Winter winds blow away clean energy records

Strong winter winds over the week beginning 11 August resulted in records being broken for wind power generation in South Australia and Victoria.

South Australia’s wind farms produced the equivalent of 48% of the state’s power needs, while Victoria’s wind farms hit 10% for the first time. As explained by Clean Energy Council Policy Director Russell Marsh, the amount of energy produced by wind farms on Australia’s southern coastline broke records “for the amount of wind power generated in a single week in South Australia and Victoria”.

Tasmania and NSW also had their second- and third-highest levels of wind power generation on record for the week in question. Overall, this resulted in a record level of wind power across the country, producing 7.6% of the power demand in the National Electricity Market - the equivalent of powering more than 2.3 million Australian homes during this period.

Marsh credited AGL’s opening of the Macarthur Wind Farm in western Victoria earlier this year - “the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere” - as a key factor in the results.

“What this shows is that wind power is working,” he said. “It generates very useful amounts of power and also helps farmers who host wind turbines by providing them with income.”

Furthermore, said Marsh, “Wind power is currently the least expensive kind of renewable energy that can be rolled out on a large scale, and will be important to help us reach our target of 20% renewable energy by 2020.”

In 2012, Australia’s renewable energy output from solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy and more provided more than 13% of power across the country.

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