue colour is for hydro, the green colour is for wind, and the red colour is for solar. The other colours you can just make out indicates smaller plants, mostly using biofuels as their fuel source, tiny plants adding up to a very small total and for a short time duration. For this data, I have added the times for the daily minimum, and the daily maximum, to show how they do not correlate with the actual times of minimum power consumption (4AM) and maximum power consumption. (around 6/6.30PM)
Daily Minimum – 2000MW
Daily Peak – 4300MW
Average Renewable Generation – 2770MW
Total Generated Power – 66.48GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 11.89%
Generation From Other Sources
This image shows the power being generated from the smaller sources other than the major sources of power generation. These include Natural Gas/Diesel, Natural gas/Fuel Oil, Coal Seam Methane, Diesel, Kerosene, Waste Coal Mine Gas and Bagasse. All of these are fossil Fuels, excepting Bagasse which is sugar cane waste mostly used to provide main and auxilliary power at sugar mills.
Note the scale change here, as these are smaller producers of power, and the scale is changed so they can be more easily shown on the graph.
For the data here, I have just added the average generation across the day, the total generated power from all these sources, and the percentage of the total.
Average Generation – 680MW
Total Generated Power – 16.32GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 2.92%
Hydro Power Generation
This image shows all Hydro power generation. It is the same as the blue colour in the top image for power generation from all sources.
Again, note here that the shape of this load curve follows the shape of the main load curve for all power generation, in that it has similar peaks in the morning and for the main evening Peak. The coloured lines at the bottom of this graph indicate the power generation from each of the hydro plants in this coverage area.
Daily Minimum – 1130MW
Daily Peak – 2580MW
Average Hydro Generation – 1480MW
Total Generated Power – 35.52GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 6.35%
Wind Power Generation
This image shows the total power generated by every wind plant in this vast coverage area. It is the same as for the green coloured line in the image at the top showing generation from all sources.
The total Nameplate for all these wind plants is 5661MW.
Note that the shape of this load curve does not follow the shape of the main load curve for total power generation. Wind power generates its power only when the wind is blowing, hence it does not follow actual power consumption levels.
For this data, I have added the times for the daily minimum, and the daily maximum, to show how they do not correlate with the actual times of minimum power consumption (4AM) and maximum power consumption. (around 6/6.30PM in Winter and earlier during the Summer Months.)
Daily Minimum – 680MW (8.05AM)
Daily Peak – 1630MW (9.25PM)
Average Wind Generation – 990MW
Total Generated Power – 23.76GWH
Average Percentage Of Total – 4.25%
Solar Power Plant Generation
This image shows the total power generated from all the solar power plants in this coverage area. This is the same as for the red coloured area you can just see in that top image.
The total Nameplate for all these 29 solar plants is 2241MW.
Daily Minimum – Zero
Daily Peak – 980MW
Average Solar Plant Generation for hours of generation – 530MW (6.00AM till 7.30PM)
Average Solar Plant Generation across the whole 24 hour day – 300MW
Total Generated Power – 7.2GWH
Average Percentage Of Total across the whole 24 hour day – 1.29%
Rooftop Solar Power Generation
As this source of power generation is classed as ‘behind the meter’, it is not included in the total power generation. Note here that the State of Queensland (QLD on the legend under the graph) is broken down into four separate areas as this is the largest State with the largest number of installations.
While the total Nameplate changes often, the latest information is that the total is now 8000MW and higher, and that is a large total. However, that total equates to almost 2 Million homes with panels on their roof. That equates to an average sized installation of 4.3KW. Most of the power is consumed by the homes with the panels, and what is fed back to the grid is only consumed in the local residential areas. While seemingly still high this total is spread across that huge number of installations across the whole of this coverage area.
