Australian Daily Wind Power Generation Data – Sunday 18 July 2021 – Plus Weekly Update

Posted on Mon 07/19/2021 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 18 July 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 – 1302MW (5.15PM)

Daily Maximum – 4813MW (12.05AM)

Average Wind Generation – 2334MW

Total Generated Power – 56.01GWH

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At The Low Point For The Day – 4.9%

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At Peak Power For The Day – 1467MW of 28800MW – 6.25PM – 5.09%

Average Percentage Of Overall Total Power Generation – 9.8%

Daily Operational Capacity Factor – 27.18%

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 – 15.6%

Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for the last year (52 weeks) – 10.6%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last week (7 days) – 45.24%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last year (52 weeks) – 29.80%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the longer term (146 weeks) – 29.66%

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

Comments For This Day

After five days when wind power reached new record highs for generated power, on this day, it was back to pretty much normal for wind generation. The daily average of 2334MW gave wind generation a daily operational Capacity Factor (CF) of 27.2%, and that was two percent lower than the year round average. You can see that wind power dropped away markedly from the high near midnight to that low around 4PM. Just before that Midnight high, at around 10PM the previous day, wind generation was coming off a high of 5300MW, so the loss of power from that high was 4030MW in 17 hours, and that’s the equivalent of eight of those large coal fired Units, and renewable supporters tell you that if just ONE of those coal fired Units fails, then that is proof of their unreliability, and here we have the loss of the equivalent of eight of those Units.

When it comes to the weekly Update, this week had four days when wind generation was huge (well,l for wind generation anyway) and because of that this week saw the largest total for generated power of any week in the history of wind power. (Hmm! ONE WEEK in more than a Decade) That total generated power for the week came in at 653GWH, and that amounted to the provision of 15.6% of all the generated power from every source for the week. That weekly operational CF came in at 45.24%, and that was the second highest that figure has ever been, only surpassed by the CF of 45.96% almost two years ago now, back when the total nameplate for wind generation was 6702MW. Note that on the best week ever, wind generation still only operates at less than HALF its Nameplate, and it has only been above that 40% mark for a week six times in the almost three years I have been keeping this data now. With the CF figure for this week being so high, then that showed the largest increase in both long term CF figures also, but even then, both of those long term averages are still below 30%.

So, even when wind power has a really good week, it still provides only marginal 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.

OzWindPowerGenerationTFO

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