{"id":661844,"date":"2026-06-27T23:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661844\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:00:16","slug":"electricity-price-spikes-and-batteries-drain-as-wind-drought-tests-green-flag-bearer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661844\/","title":{"rendered":"Electricity price spikes and batteries drain as wind drought tests green flag-bearer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spot electricity prices that soared to their maximum allowable level.<\/p>\n

Emptied batteries unable to supply a grid desperate for more energy.<\/p>\n

Dormant gas plants that fired to life and ran flat-out for days to keep the lights on.<\/p>\n

South Australia may be the country’s renewable energy flag-bearer, but its embrace of the transition has been subjected to one of its sternest tests yet.<\/p>\n

For four days on the trot, a state that gets the greatest share of its electricity from wind had practically no wind at all.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

South Australia runs heavily on wind power. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)<\/p>\n

“Events like this are a reminder that the challenge is no longer simply building renewable generation,” wrote Gavin Mooney, a former Australia manager for energy software firm Kaluza.<\/p>\n

“The harder task is ensuring there is enough flexibility in the system to manage the relatively rare periods when wind and solar output falls across a large geographic area.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, the events in South Australia over the past week or so highlight the extremes that can characterise an electricity system running largely on renewable energy.<\/p>\n

One extreme to another<\/p>\n

South Australia was producing so much wind power on the evening of Thursday, June 18, that it was able to meet all of its needs and export surplus production.<\/p>\n

But just a few days later, overnight on Sunday, the state was almost totally becalmed.<\/p>\n

Wind accounted for just 1 per cent of South Australia’s electricity needs.<\/p>\n

Virtually all of the rest was coming from gas-fired generation.<\/p>\n

And what couldn’t be provided by gas was imported from Victoria, where equally calm conditions meant that state’s power was being generated mostly from coal.<\/p>\n

Paul McArdle is an electricity market expert who runs specialist firm Global-ROAM.<\/p>\n

While seasonal lows in renewable energy output in winter were a known phenomenon, he noted the “wind lull” that affected South Australia last week was highly unusual.<\/p>\n

He said the state had installed wind capacity of almost 2,800 megawatts \u2014 equivalent to three large coal-fired plants.<\/p>\n

But in the four days to Wednesday, McArdle said the “rolling average” generation from those wind farms was just 124 megawatts, or an availability of 4.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

By comparison, he said wind output compared with capacity had been 5.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent during the previous two worst recorded lulls.<\/p>\n

“So, from this data, it seems safe to conclude that the recent wind lull in South Australia was the worst experienced [at least] since 2019,” McArdle wrote.<\/p>\n

The pain of prices<\/p>\n

A major corollary of this lull was a dramatic spike in spot electricity prices.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Australian Energy Market Operator, wholesale prices hit the legal ceiling of $20,300 a megawatt hour twice during the episode.<\/p>\n

Average wholesale prices in South Australia were $88 a megawatt hour in the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n

The first was on Monday evening after the sun had set and as the wind stayed still.<\/p>\n

Crucially, batteries appeared unable to stop wholesale prices getting out of hand.<\/p>\n

In a post, Australian firm OptiGrid said battery owners “discharged heavily through the afternoon and early evening, chasing the gradual rise in prices”.<\/p>\n

While many batteries were running low as the price climbed higher, “around half managed to catch the first extreme price interval”.<\/p>\n

\"Collie<\/p>\n

Batteries struggled to fully recharge during the extended wind lull in South Australia. (ABC News: Mya Kordic)<\/p>\n

Crucially, however, almost none were able to capitalise the second time prices spiked to $20,300 a megawatt hour the next morning.<\/p>\n

Some batteries were even charging as prices soared, paying up to $10,000 a megawatt hour to store electricity that was overwhelmingly coming from gas generators.<\/p>\n

“Despite another period of $20k prices, relatively little battery capacity was able to respond,” OptiGrid noted in its post.<\/p>\n

“Holding charge for a spike that may never arrive is an uncomfortable decision, right up until it turns out to be the only one that mattered.”<\/p>\n

Making matters worse, constraints to the high-voltage transmission network meant South Australia was exporting electricity to Victoria even as its prices rocketed.<\/p>\n

Jess Hunt, an electricity market designer, wrote that such “counter-price flows” were not helpful.<\/p>\n

