Each week new records are broken across the energy market. Be it historic record low demands, reducing levels of thermal plant availability or the increased availability from renewables.

Last week saw solar reach more than 50% of Australia’s demand. This came as record generation levels came from both rooftop PV and large-scale solar sectors.

Ironically this record occurred on Sunday while the National Party room was meeting to discuss their stance on net zero emissions. As the Nationals push to lift the profile of the coal industry and power the country from coal fired power stations, solar generation reached 51.8% of the NEMs demand.

While regions like South Australia have passed the 50% solar milestone during the weekend it was the first time the NEM reached more than 50%. As expected, solar provided most of the electricity between 11:00 and 13:00, peaking at 11:55.

The 50% hurdle could have been higher as negative prices in South Australia economically constrained some large-scale solar plants. On the previous day, the record would have been broken if not for Queensland economically constraining off 1,800MW of large scale solar due to negative prices.

As mentioned above the NEM is also experiencing low operational demands and in line with the high rooftop PV generation, the demand dropped to a record low across the NEM of 12,936MW on Sunday as solar reached over 50% generation. As rooftop PV is not economically constrained, it accounted for 38% of the underlying demand.

As solar generation increased, it displaced coal fired generation with black coal generation throughout Queensland and NSW reaching historic lows of 6,105MW.

These statistics were surely discussed in the Nationals party room over the weekend and along with AEMOs forecasts showing the NEM can reach 100% renewables by 2025 as their base case scenario in modelling such as the ISP and the ESOO, the question about the role of renewable and coal in the market must have been discussed.

During the Spring months, skies are clearer and air temperatures are conducive to low air conditioning and heating loads, we could realistically see a situation where rooftop PV could cover demand. Of course, this will cause issues for AEMO who are required to keep various synchronous units online for system security however recent changes have allowed AEMO to employ systems to switch off solar in the event of a grid event to maintain grid security.

Written by Alex Driscoll Senior Manager Markets, Trading & Advisory