To answer the question in regards to the April charts provided and my 7.3GW number...
7.3GW is simply 30% capacity factor multiplied by 2.2GW baseload capacity... to get a total required wind to replace YLA.
The April chart is there to show that there are at least 20 wind farms that produced with a capacity factor of more than 30% during the month of April... it is a shame that the top asset - Yandin Wind farm in WA (230MW nameplate capacity)... as it had a capacity factor of nearly 60% and is consistently over 50%. WA is obviously well suited for wind turbines with 8 of the top 12 assets - all of which are not connected to the NEM
Also interesting is in the article you linked from the guardian:
Those programs would include the REZ's... which clearly far exceed the amount that you (and I) are concerned with... do I believe they will be built? Yes I do... do I believe that the capacity factor of the wind farms will be in excess of 30%? I am near certain of it. How quickly can they be built??? 280 GW of capacity will build its own industry - which will only accelerate the efficiency in which build / design / installation etc are completed and these assets integrated into the grid.
As Windlab highlighted in a recent report - curtailment is also a problem for the way our grid is currently built, I understand that the REZ's are being designed with the intention that wind farms should be able to supply at 0MW curtailment rates and solar farms at near zero MW curtailment rates.The other factor that cannot be understated is what happens when the wind does not blow... geographic spread of wind farms over the NEM has not effectively been achieved yet, QLD is behind the ball in its development, but has plans for that to change - plus offshore wind has its owns issues to get around before builds can even begin (port infrastructure, suitable construction vessels etc). The wind is right now very light over a large part of the South Eastern corner of Australia and as a result we are sitting at 10% of total demand from renewables. Clearly the aging coal plants we have cannot keep going... so we either need a lot of storage (with excess supply able to charge them) OR / AND dispatchable sources (gas etc) that can be switched on when demand cannot be met, perhaps there needs to be a standby incentive for these types of generators to encourage capacity, yet be viable in periods of no demand. I think storage is a likely solution here as it also helps to mitigate the issue that all solar generators have... all generation at the same time... BESS systems are also providing FCAS services which are making the payback periods for these assets highly attractive to investment.
(20min delay)