Are they using home installed batteries for nighttime reserves? That would help lower the strain on the overall grid.

WOW. They went totally solar for one hour on a sunny day!!! How much was stored for the rest of the day? Probably very little if any. What happens when the sun doesn't shine? Windmills? What happens when the wind doesn't blow. It's going to take a lot more generation and storage capacity to be independent from fossil fuels. I figure they will have to up capacity by a factor of 20 or more. Of course rolling blackouts should be very popular until then. Caves should be a lucrative investment since energy prices will sky rocket.

Australia is pushing solar power. Japan is aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2050. European countries and China are likewise forging ahead with renewable energy. Meanwhile in the US, conservatives desperately hang on to dirty petroleum and coal power as if they have a long future ahead.

zr2s10 - Yes, the govt subsidise batteries. There is also a scheme to install a distributed solar power system in public housing, with panels and batteries installed and connected to the grid

Nobody - Yes windmills is correct. There is much more wind generation power - nearly 3 times - in the state than solar. Between the two renewables, they provide 66% of the total local demand. Wholesale Energy prices are 40% cheaper than coal-burning states in the east in the last 2 months. Gas power makes up the balance.

So wholesale energy prices are 40% cheaper than coal-burning states now the sunnier weather is there. I bet it will be a long time before it affects retail costs in the state with Australia's highest power prices.

Great milestone! They demonstrated that they enough solar generating capacity to meet all their energy needs. Why does it only work for 1 hour of the year? What do they do for the other 8,765 hours of the year? Coal? Natural gas? Inquiring minds want to know...

South Australia is also famous for it's giant 100MW Tesla battery farm, which was so profitable they're now upgrading to 150MW. I expect in time they will be able to retire their conventional power plants entirely.

At what cost TO the environment when the batteries, solar cells have to be replaced not to mention the mining to get the raw materials to make these
silly things? Nuclear is MUCH cleaner, but everyone thinks it will "blow up" or leak out. The Chernobyl, and one in Japan were engineering blunders.
Three Mile Island showed that even idiots that did the wrong thing, the safety features worked. Wind only works when it is blowing. Solar only when it
is sunny. The problem with these options are that you can't "gin up" the system like you can at an electrical power plant that uses GENERATORS.

consumers generated 77% . thats the big news.

Well don't worry about cost of solar maintenance in Australia. My off grid home in north Idaho has run on solar with very little back-up in worst of winter, for over 35years. Out of about 59 solar modules most of them near 35 uears old, only one had failed and i was able to repair the conection. It just keeps worling --- like the sunshine. Now batteries are a different story. We still have lead aid batteries, good for 8 to 12 yers, but the Tesla batteries in australia are another step to better cleaner and cheaper energy. Its a bit old fashiones (out of date) to not be aware of current technology.