Australian Daily Wind Power Generation Data – Sunday 30 May 2021 – Plus Weekly Update

Posted on Mon 05/31/2021 by

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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 30 May 2021

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 8587MW, and this is from the current total of 69 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 – 114MW (4.10PM)

Daily Maximum – 2779MW (12.05AM)

Average Wind Generation – 1497MW

Total Generated Power – 35.92GWH

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At The Low Point For The Day – 0.5%

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At Peak Power For The Day – 468MW of 27550MW – 6.35PM – 1.70%

Average Percentage Of Overall Total Power Generation – 6.3%

Daily Operational Capacity Factor – 17.43%

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.

Weekly UPDATE

Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for this last week – 13.1%

Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for the last year (52 weeks) – 10.3%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last week (7 days) – 36.38%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last year (52 weeks) – 29.17%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the longer term (139 weeks) – 29.57%

Nameplate change from beginning of data collection – (then) 5301MW – (now) 8587MW – (Change) +3286MW

Comments For This Day

Wind generation was well down on what it was on the day before. The daily average of 1497MW gave wind generation a daily operational Capacity Factor of 17.4%, and that was twelve percent lower than the year round average. Note that wind generation sank to an extreme low in the late afternoon, so that at the low point of just a tiny 114MW (at a CF of just 1.3%) it was only delivering 0.5% of all generated power, just a HALF of ONE PERCENT. Pitiful. Also note the difference between the high and the low, and because it went so low, and even coming from a small high point, that gap was a very large 2665MW.

I have added an extra image here, and this is for the two States with the largest concentration of Wind plants, Victoria, and South Australia. These two States have a combined Nameplate for wind generation of 5247MW and  I have hovered over the time point when wind was at its lowest point, at 4.50PM, just an hour and a half before the evening peak, and I have then circled in red the total output from every one of those wind plants in both States, and that total was just 42MW, and that equates to a CF of 0.8%, so less than one percent, meaning less than one wind tower in every hundred had their blades turning and generating power.

When it comes to the Weekly Update, there were three days this week when wind generation was really high, and on one of those days, the power delivered from wind generation was the highest it has ever been. Even with that happening, the weekly operational CF was only 36.4%, barely seven percent higher than the year round average, and when that was figured into both long term CF averages to calculate the new average, the figure barely changed from the current average of just over 29%

*****

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

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