Investment in wind and solar farms continued at record levels in Victoria in 2020, with 1,146 megawatts (MWs) of new renewable projects registered for connection into the National Electricity Market (NEM).

Across all states in the NEM last year, 32 projects totalling nearly 3,301 MWs completed registration. These projects equate to approximately 5.8 per cent of current NEM generation capacity.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Chief Systems Design Officer, Dr Alex Wonhas, said there is no sign of this accelerated growth in renewables starting to slow.

“We’ve seen registrations of new wind and solar projects in Victoria more than double from 467 MWs in 2019 to 1,146 MW in 2020, despite the disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic and the issues in the West Murray zone,” Dr Wonhas said.

“We expect registrations to further increase in 2021, with 2,000 MW of new wind, solar and battery storage projects forecast,” he said.

AEMO recently published its State of the System newsletter, capturing new projects connected in the NEM with a total generation capacity of 57,499 MWs. A further 300 generation and storage projects, totalling 55,000 MWs, are currently proposed across the NEM.

Victoria has the strongest connection pipeline of any NEM state with 32,800 MWs across 131 projects in the connection pipeline. This is 80 per cent more capacity than the next biggest state, New South Wales, with 8,100 MW across 52 projects that are in the application or completion process.

Projects due for registration in the short term include the 530 MW Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, one of Australia’s largest wind farms.

“For some time now, AEMO has been working closely with Goldwind Australia to overcome the issues that have prevented the registration of Stockyard Hill Wind Farm,” Dr Wonhas shared.

“This significant collaboration is now seeing an agreed, well-defined plan being implemented to address the specific issues and achieve registration and commissioning of this wind farm in the coming months.”

Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, like all new generation sources connecting to the NEM, will play an important role in enabling the transformation of Australia’s energy system.

“Based on the pipeline of registered and commissioned renewable projects, we’re well ahead of the 2020 Integrated System Plan’s ‘step change’ scenario which would see more than 90 per cent renewable penetration, including rooftop solar PV, by 2040,” he said.

Image credit: The Australian Energy Market Operator.