Australian Wind Generation – Long Term Capacity Factor – Week 294 Ending 19 May 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 (%)
19May 2024	408GWH	2428MW	21.28%	10.1%

Long Term Capacity Factor – 52 weeks – 29.18% (Last Week – 29.26%)

Long Term Capacity Factor – 294 weeks – 29.97% (Last Week – 30.00%)

Comments for this weekly Update.

That important metric for Wind generation, the overall long term Capacity Factor, fell below 30% at the end of this most recent week. Other than for a few weeks in 2022, this is the first time it has been below 30% since early 2021, when it finally rose above that 30% mark, after three years below that percentage.

During this last seven days, wind generation was higher than the average on one day, just a tick over the average on one day, and lower than the average for the other five days, and of those five days, on three of those days it was less than half, the average, and one day just slightly higher than half the average, so it was a poor week for wind generation all round really. As you can see from the above data, wind generation was just two thirds of the average across the whole week, with a Capacity Factor (CF) of just 21.28% for the week. So wind generation with a total Nameplate of 11,409MW could only average 2428MW for the week.

Again, this lowered both of those long term averages for CF. As I mentioned above the long term CF percentage fell below 30%, and it is now 29.97%. Perhaps more worrying is that the most recent 52 week yearly percentage is now approaching 29%. We are told that newer technology larger turbines are more efficient, and that they will have a much higher CF than those older turbines, and in fact, the data shows exactly the opposite of that, as that one year round percentage is lower by what is now approaching almost one full percentage point.

Now, in recent times, with wind generation falling away now for more than six Months, some wind supporters are putting it down to what they call curtailment, and it looks to me like that might be a convenient excuse actually, as they are blaming it on the large output from an ever increasing rooftop solar power generation in the middle of the day. However, as I have been pointing out all along, there are days in EVERY week when wind generation is high, and sometimes very high, so that places ‘curtailment’ into some doubt. Also, surely, as we are so often told, and can easily see from the power generation data, every amount of generated power that wind can generate, no matter when, is accepted by the grid as the FIRST choice, as renewable power is protected, so the ‘curtailment’ they talk of is in fact not ‘a thing’ at all. And then, as perhaps of most importance, solar power is greatest in those Summer Months, when the Sun is closer to directly overhead than at other times of the year, so, here we now are in May, almost three Months since the end of Summer, with Winter starting just one week away from now, and solar power is at its lowest in those Winter Months, and wind generation has now fallen steadily ….. EVERY WEEK for those last six Months.

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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 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