What energy storage does Canberra wind power need

More than 800 megawats of wind power is already in operation or planned for construction, with more than 1700 megawats at earlier stages of development. Additional wind power investments by the ACT will meet 45% percent of Canberra's electricity needs by 2020, more than enough to power all Canberra residences.

This energy type is one of Australia's main sources of renewable energy, generating enough electricity to meet 7.1 per cent of the nation's total electricity demand. At the end of 2018, there were 94 wind farms in Australia, delivering nearly 16 GW of wind generation capacity.

As the vast majority of the electricity produced on the grid is from non-renewable sources, the power that Canberrans consume at any time may well have been generated by burning coal or gas. ACT Climate Change Minister Shane Rattenbury says the next step is effective storage. (ABC News: Jake Evans)

As the wind does not continuously blow, researchers have developed ways to use energy from wind that also help to maintain a reliable supply of electricity, such as pairing wind farms with solar farms and/or energy storage such as batteries (see ARENA Action below).

Those investments, together with Canberra's own solar, put a stop to about 40 per cent of the ACT's carbon emissions, compared to what it would emit if it just bought traditional power from the grid. The ACT-contracted solar and wind farms cover 77 per cent of the capital's electricity consumption.

In line with the contracted awarded via a reverse auction to identify the cheapest sources of renewable electricity, ACT is now purchasing the electricity produced by the Hornsdale Stage 3 wind farm in South Australia. The supply from the 109MW wind farm has now tipped the ACT over the 100% renewable electricity milestone.