It was Tuesday morning when we published ‘~72 hours becalmed in South Australia’.

1)  in that article we noted how it was during Saturday 20th June 2026 that the wind trended down

2)  so that means we’re now more than 4 days into a significant wind lull – being now Wednesday evening 24th June 2026.

A trend, from January 2026

I thought it would be useful to throw together a couple charts in the ‘Trends Engine’ within ez2view to compare – starting with this trend of daily UIGF* stats since the start of 2026:

>> * note that I’ve chosen to only use the AEMO-supplied UIGF in this longitudinal run, in order to avoid:

1)  Any distortion of effects that might have come from use of self-forecasts:

(a)  Given vendors change over time; and also

(b)  Some vendors engage in ‘games that self-forecasters can play’ which might reduce the objective value of the self-forecast as a ‘true’ measure of UIGF, rather than a commercially-contrived one.

2)  And I’ve also avoided any distortion from the MaxAvail enablement from August 2023.

We see in this trend that it’s clearly the worst consecutive run of days in 2026 … and that’s even before it finishes:

Those with a licence to the software can open their own copy of this query here.

The ‘next worse’ in this data run were the three-day period noted:

1)  Friday 13th April 2026, Saturday 14th April 2026 and Sunday 15th April 2026.

2)  But we see there daily average prices, though slightly elevated, were nowhere near as bad.

3)  Alas, not much in the way of prior articles already written to refer to about that run.

Expanding the trend, to start from January 2024

Adding 2 whole calendar years to the trend (i.e. making it 5 times as long) we see this:

Now, I’ve done this in a rush late in the day (because there’s a couple of ‘my real job’ tasks I need to get finished) … but:

1)  I’ve extended this far backwards deliberately:

(a)  in order to encompass the 2024 Q2 Wind Lull, that we wrote much about at the time

(b)  recall that this one was particularly bad on a NEM-wide basis (whereas here we’re only looking at SA in this article)

2)  I’ve also not had time to check definitively:

(a)  but wonder if the current 4-day stint in South Australia is worse than any 4-day stint in South Australia during that infamous wind lull?

(b)  especially considering the growth in capacity since that time:

i.  The trended ‘MaxCap’ does not actually step up in that series, which surprises me (but then, I can’t recall off-the-top-of-my-head which projects came when, and also which ones were in SA)

ii.  Even if there was the same amount registered with AEMO compared to 48 months ago, surely the commissioning of Goyder and the like would make today’s wind lull even more remarkable?

Food for thought …