By Anton Lang ~
This Post details the daily wind power generation 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 that on some days, there will be a scale change for the main wind power image, and that even though images may look similar in shape for the power generation black line on the graph when compared to other days, that scale (the total power shown on the left hand vertical axis) has been changed to show the graph at a larger size to better fit the image for that graph.
Sunday 23rd February 2020
Total Wind Power Generation
This image shows the total power generated across the whole day by every wind plant in this vast AEMO coverage area for Australia.
The total Nameplate for all these wind plants changes as each new wind plant comes on line delivering power to the grid. That current Nameplate is 6960MW, and this is from the current total of 57 wind plants.
Note that the shape of this wind power load curve does not follow the shape of the main load curve for total power generation, and that is seen in the image below, the solid black line across the top of the image for that graph. Wind power generates its power only when the wind is blowing, hence it does not follow the actual power generation Load Curve, which is also the the exact same shaped curve as for actual power consumption.
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 (around 4AM each day) and maximum power consumption, the evening Peak. (at around 6.40PM in Winter and earlier during the Summer Months.)
Daily Minimum – 826MW (2.35PM)
Daily Maximum – 2124MW (12.05AM)
Average Wind Generation – 1412MW
Total Generated Power – 33.88GWH
Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At The Low Point For The Day – 3.36%
Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At Peak Power For The Day – 960MW of 25300MW – 4.10PM – 3.79%
Average Percentage Of Overall Total Power Generation – 6.5%
Daily Operational Capacity Factor – 20.24%
Wind Power Generation Versus Total Power Generation
This image shows the total power generated from all the wind plants in this AEMO coverage area, and compares it to the overall total generated power from every source of power generation, which is the black line at the top of the graph. Wind power is the green coloured area, along the bottom of this graph.
While the green colour in this image looks to be a different shape to the graph above, keep in mind here that the scale is completely different, and that green coloured Wind total is the same as for the image shown above, only with the scale changed so it can fit onto the graph.
Notes
- Finding Wind Power Average – On the graph, there are 25 hourly time points, starting with midnight and finishing with midnight. I have added the total at each of those hourly time points together, and divided the resultant total by 25 to give an average in MegaWatts. (MW)
- For total power in GWH, multiply the average daily power by 24, and then divide by 1000.
- For the Capacity Factor, that is calculated by dividing the average wind generation by the current Nameplate and then multiplying that by 100 to give a percentage.
Weekly UPDATE
Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for this last week – 7.6%
Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for the last year (52 weeks) – 8.4%
Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last week (7 days) – 25.94%
Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last year (52 weeks) – 29.51%
Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the longer term (73 Weeks) – 29.34%
Comments For This Day
This was another typical Sunday, a weekend day of much lower power consumption than on working week days, and wind generation was lower than for the day before. That average for this day of 1412MW gave wind generation a a daily operational Capacity Factor of 20.24%, almost ten percent lower than the year round average. Across the whole day, wind generation only managed to deliver 6.5% of all generated power, and again note that while overall power consumption was highest, wind generation was at its low point for the day, again, as has been the case for the last few weeks, not just a day here and there, but virtually for every day in recent times.
With respect to the the weekly data, note that wind power delivered just 7.6%, a smaller percentage of all generated power across the week than the year round average of 8.4%. Also, with this week being a week of lower power generation for wind power, both of those long term Capacity Factors fell a little, and are now falling closer to 29% than 30%.
*****
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.
OzWindPowerGenerationTFO
Robber
Thu 02/27/2020
Tony, do you keep your data in a spreadsheet? For example, it would be useful to know on how many days in the last year average and minimum wind generation was below 1,000 MW, and below 500 MW, despite the average being 1,900 MW. For example, you show Feb 17 average as 1021 MW, min 383 MW, max 1782 MW.
Because as you know, the intermittent supply means that there must always be reliable generators on standby, or as we keep getting told, cheap batteries or pumped hydro will be available as we move to 100% “renewables”.
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TonyfromOz
Fri 02/28/2020
Robber,
no, I don’t keep any records other than what are at each of those Posts. I have my thousand plus sheets of paper where I manually collected all the data, but other than that, nothing else.
At the start, I debated whether to do just that, keep it on a spreadsheet format.
However, my main thrust ALWAYS has been that no matter what the Nameplate may be, even as it rises now to almost 7000MW, is that wind power is ALWAYS low, and the only time ever when it is high is at single points in time,and for just an hour at the longest, and even then barely makes it over 10% of supply. It looks reasonable in South Australia, but that is barely 7.2% of Australia’s total power consumption, and if it can’t be made to work on that small a scale, then there’s no way it can work in those three Biggest States. The average is always low, and the lowest points are always pitifully low. I try to get the point across that no matter how much wind power people think there is, it still only delivers 8.2% of all power, and if that’s all there was, then there would be nothing at all.
For my point, I can’t see any reason to keep it on a spreadsheet for that reason alone. It’s always low.
Tony.
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