Australia’s grid now relies on renewable energy as much as coal. Those who doubted it look foolish

‘Solar energy is incredibly cheap. It costs much more to burn coal,’ Adam Morton writes. Photograph: AAP

Australia’s power grid is changing rapidly – so rapidly that it can feel difficult to keep up.

This week, as an oppressive heatwave in the country’s south-east rewrote temperature records, there was also plenty of evidence demonstrating just how fast long-held assumptions about the electricity system are being overturned.