Daily Minimum – Zero
Daily Peak – 4470MW
Average For Hours of Generation – 2300MW (5.30AM till 8.00PM)
Average Rooftop Solar Generation across the whole 24 hour day – 1390MW
Total Generated Power – 33.36GWH
Average Percentage Of Total across the whole 24 hour day – 5.97%
Wind And Solar Power Generation Versus Total Power Generation
This image shows the total power generated from all the wind plants, and all the solar power plants in this coverage area, combined in the one image, and compares it to the overall total generated power, the black line at the top of the graph, which also includes RTS as well. Wind power is the green coloured area, and solar plant power is the red coloured area, and these are the same as shown in those other coloured images at the top of the Post.
I have also added the data below for the total generated power for both wind and solar plant power combined, and the percentage of the overall total below for the maximum power from both sources with respect to the overall total, both at the maximum for both, and then for the total for both at the daily peak Power time.
Daily Peak for Wind and Solar Plant Power – 1800MW
Average Across the whole day – 1290MW
Total Generated Power – 30.96GWH
Average Percentage of Total across the whole 24 hour day – 5.54%
Total Generated power at the daily maximum for both wind and solar plant power, the time of that maximum, and percentage of the total at that daily maximum – 1800MW – 4.55PM – 6.5%
Total Generated power for wind and solar plant power at Peak Power Consumption time for the day, and percentage of total at that daily Peak Power time – 1600MW – 5.55PM – 5.76%
Overall Total With Rooftop Solar Power Added
This image shows the overall total generated power with Rooftop Solar Power (RTS) added to the total from all of the power plants. RTS is shown here as that orange colour added near the top of the graph in the middle, during daylight hours, and is indicated on the legend below the graph as Rooftop PV (PhotoVoltaics). The new overall total is that black line along the top of the Load Curve. Note here that with this RTS total added, the shape of the full load curve, the black line now looks almost exactly as Summer load curves used to look prior to the advent of RTS, and all those panels on roofs of private dwellings.
Notes
- Finding Averages – On each (non solar) graph, there are 25 hourly time points, starting with midnight and finishing with midnight. I have added the total at each time point together, and divided by 25.
- For both solar power averages, I have used the same addition of hourly time points and then divided by the same number of those time points of actual generation. Every so often, as the days get longer (or shorter after Summer) I change the hours of generation as those hours change.
- For total power in GWH, multiply the average daily power by 24, and then divide by 1000.
- The total percentages for coal fired power, natural gas fired power, all renewables, and those other smaller sources add up to 100%.
- The total percentages for Hydro, Wind, and Solar adds up to the total percentage for all Renewables.
- Total Generated Power is expressed here as GWH (GigaWattHours) and a GWH is a MWH (MegaWattHour) multiplied by 1000
Comments For This Day
This day was the designated Public Holiday for Australia Day, which this year fell on the Saturday, so the closest Monday was designated as the Public Holiday. Because of that, while some work places were open, mainly hopping centres, all work was closed for the day, so power consumption closely resembled that for a weekend day, and as can be easily seen here, power consumption was lower than for a normal working day, as was power generation, barely 300MW higher than it was yesterday. This should also reinforce another thing I have often said, that home air conditioning is not the major problem it is made out to be, as ostensibly most of the work force was at home on this day, and in Mid Summer, more people would have had their coolers on, and power consumption was way lower than it usually is on a normal working day, and here we only need to compare it with last Monday, a working day, and the average for overall power generation was more than 2000MW higher.
he average for coal fired power was 110MW higher. In New South Wales, Unit 1 at the Bayswater plant came back on line at 8AM, and was back delivering its full power at 3P, after being off line for 27 hours. there are now five of those coal fired Units off line.
The average for natural gas fired power was 300MW higher. The average for those smaller Other sources was higher by 70MW, and the average for hydro power was higher by 230MW. The average for solar plant power was again only 300MW, the same as it was yesterday, with that huge cloud band still covering a large area across Southern Australia.
The average for wind power was lower by 410MW to an average of only 9900MW, and that’s pitiful really, out of a Nameplate of 5661MW, and this gave wind power a daily operational Capacity Factor of only 17.5%. Note here as I have always said that when wind power is low, then it is hydro power and natural gas fired power which even out the totals, and here the average for hydro and natural gas fired power combined were 530MW higher, making up for the loss of 410MW from wind power and also adding some for the increase in the overall average.
