Australian Daily Wind Power Generation Data – Sunday 17 October 2021 – Plus Weekly Update

Posted on Mon 10/18/2021 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 17 October 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 – 605MW (10.00AM)

Daily Maximum – 1830MW (12.05AM)

Average Wind Generation – 1026MW

Total Generated Power – 24.62GWH

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At The Low Point For The Day – 2.7%

Percentage Supplied By Wind Power At Peak Power For The Day – 913MW of 23140MW – 6.55PM – 3.95%

Average Percentage Of Overall Total Power Generation – 4.9%

Daily Operational Capacity Factor – 11.95%

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 – 12.5%

Generated wind power total as a Percentage of overall total generated power from every source for the last year (52 weeks) – 11.1%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last week (7 days) – 31.73%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the last year (52 weeks) – 30.54%

Capacity Factor for wind power generation for the longer term (159 weeks) – 30.17%

Nameplate change from beginning of data collection – (then) 5301MW – (now) 8587MW – (Change) +3286MW (an increase of 62%)

Comments For This Day

On this day, wind generation was way down on what it was the day before, in fact, little more than a quarter of the day average for the day before. The average for this day of 1026MW gave wind generation a daily operational Capacity Factor of just under 12%, and that was nineteen percent lower than the year round average. As you can see, it fell away across the day to a low of 605MW (from a total Nameplate of 8587MW) and at that time, wind was only delivering 2.7% of all the generated power from every source, and here keep in mind this in the weekend day when overall power consumption is well down on the levels or working week days. It wasn’t much better at the usual time for the evening Peak of maximum power consumption, and at that time, wind was only delivering 4% of all the generated power from every source. From the daily high it fell to that low point giving a difference between the high and low of 1225MW. However that’s not the half of it, as the overall fall was a fairly consistent drop from the high just before Midnight on the day before of over 5000MW, so that fall in the encompassing thirty four hours was a whopping 4908MW. When just ONE of those large coal fired Units (of around 500MW or so) goes off line, renewables supporters loudly proclaim how unreliable they are, and here we have the equivalent loss of almost TEN of those Units. If that had actually happened with those coal fired Units, you would never hear the end of it. Well, you would never hear it all, because the whole grid would have collapsed. That fall from the earlier high to the low on this day was a drop of almost 93% in wind generation, and that’s pretty pitiful really.

When it came to the weekly Update, there were three days when wind generation was high. (and here, note with some irony how a ‘good’ day for wind generation, it is still only operating at little above 40% of its Nameplate of 8587MW) Even with those three good days, the operational Capacity Factor for the week was only 31.7%, only one percent higher than the year round average. With that factored in, both of those long term averages for the Capacity Factor hardly moved at all, both still on just 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

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