High Penetration Solar = Weather as Our Fuel

At a recent workshop on solar forecasting with one of our Australian grid operators, the manager of operations spoke about a new era of electricity market operation in Australia: “The weather is now becoming our fuel”.

I could not agree more, and as a meteorologist I recognise & welcome the increasing responsibility of weather forecasting in balancing the supply & demand of energy!

Solar Power Forecasting of Increasing Importance

Simply put, it is becoming very important to pay great attention to the detail of how the wind & solar resource will change over the course of a given day in order to appropriately manage that balance.

Nowhere is this more important than in South Australia where more than 30% of rooftops have solar & approximately 40% of the total installed capacity is wind energy. On some days, solar can provide 40% of the total demand across all of SA!

A Guest Post by our CTO on HelloGrid

In this guest post on HelloGrid (Energy Networks Australia), I write to the common Australian on the important role they can play by doing what they already do (watching the weather & modifying their behaviours) and suggest a future role for them in enabling the solar powered future, a reality now quickly arriving in the land Down Under!