The spot price of electricity briefly hit zero dollars in wholesale markets across Australia on Sunday, July 21 – a particularly clear and breezy day on the continent – thanks to the widespread deployment of distributed renewable energy resources across the nation.
Energy captured from Australia’s sunny, windy climate topped 43% of wholesale market supply over the weekend, which pushed the wholesale price of electricity on spot-trading markets down to $0.00 for a five-minute period. Periods of higher wind generation in South Australia and Victoria have pushed electrical spot prices into the negatives in these regions.
According to Craig Duggan, the CEO of Optimal Group Australia, “Solar and wind will fare well in this market as they have a zero cost of fuel. They can run through these low priced events and pick up when the price swings up. There is also a place of natural gas or biogas to fuel peaking gas-fired power stations when the market price is right.”