Australia's renewable generation breaks record at 11.7GW

It has commissioned five solar and wind farms in the past six months.

Wind and solar generation across Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) reached a record-breaking 11.7GW, contributing 46.5% of total energy used 30 minutes of 20 August, according to data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

The previous record was 11.3GW back in November 2019. AEMO Chief System Design and Engineering Officer, Alex Wonhas, commented that this reflects the rapid generation transformation underway across the NEM.

“In the last six months, we’ve commissioned five new wind and solar farms with a generation capacity of 580MW that are feeding into the NEM, and another seven committed projects working towards construction of a further 1,785MW," Wonhas said.

This new record came on the heels of AEMO’s release of its 2020 Integrated System Plan (ISP), which projected that more than 26GW of new VRE is needed to replace coal-fired generation, with 63% of coal-fired generation set to retire by 2040.