“This seems to have been happening a lot lately, but the outcome [on Monday] was particularly painful,” Hunt posted.<\/p>\n

“By 8pm our batteries were drained and we hit the market price cap.”<\/p>\n

‘Stress testing’ a grid\"Men<\/p>\n

New transmission lines are designed to better integrate South Australia with the national grid. (Supplied: Elecnor Australia)<\/p>\n

Geoff Eldridge, an electrical engineer who runs consultancy Global Power Energy, said the prolonged lack of wind in South Australia was a “stress test” for its electricity system.<\/p>\n

Eldridge said a single day of low wind and solar output could create volatility, but a four-day lull could examine the resilience of the grid.<\/p>\n

“Batteries, gas, imports, interconnector capability and demand response all become more relevant,” Eldridge wrote.<\/p>\n

Eldridge said the past week was hardly a repudiation of South Australia’s transition.<\/p>\n

He noted that on a long-run basis, South Australia was on average getting more and more of its power from wind.<\/p>\n

From barely 40 per cent six years ago, its share had increased to about 50 per cent on a rolling one-year basis.<\/p>\n

“A good trend can still contain a difficult test,” he said.<\/p>\n

“South Australia’s wind transition looks strong on the long view. But the short view says something different.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Geoff Eldridge says the system was tested. (ABC News: Kenith Png)<\/p>\n

“That does not cancel the long-run trend. It tells us where the system is being examined.”<\/p>\n

Eldridge said the South Australian experience showed the flip side of a system that ran largely on renewable energy sources that were at the whims of the weather.<\/p>\n

Key among them are the rapid ways an excess of wind and solar power can become a scarcity, the central role of gas in backing them up and the limits of batteries as a tool to manage the grid.<\/p>\n

“This is where the transition debate often becomes too binary,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“Batteries can be valuable and still not be the whole answer to a multi-day winter lull.<\/p>\n

“Gas can be essential in the event and still raise questions about emissions, fuel risk and long-term role.<\/p>\n

“Interconnection can help, but only if neighbouring regions have spare flexibility when it is needed.”<\/p>\n

At the bleeding edge<\/p>\n

It was a point echoed by Gavin Mooney.<\/p>\n

He said South Australia was a world leader in its adoption of renewable energy and its shift away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

As such, he said the state provided invaluable lessons for other jurisdictions about the risks and opportunities of the transition.<\/p>\n

\"Bespectacled<\/p>\n

Gavin Mooney says South Australia’s reliance on wind is felt “acutely” in lulls. (ABC News: Tara Whitchurch)<\/p>\n

And a key one of those, he said, was flexibility to deal with the vagaries of the weather.<\/p>\n

“That flexibility can come from many sources, such as storage, transmission, demand response and dispatchable generation,” Mooney wrote.<\/p>\n

“And as renewable penetrations rise, the value of that flexibility becomes increasingly apparent.”<\/p>\n

South Australia Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis did not resile from the challenges posed by abnormal weather conditions, however infrequently they happened.<\/p>\n

Koutsantonis said the South Australian government was aiming to develop “significant volumes of long duration” storage that could be called at will.<\/p>\n

He said the amount of large-scale battery capacity in the state would more than double to 2.5 gigawatts, or 2,500 megawatts, which would be able to power about 300,000 homes for eight hours.<\/p>\n

The minister noted that even though wind output had been minimal this week, “solar generation has remained solid”.<\/p>\n

“This week’s weather is precisely the type of situation we are planning for,” Koutsantonis said.<\/p>\n

“As one of the world’s leading jurisdictions in integrating a high proportion of variable renewable energy into energy systems, South Australia has been among the first to address the challenges that come with it.<\/p>\n

“The higher prices associated with gas providing these short-term services will also be subject to downward pressure as our comprehensive strategy for bringing more gas into our state takes shape.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The lights stayed on in Adelaide, a city of 1.5 million people. (ABC News: Ben Pettitt)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spot electricity prices that soared to their maximum allowable level. Emptied batteries unable to supply a grid desperate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[13254,1047,2359,1344,1397,2983,4669,14163,90,4742,14205,53563,56,54,55,1059,221918],"class_list":["post-661844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-batteries","tag-drought","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-gas","tag-record","tag-renewable","tag-science","tag-solar","tag-south-australia","tag-transition","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wind","tag-worst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}