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Rafe Champion guest post. Tasmania burning GAS (correction, not oil) in prolonged wind drought

This morning at sunrise the wind across the NEM was average (29% of capacity) with interesting variations between the states. Most of the states were close to balance with some flow of power from Queensland through NSW and Victoria to Tasmania.

My main purpose to track these numbers is to see how often SA depends on coal power from Victoria which is always when the wind is less than average between sunset and sunrise.

The other purpose is to see how much coal and gas contribute between sunset and sunrise to assess the feasibility of getting through nights on the back of hydro, wind and storage.

Across the NEM wind was delivering 14% of power at 29% capacity, with coal 75% and gas 3%.
NSW, wind 13% at 40% capacity and coal 85%. Queensland, wind 7% at 60% capacity and coal 86%, Victoria, wind 10% at 11% (wind drought) and coal 82%. South Australia, wind 75% at 45% capacity and gas 25% (no imported power).

Tasmania, wind 1% power at 3% capacity, hydro 83% and gas 16%.

So the message is that even with average wind across the SE of Australia and better than average in SA, Victoria and Queensland the overwhelming source of power is coal. Imagine the situation without Liddell and Eraring, not to mention all the other coal power stations that are supposed to close as soon as possible due to the rapid growth of wind and solar capacity.

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