Wind turbines stationary as renewable supply exceeds demand in Western Australia

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Some people say we're wasting it, others that it's merely a sign of a normal renewable energy system. However it's perceived, Australia is often capable of generating more wind and solar power than it’s producing because there's not enough demand to soak up all of the supply. And it's a gap that's growing as ever more renewable energy is added to the grid.

Transcript

00:00On a breezy day in Western Australia's south, something seems amiss.

00:10The blades on giant wind turbines are barely turning at all, but there's nothing wrong

00:14with them.

00:15There's just nowhere for their power to go.

00:18It's called curtailment, a little known phenomenon that's increasingly becoming a feature of

00:22Australia's power systems.

00:24Curtailment in its simplest is when an energy asset generates less than it would be capable

00:31of generating.

00:32It often happens when there's simply not enough demand to soak up all the potential

00:36supply renewable energy could provide.

00:39And it's most pronounced in the middle of mild, sunny days, when the output from Australia's

00:44vast fleet of rooftop solar floods onto the system, pushing out most other generators,

00:49including large scale solar and wind farms.

00:52And there's a lot of rooftop solar that suppresses the demand that the rest of the market sees.

00:58It is happening quite a fair bit and it's a byproduct of an ever-changing grid.

01:03At the moment, curtailment isn't a big part of Australia's electricity system, accounting

01:07for only about one and a half per cent of wind and solar production last year.

01:11But it's much more than that at times, and there are expectations it will grow markedly

01:16in the years ahead.

01:18Curtailment is something that renewable energy companies are going to have to factor in.

01:22Analysts say batteries will help soak up much of the excess supply, as will consumers

01:27who shift more of their use to the middle of the day, but they say some amount of curtailment

01:31is inevitable.

01:32The marginal cost of generating that excess kilowatt-hour off a solar system on your house

01:40is zero or very close to zero.

01:42And to that extent, no harm, no foul.

01:45From scarcity at times to abundance at others, Australia's renewable energy riddle won't

01:50be solved overnight.

01:52That's a great idea.

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