By Jo Nova
Careful, your subsidies are showing…
The more we make, the more we waste. The trend is clear and it’s so Soviet.
Spring is the season with the most wasted renewable production, and each spring is more wasteful than the one before.
There are two sorts of “curtailment” where the generator has to shut off production. Network curtailment happens when a a transmission line is already at capacity, or a line is down . But Economic Curtailment is rapidly becoming the big drain. It occurs when there was such a glut of power that prices went negative. Generators were producing something so useless they had to pay people to take it away. Investors flee at this point. This is hidden under jargon called “Offloading” which sounds a bit like 4-wheel driving with a lisp. I mean, they could have called it “toxic energy.
From the AEMO Q4 report
“During Q4 2025, total economic offloading of wind and grid-scale solar generation averaged 1,312 MW, the highest quarterly average on record (Figure 45). This exceeded the previous peak set in Q4 2024 by 653 MW (+99%).
Grid-scale solar economic offloading rose sharply, increasing from 343 MW to an all-time high of 618 MW (+275 MW, +80%). As a share of average grid-scale solar availability, offloading increased from 13% to 18%.”
So nearly one fifth of all the electricity that solar panels produced was tossed in the bin. And about 15% of wind turbine capacity. In South Australia an extraordinary 59% of potential energy from solar was lost. In total, some 7.2 Terawatt hours of renewable electricity was thrown away last year, because it was made at the wrong time or in the wrong place. As Dan Lee describes it on WattClarity,
” 1 TWh is roughly equivalent to the entire production from Gladstone Power Station Unit 4 in 2025″
So we’re wasting about 7 turbine units…
In the latest figures for the first quarter of 2026 the curtailment figures are back down again, but they are still higher than the same time last year. The inexorable rise of “curtailment” continues season by season.
This is not the same as the “waste” of having spare gas or coal generators because they are despatchable, and wind and solar are not.
Unlike most things, as we make more wind and solar power generators they wont get more efficient, not in a net production kind of way.
REFERENCES
See also Reneweconomy
So where does this put Minister Bowen’s often repeated comment that Australia’s future is to build more wind and solar? Geoff S
130
Well Geoff, Minister Bowen certainly offers lots of wind. I presume that the solar he wants is in Turkey where he likes to spend lots of time (with lots of taxpayers funding) feeling important.
110
$155M to splash about on trivia can buy a reasonable amount of importance.
10
That’ll learn ’em!!
50
The biggest challenge with curtailment is that AEMO cannot model it! So operators and investors have no idea how it will affect any individual site.
And therein lies the problem! Network curtailment is site specific. So it varies from site to site, and state to state:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/02/keeping-up-with-the-curtailment-2025-beneath-the-headline-numbers/
But it impacts the bottom line of renewable operators, because it invariably kicks in when weather conditions allow for maximum generation. Which also means that it reduces the amount of income those renewable generators would otherwise have earned.
That’s why investment in renewables ground to a halt in 2025! Imagine a situation where, through forces outside your control as a business, you couldn’t make money, despite having all the necessary resources and conditions to do so?
Renewables are now experiencing exactly what the government has imposed on coal and gas fired generation for the last 17 years!
110
The proponents worked it out and Blackout fixed it with his capacity investment scheme. The proponents get a government guaranteed return on their investment. Their base income is no longer linked to producing electricity. Actually producing electricity could result in a boinus payment.
All these deals are secret. They are transfer payments to China for useless stuff that will produce close to nothing.
There will be people who have a house and can afford solar panels and batteries and those who get government support to buy grid electricity. ALL remaining heavy industry in Australia already has some form of life support from taxpayers. I describe the kleptocracy that Australia has become below.
00
The most important part is under the last graph, and should be highlighted in CAPITAL LETTERS.
Long past time we stopped the transfer of power between states, having the connections for NATIONAL EMERGENCY only.
What we now have appears like a ponzi scheme where the end users lose out EVERY TIME. And doesn’t even realise it.
50
This waste of energy trails the wasted space occupied by the AlPinochio administration !
50
Pauline Hanson talked about restoring free markets.
I want to talk about kleptocracy – as described here:
Kleptocracy is a form of government where leaders exploit national resources for personal gain, often through corruption and theft. It is characterized by high-level officials using their power to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.
Nystar owners in Singapore are getting hand outs to keep their Australian operations going.
Tomago and its international owners have just been gifted energy to stay in operation.
The payments for ACCUs (Carbon units) is being ripped out of businesses in Australia (and their customers) then going to mostly Canadian owned businesses.
Dim Jim is setting up a CGT system where he decides who gets relief – all Labor parliamentarians first in line for relief.
Union backed Labor government in Victoria has syphoned billions to unions so they can pay their dues back to Labor. The same is now happening with Snowy Hydro 2. And the unions want a much stronger presence in the iron ore business.
Blackout now decides who gets guaranteed return on investment on energy infrastructure in secret deals never exposed to public scrutiny. Blackout has budgetted $155M for one year to throw about on his “climate” crusade.
The whole of the First Nations syphon keeps the well off better off.
And it did not start with the current Labor. Howard introduced the “renewable” energy theft. Turncoat is an unremorseful kleptomaniac.
How well does this description fit what Australia has become.
Australia is the perfect example of a kleptocracy. Even to the point of having its own propaganda arm spinning its lies and trying to shred anyone who calls out the lies. And they want more money for spinning the lies so well – what price their integrity. Look at those Getup criminals scampering when a few good people at the press club did not think their banner appropriate. But they will not be prosecuted.
10