On a day of low power consumption, more like a weekend day, coal fired power was back delivering almost 74% of all the required power.
Anton Lang uses the screen name of TonyfromOz, and he writes at this site, PA Pundits International on topics related to electrical power generation, from all sources, concentrating mainly on Renewable Power, and how the two most favoured methods of renewable power generation, Wind Power and all versions of Solar Power, fail comprehensively to deliver levels of power required to replace traditional power generation. His Bio is at this link.
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PA Pundits - International
Thu 01/31/2019
Hey Tony,
Since I’m currently using a small mobile phone and can’t enlarge the images, I usually skim over graphs to read the text.
But this time I looked at your article’s graphs a little closer than usual.
I like the way you show the renewables vs. the total used in your graph titled “All Renewable Power Generation Versus Total Power Generation”.
What an EYE OPENER this is.
How can anyone with a minimum of a 3rd grade education not see the futility of Un-“Free Power”!!!
The Pols (Politicians) must think us “Unwashed Masses” are brain dead or something!
Get rid of all those bums who are pushing, or agreeing to, “free power”!
They are all Leeches sucking the lifeblood out of every nation that they represent!
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TonyfromOz
Thu 01/31/2019
Ed,
as you can see here, there are two graphs of that same image. The upper graph is the one you are looking at with respect to the total, and the one below that has the black line for the total removed. I wanted to do it like that, because, viewed in isolation, that lower graph is the one people would look at to possibly think that those three renewables do supply a good amount of power, and the upper graph puts it into perspective, showing the same image, only with respect to the overall power generated, and that shows just how small that total power delivered from those three renewables really is.
I used this same principle with the new graph I have added recently, the one second from the bottom, which shows just wind power and solar power combined (the same as that one you mentioned, only with hydropower removed from it) and also done in comparison to the overall generated power as well, and that also shows just how little power is being delivered from those two sources of choice in current thinking, wind and solar power.
Tony.
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billinoz
Thu 01/31/2019
Ohhh well Tony you are playing the game by their rules..Which smell !!
A suggestion : When you do the daily chart put Hydro at the bottom under coal fired power.
Can that be done ?
It would isolate the solar & wind ‘renewable’ energy sources from gravity
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billinoz
Thu 01/31/2019
..Created power.
by the way the Three Gorges dam on the Yangsi is the main source of China’s Hydro power. But it was built at huge cost. Two million people forced to move along with entire cities, towns and villages…
The Greenists should not have let China build that project..but China has a get out of jail card..
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TonyfromOz
Thu 01/31/2019
Bill,
Hydropower does prop up renewables, but I can only use the same rules that everybody uses. I’ll leave the graphs and text where they are in the Posts because it still gets the point across.
Incidentally, a number of years back, I thought along the same lines as you did about that huge Three Gorges Project in China. I then went and did some research, and my opinion changed.
I ended up writing a short Series, just about that one Three Gorges Project, and the more I looked the more I found. It gave me an entirely different perspective.
That Series is at the link below, and the link is the permanent link to just that four part Series. When the link opens, you’ll see just the four parts that make up the Series, and as usual, start at Part One.
Keep in mind the date this Series was written, and that’s shown at the top of the Post, August of 2008, almost eleven years ago.
I hope you read it, as there’s some really good information in it.
The other Post at that same link was something I started in 2014, showing interest in what China is doing in Tibet on that other mighty river, the Yarlung Tsangpo, and what might be happening there is still shrouded in mystery.
Tony.
Permanent Link To Three Gorges Hydro Series
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Robber
Tue 01/29/2019
Hydro is included in the “renewables” column because it receives renewable energy certificates worth an extra $80/MWhr along with wind and solar. I prefer to call wind/solar intermittent renewables, while hydro is generally reliable. Tassie ran out of water because they got carried away with the $$$ they were generating for the Tassie government.
