For most of today, only Tasmania and Queensland were generating more electricity than what they were consuming, which is quite a common situation. The coal fired stations in Qld seem to be the ones carrying the system much of the time. Even when one unit at Loy Yang dropped out recently, it wasn't the SA battery that responded the quickest, as has been claimed, it was actually the coal fired station at Gladstone that supplied the shortfall first.
Earlier today, SA was charging up their battery whilst importing a significant amount of electricity from the grid. Whilst the battery supporters will claim that it was electricity from the windfarm being used, the fact remains that whilst the electricity from the windfarm was being diverted from the grid to charge the battery, an equivalent amount of extra electricity had to be imported from interstate to meet the demand within SA. In effect the battery was being charged courtesy of electricity being generated by coal in Qld. This is not what the battery supporters claimed to be how the system works, but mostly it is the case.
