Late afternoon volatility in South Australia on Saturday 1st February 2025
A quick note, recording some late afternoon volatility in South Australia.
Articles by Paul McArdle
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients.
Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.
A trend of daily peak NEM-wide ‘Market Demand’– from 1st January 2028 to 31st January 2025
With respect to forecasts for peak NEM-wide ‘Market Demand’ in summer 2024-25 (and particularly following Friday’s article) we fielded a few questions about how extreme that might be. So we thought we’d provide this article as some context.
(Mysterious and) Large drop in NSW ‘Market Demand’ late afternoon Friday 31st January 2025, prompting questions … part 1
Coincident with the walk home this afternoon/evening, the ‘Notifications’ widget in one of our display copies of ez2view alerted us to a large drop of ‘Market Demand’ in the NSW region … at a 937MW drop in the 5 minutes to 17:15 NEM time, so I have taken an initial look
Forecasts ‘hotting up’, for NEMwide demand on Monday 3rd February 2025
Following our earlier article from ~24 hours earlier, at look at ez2view shows that it’s been ‘hotting up’ for demand forecasts for Monday 3rd February 2025.
Shortly after the QED, the AER also publishes is Quarterly Review of 2024 Q4
Also on Thursday 30th January 2024 the AER released its Wholesale Markets Quarterly for 2024 Q4 (within hours of the AEMO’s release of the QED for 2024 Q4).
AEMO’s Quarterly Energy Dynamics (QED) for 2024 Q4
On Thursday 30th January 2025, the AEMO published its Quarterly Energy Dynamics for 2024 Q4. Here’s some of the coverage of that which we have seen ….
Higher NEMwide demand forecasts for Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th February 2025
A quick look (at Thursday morning 30th Jan 2025) out the coming week in AEMO’s ST PASA forecasts.
~13 months later, a GSD2024-inspired review of operations at Cohuna Solar Farm through 2024
We’re reviewing a draft of the GSD2024 (release coming soon), and a 9-month outage at Cohuna Solar Farm in 2024 jumped out at us and prompted questions …
NSW ‘market demand’ climbing (Tuesday afternoon 28th January 2025) but not to extremes
An updated view (at 13:55) of the NSW region on a hot summer’s afternoon on Tue 28th Jan 2025.
With heat building, is NSW the one to watch today? (Tuesday 28th January 2025)
A short article looking ahead to the afternoon/evening for NSW on Tuesday 28th January 2025.
QLD ‘Market Demand’ reached 10,897MW on Friday 24th January 2025 (3rd highest day ever)
We’ve checked with NEMwatch in this snapshot for the 18:35 dispatch interval (NEM time) on Friday 24th January 2025 and we see that the ‘Market Demand’ reached 10,897MW (target for the 17:45 dispatch interval).
QLD ‘Market Demand’ passes 10,500MW at 16:45 on Friday 24th January 2025 and is climbing
Contemplating the end of the day, and looming sunset, a quick look at NEMwatch at 16:45 NEM time to see the ‘Market Demand’ at 10,543MW and climbing.
A quick review of Queensland bidding over recent days (incl Wed 22nd Jan 2025)
Whilst we’re waiting to see where ‘Market Demand’ lands for Friday 24th January 2025 (we might report that later), I was curious in terms of supply-side performance of units over the past 4 days in Queensland – including the extreme demand period of Wednesday 22nd January 2025…
Reintroduction of ‘forecast LOR2’ for QLD for Friday 24th January 2025, with strengthening forecast for ‘Market Demand’
An updated view (via ‘Forecast Convergence’ in ez2view) for forecast demand for QLD on Friday afternoon/evening 24th January 2025 … and reintroduction for ‘forecast LOR2’.
A three-day trend of the supply-side ‘Fuel Mix’ in Queensland–Mon 20th, Tue 21st and Wed 22nd January 2025
Here’s a 3-day trend chart from ez2view to look at the trended half-hourly* fuel mix in the Queensland region including Wednesday 22nd January 2025.
AEMO cancels ‘Actual LOR2’ for QLD on Wednesday evening 22nd January 2025
Worth a short note to highlight that the AEMO published MN123598 at 19:44 to flag cancellation of ‘Actual LOR2’ in QLD.
Gladstone unit 2 switches offline, on Wednesday evening 22nd January 2025
One of our ez2view alerts (i.e. the one for ‘coal unit switches off’) configured in the ‘Notifications’ widget triggered at 19:31 (NEM time) on Wednesday evening 22nd January 2025 to show GSTONE2 coming offline.
How’s Mainland Frequency trending, on Wednesday evening 22nd January 2025?
Given the very tight supply-demand balance in the QLD region on Wednesday 22nd January 2025 (both very low IRPM and also ‘Actual LOR2’) it’s worth a quick look at this snapshot of NEM Mainland Frequency over the past 2 hours (to 18:53 NEM time), as measured in our Brisbane office
AEMO declares ‘Actual LOR2’ in QLD on Wednesday 22nd January 2025
So only seconds after(?) we’ve posted this third article, the AEMO publishes MN123594 at 18:43:09 noting ‘Actual LOR2’ in QLD on Wed 22nd Jan 2025.
Only 400MW spare (a 4% IRPM) in the QLD-only ‘Economic Island’ on Wednesday 22nd January 2025
Third article this evening (Wed 22nd Jan 2025) as the supply-demand balance in QLD tightens first with the sun setting (so disappearance of Solar PV injections, whilst Underlying Demand remains high).