Dependent performance of South Australian wind energy facilities with respect to resource and grid availability

Abstract

AbstractThe Australian Energy Regulator alleges that four operators of wind energy facilities in South Australia did not “perform” properly during the September 2016 statewide blackout in breach of National Electricity Rules (NER). We comment that this claim is incorrect, as wind energy facilities cannot produce energy independent of the resource availability, and the connection to the grid. The NER, that do not have yet a single entry for “wind” or “solar” energy, same of energy “storage,” thus need to be updated to account for the way wind and solar energy is produced. Then we propose specific performance parameters of wind energy facilities. These are the mean and the SD of the capacity factor, sampled with high frequency (5 minutes) over a full year. The Hornsdale wind energy facilities, three of the targeted facilities, are performing with average capacity factors of 0.42, 0.39, and 0.38, better than the National Electricity Market grid average, which is only about 0.33. These capacity factors are still subjected to significant variability, well represented by SDs of the about the same magnitude of the mean values, 0.31, 0.31, and 0.30, respectively, as it is generally true for every other wind energy facility.