Australia Clean Energy Council has announced a Windy August as a record breaking month with wind power smashing previous figures by more than 30 per cent.
Russell Marsh, Policy Director of the Clean Energy Council (CEC) said records were broken across Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales, with South Australian wind farms providing the equivalent of 40 per cent of the state’s power for the month.
“South Australia produced a huge amount of wind powered energy, but the new Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and provided a huge clean energy boost,” he said.
The energy generated across the board is enough to power 155,000 Australian homes for an entire year or the Sydney Opera House for the next 57 years or toast over 6 billion sandwiches (see below).
“These recent statistics add to results published by the Australian Energy Market Operator last week which showed that more than a quarter of South Australia’s power came from wind power over the last financial year,” said Mr Marsh.
Wind Power Statistics:
- Australia’s wind farms produced 1024 gigawatt-hours of energy in August – enough to make 6,144,000,000 toasted sandwiches using an average sandwich press.
- Wind power produced eight per cent of the power in the National Electricity Market during Windy August.
- South Australia’s wind farms provided enough power for the equivalent of 38 per cent of the state’s power during August, beating the previous record of 31.2 per cent from August 2012.
- Victoria’s wind farms produced the equivalent of 7.9 per cent of the state’s electricity over the month, beating the previous record of 5.4 per cent.
- Tasmania produced 11 per cent of its power from wind energy (previous best 7.5 per cent), while NSW produced 1.8 per cent of its electricity (previous best 1.5 per cent).
This information was provided by IES using data sourced from the Australian Energy Market Operator.
