Progress on current increasing wind investments can never get us to Net-Zero anytime.
The Opposition should be speaking up more about the lengthy wind drought(Apr-May-Jun 2024) which exposed our thin NEM gas supplies and induced NSW Premier Minns to extend the life of Eraring coal fired generators.
It is clear that the windiest sites in the NEM were populated with windfarms many years ago and now we are seeing the effect of recently built onshore windfarms built on less windy locations.
It is likely Wind Droughts will become more frequent and also the AEMO ISP (published just prior the horrors of the "NEM-wide Wind Drought Q2 2024" is in need of pulping to be replaced by a more sane re-writing.
Being very kind to AEMO there.
The implications of the "NEM-wide Wind Drought Q2 2024" make the Opposition's nuclear plans highly relevant for Australia.
You can see a graphic of long term quarterly generation on the NEM from OpenNem at this link -
https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all&interval=quarter&view=discrete-timeYou see plainly how in Q2 (Apr-May-Jun 2024) wind gen is down, coal & gas are up, hydro a bit player little changed.
It is important to note that wind is down in Q2 against an "ever increasing capacity of installed wind"
"WattClarity" are renewables advocates - and have www pages where Paul McArdle and others comment on electricity generation events.Here is a link to their most recent article putting the "NEM-wide Wind Drought Q2 2024" in perspective.
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/07/09july-q2-wind-yield/
And a link to the first graphic from above article - see above
https://wattclarity.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-07-09-nemreview-monthlywindtrend.jpg
Note the
huge and increasing "installed wind capacity" marked by the "grey bars".
So it is plain that increasing installed onshore wind will lead us nowhere towards Net-Zero
Thus current plans to reach Net-Zero anytime are destroyed.
