Australian Wind Generation – Long Term Capacity Factor – Week 289 Ending 14 April 2024

By Anton Lang ~

This series of posts continues the data collection and recording for wind power generation in Australia over the last five years. Each Monday, the Long Term Capacity Factor percentages will be updated. They will show two percentages for that Capacity Factor, the first for the most recent 52 week year, and the second percentage for the long term for the overall total number of weeks of data collection.

Link to Post on how these figures for the Wind Generation Capacity Factors are calculated

Link to Introductory Post ***** Link to each of the weekly update posts ***** Link to all earlier Data Posts (1153Posts)

What Is Capacity Factor.

Capacity Factor is the relationship between total generated power and the Nameplate for a power generation source.

That current Nameplate (as at 23 December 2023) for wind in Australia of 11,409MW from 84 Industrial Wind Plants, and at the current 30% Capacity Factor, then the actual generated power is only an average of 3422MW.

The total Nameplate for all these wind plants changes as each new wind plant comes on line, delivering power to the grid.

As each new Wind Plant comes on line, I will detail that new addition here, and change the data calculations accordingly to reflect that change.

Wind Nameplate change from beginning of data collection on Monday 1 October 2018 – (then) 5301MW – (now) 11409MW – (Change) +6108MW (an increase of 115%)

The Table below shows the current week ending date, the Total Generated Power across that week, the calculated Average Power (worked out from the Total Generated Power) the Capacity Factor for that week, and the total generated power as a percentage of the overall total power consumption used by the Grid.

Week Ending	Total Generated Power	Average Power	Capacity Factor	Power To Grid (%)
14Apr 2024	316GWH	1881MW	16.49%	8.1%

Long Term Capacity Factor – 52 weeks – 29.25% (Last Week – 29.50%)

Long Term Capacity Factor – 289 weeks – 30.07% (Last Week – 30.12%)

Comments for this weekly Update.

I have been collecting this wind generation data now for 289 weeks, and that’s now more than five and a half years.

In all of that time, the Capacity Factor (CF) for a whole seven day week has NEVER been as low as it was for this week.

It was just 16.5%, and that’s just a tick higher than HALF the current average for wind generation.

Only one day was slightly higher than the average, and there were four days when wind generation was lower than a third of that average, two of those not much higher than a quarter of the average.

That (significantly) dragged both of those long term averages lower.

If something similar happens this coming week, then there is a possibility that the longer term average (for the full five and a half years) will fall below 30%, and it has been years since it was that low.

That gap between the most recent 52 week yearly percentage and the longer term percentage is also widening further as well, and that is now closing in on one full percent, and the opposite is supposed to be happening, that short term percentage being higher.

For all the hype surrounding wind generation, its performance is nothing short of woeful. If anything performed this poorly, stern questions would surely be asked.

*****

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.

OzWindPowerGenerationTFOb

Tagged: Australian Wind Power, Australian Wind Power Data, Wind Power Capacity Factor, Wind Power Generation, Wind Power Limitations

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