Australian Daily Wind Power Generation Data – Thursday 4th June 2020

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.

Thursday 4th June 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 7728MW, and this is from the current total of 64 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 – 250MW (3.45PM)

Daily Maximum – 1968MW (7.30AM)

Average Wind Generation – 1237MW

Total Generated Power – 29.68GWH

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At The Low Point For The Day – 1.00%

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At Peak Power For The Day – 727MW of 29650MW – 6.35PM – 2.45%

Average Percentage Of Overall Total Power Generation – 4.9%

Daily Operational Capacity Factor – 16.01%

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

1. 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)
2. For total power in GWH, multiply the average daily power by 24, and then divide by 1000.
3. 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.

Comments For This Day

On this day, you can quite easily see, yet again, how wind power failed so miserably. That average for the whole day of 1237MW gave wind generation a daily operational Capacity Factor (CF) of just 16%, but here that’s not the real story as this figure was bolstered when wind generation was high in the early AM hours up until 8AM, ironically at the time when overall power consumption is low for the day. Note yet again that when the time comes for peak power consumption for the day around 6PM to 6.30PM, that wind is at or close to its minimum for the day. At that peak power time, wind generation was only delivering 2.5% of all power generation, coming off its low for the day when it was only delivering 1% of generated power from every source. That low point of 250MW meant wind generation was operating at a CF of 3.4%, so only three in every HUNDRED of those wind towers actually had their blades turning over. That’s 250MW total power delivery from a Nameplate of 7728MW. That loss of power generation showed wind falling 2000MW in six and a half hours.

Coal fired power has NEVER had performance like this. If one coal fired Unit went off line, the green wind supporters would scream ‘unreliability’ from the tree tops. And yet, falls of this nature and magnitude are regular occurrences with wind generation. This is the equivalent of four of those coal fired Units going off line, not just the ONE that they would scream about.

However, when we isolate just one State out of this overall picture for wind generation, this situation goes from looking bad, to actually being even worse than what you see on the overall wind generation graph above. At the right here is the graph for wind generation in the State of Victoria. (and as with all of my images of graphs, they are sized small here to fit on the page, and if you click on the image it will open on a new page and at a larger size so you can better see the detail) Victoria has 23 wind plants in all and a total Nameplate of 2774MW. Keep in mind here that this graph has a scale change so it looks and also seems higher than it actually is.

That maximum you see there at around 3AM is just 325MW, and that it only at a CF of 11.5%, which of itself is pitiful. Then it just falls away over the next nine hours, falling all the way back to zero. Then it just stays there for the rest of the day ….. TWELVE long hours at zero power output, That’s 0MW from a total of 2774MW. And on top of that, not only is wind not generating any power, all of those 23 wind plants with (around ) 1500 individual wind towers are actually sucking power FROM the grid for all of those 12 hours. I have the mouse over that time there at 2.25PM (14.25) and if you look across to the left, side of the graph, you can see that at that time, wind was drawing 7.8MW from the grid. Across those 12 hours wind drew around 60MWH from the grid.

If something can show just how useless wind generation really is, then surely this is it. Some might say that, well something like this happens rarely, but hey, wind power was supposed to be the answer to power generation. If that actually IS supposed to be the case, then WHAT do you do when there are occasions like this, and there is nothing to fall back on. The Stae just stops everything and waits for the wind to pick back up, This is twelve hours.

Pitiful, just pitiful is all you can say about it.

*****

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

Tagged: Australian Electrical Power Consumption, Australian Electrical Power Statistics, Australian Renewable Power, Electrical Power Load Curves, Wind Power Generation

Posted in: Australia, Climate Change, Electrical Power Generation, Renewable Energy, Wind Power