Australian Weekly Wind Power Generation Data – 30 January 2023 To 5 February 2023

By Anton Lang ~

This continuing Series of Posts will detail the daily data for wind generation from all the Industrial Wind Plants on the major Australian Grid. This Series continues the data collection for all Australian wind power which was started on 1 October 2018. The original Series was started to show a definitive and accurate Capacity Factor Percentage for all the Australian wind plants on the main Australian power grid, and this new Series will continue to add to both of those Long Term Capacity Factor averages, shown directly under the Table below.

For an Introduction to this Series, and an explanation for the table, and the background, go to the following Post at the highlighted link. This introductory Post also shows the permanent link to all Posts in this Series.

Australian Weekly Wind Power Generation Data – Introduction And Permanent Link To All Data Post

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 10277MW, and this is from the current total of 79 wind plants.

Wind Nameplate change from beginning of data collection on Monday 1 October 2018 – (then) 5301MW – (now) 10277MW – (Change) +4976MW (an increase of 94%)

Current Wind Nameplate Capacity – 10277MW

Day And Date	Total Generated Power	Average Power	Capacity Factor (%)	Power To Grid (%)
Monday 30Jan2023	46.68GWH	1945MW	18.93%	7.7%
Tuesday 31Jan2023	38.59GWH	1608MW	15.65%	6.2%
Wednesday 1Feb2023	52.12GWH	2172MW	21.13%	8.5%
Thursday 2Feb2023	102.93GWH	4289MW	41.73%	16.4%
Friday 3Feb023	116.32GWH	4847MW	47.16%	18.3%
Saturday 4Feb2023	89.78GWH	3741MW	36.40%	16.3%
Sunday 5Feb2023	40.58GWH	1691MW	16.45%	7.2%
This Week	487GWH	2899MW	28.21%	11.6%

Long Term Capacity Factor – 52 weeks – 30.02% (Last Week – 30.13%)

Long Term Capacity Factor – 227 weeks – 30.24% (Last Week – 30.25%)

Comments for this week.

Friday 3 Feb 2023 – You can see that total power delivered across the whole day for Thursday was 102.93GWH. That was a good day for wind generation, and here, note the irony, that on a good day for wind generation, it is still only operating at just a tick higher than 40% of it’s total Nameplate. That total generated power was the highest it has been for more than seven weeks. So, again, you can see that these, umm, good days for wind generation are in fact few and far between. Wind increased it’s Nameplate to 10,277MW total in early December, and has still not even got close to the highs generated when that Nameplate was lower, either a s single five minute point in time highest power generation or even a sustained all day long 24 hour power generation total, and those high points for both were back in August and early September, now more than four Months back, again emphasising the nature of wind that when it is high, those occasions are very rare indeed.

Saturday 4 Feb 2023 – After a day of high power generation the day before, wind generation at a daily total of 116.32GWH, was again high, and still, even so, it was operating at less than half its Nameplate, on what is basically a really good day for wind generation. And just like the day before, it was seven weeks since it was last as high as this, and that time was also three days of relatively high power generation, also adding to what I wrote above, the rarity of occasions like this, perhaps just five to seven times in a full year when wind generation is high on consecutive days.

Weekly Update

There were two days when wind generation was the highest it has been for seven weeks (50 days) and yet, across the whole week, wind generation was lower than the year round average by two percent. That again lowered the long term averages for the Capacity Factor, (CF) and as you can now see, that CF for the 52 weeks of the most recent year to date is hovering right at that 30% mark, and given another week like this one, it will drop under 30%. Even on this last day of the week, the Sunday, there was a time when the total wind generation from every wind plant in the whole Country was only 491.5MW. That means that at that time, wind generation was only operating at a CF of 4.78%, so, with around 3450 individual wind towers spread across the length and breadth of this vast AEMO coverage area of most of Australia, barely 165 of them were actually turning over and generating power at that time. That’s nothing short of absolutely pitiful. Billions upon billions of dollars spent, and all they can deliver is less than ONE SINGLE UNIT of a large scale coal fired power plant. When coal fired power is gone, supposedly replaced by in the main, wind generation, what is the Country supposed to do when there are times like this?

*****

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.

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Tagged: Australian Electrical Power Consumption, Australian Electrical Power Statistics, Australian Renewable Power, Wind Power Generation, Wind Power Limitations

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