It has been a warm, wet and now windy August across south-eastern Australia as a series of strong cold fronts provided record-breaking statistics for the generation of wind power.
Clean Energy Council policy director, Russell Marsh, said records for wind power generation in August were broken across the country, with Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales all hitting new highs during the period.
“The new Macarthur Wind Farm in western Victoria is the largest in the southern hemisphere and provided a huge clean energy boost,” Mr Marsh said.
The previous record was smashed in South Australia, with wind farms providing enough power for the equivalent of 38 per cent of the state, beating the previous record in August last year of 31.2 per cent.
In Victoria, wind power produced 7.9 per cent of the state’s electricity, up from 5.4 per cent.
According to the Clean Energy Council, this would be enough to power the stadium lights at the MCG continuously for the next 44 years.
Tasmania’s wind power generation rose from 7.5 to 11 per cent and New South Wales’ went from 1.5 to 1.8 per cent.
Overall, the wind power generated across the south-eastern states produced 1024 gigawatt hours or eight per cent of power.
That would be enough to power Parliament House in Canberra for more than 40 years or make more than 6 billion toasted sandwiches.