I believe that if it weren’t for hydro helping to offset the unreliability of wind/solar the network would be in far worse condition than it already is. And I believe that is why the government is promoting the costly Snowy2 to offset the planned increase in intermittent wind/solar. It will be the big battery.
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TonyfromOz
Wed 01/30/2019
Robber,
thanks for this comment.
If I can make one important point about hydropower, and not just in respect of Australia, but on the whole of the World perspective, and it directly relates to China.
If it wasn’t for China Hydro, then the whole of World total for ALL renewables would be a considerably lower percentage of the overall total power generation from every source than it is now.
You have to understand here that China leads the World in Hydro power, not just by a small amount, but by a far and away long distance.
China Hydro makes up just a tick under 30% of the total hydro power generation on the Planet.
At the end of year 2018, just one Month back now, China released its power generation data for 2018, the quick release version, listing all power generation, and from that report, hydro generated 1233TWH of power and the whole of World total from all hydro is just over 4200TWH.
For some perspective on that, Australia generates just on 200TWH of power from EVERY source we have, so China Hydro delivers more than 6 times the power of every source in Australia.
In China alone, they generate just under 7000TWH of power from every source, so hydro alone in China delivers 17.6% of all power in China.
Coal fired power in China delivers 70.4% of all generated power, much the same percentage as here in Australia.
Without China Hydro, that World total for ALL renewables would look an awful lot lower than it is now.
Tony.
Here’s the link to that data. It will be updated with the full version at the end of this Month. This is just the quick release copy.
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billinoz
Tue 01/29/2019
Tony for the sake of honesty, please stop referring to hydo electricity as ‘renewable’
it is not a fossil fuel generated type of electricity but it is not renewable either.
It should be placed in it’s own category as it takes advantage of the energy provided by gravity.
When hydro is removed from the Renewable column, the the total inability of solar & wind to provide reliabale & cheap power is even more very starkly obvious.
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PA Pundits - International
Tue 01/29/2019
Hi billinoz,
Thank you for your comment.
I hope you don’t mind me interjecting my thought here.
You’re correct in your view but Hydroelectric is also a renewable, a VIABLE Renewal, unlike solar and wind which is prohibitively expensive on the whole.
I would classify it as a renewable, BUT in a category of its own.
Now I believe most people think of renewable energy as solar and wind, especially the manmade climate ‘Chicken Littles’ extremists.
These should be in a category of ” “Large Scale Impractical Renewables” or something similar.
If you have an isolated farm and use a windmill to fill your cistern and animal trough with water from your well when the wind blows then it’s practical. Otherwise it’s not, as Tony has been proving for many years now.
Again you’re right, but we need a third category to differentiate between wind, solar power category
and the Coal, gas power category.
Keep commenting! You’re making us think and keeping us on our toes. 🙂
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billinoz
Tue 01/29/2019
If it does not rain then hudro power is Not renrewable. And that happens a fair bit in Australia. The drought of 2007-2011 left Tasmania without water to generate electricity. They wound up using small scale diesel plants to provide power to the Tasmanian grid. ( Basslink DC cable was damaged and not working )
That same period of drought also restricted the power from the Snowy Mountains scheme eventually.
Using a separate category is what’s needed.
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TonyfromOz
Tue 01/29/2019
Bill,
Hydropower has always been placed in the renewable sector, and if I was to take it out, or place it in another separate area, then I would be the only one doing that.
I could link into the Wikipedia site to indicate this, but for another example, I’ll link into the ARENA site (Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and it follows every other site in categorising Hydropower as renewable.That is shown at this link.
It (hydropower) is far and away the largest power delivery source in that renewable sector, and without it renewables would look like the poor cousin that they really are. It artificially inflates the total power delivery from that renewable sector to give the impression that the overall power generated from renewables is larger than it should be.
I can only keep referring to it as renewable, because that’s where it has been placed, and as I mentioned in an earlier comment, it is considered renewable because the rain and the snow melt always comes back to fill the dams.
It’s just the way it is.
Again, Bill, thanks for the comment.
Tony.
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