Wholesale prices soar as wind and solar output drop to zero in South Australia.

Wholesale electricity prices surged on Monday morning in the southern states after wind and solar output in South Australia – which has the highest average share of these technologies – dropped to zero shortly after 7 am.

Data from sources like GPE NEMLog2 shows that wind and solar output fell to zero at 7:05 am, just before rooftop and large-scale solar began contributing to the grid. Wind output remained very low throughout the morning.

This isn’t the first instance of wind and solar hitting zero; they briefly did so in June last year, according to GPE NEMLog. With no competition, fossil fuel generators took full advantage, driving wholesale prices up to the newly elevated market cap of $17,500 per megawatt-hour.