The proximate cause
Last Monday’s spot price volatility in New South Wales has prompted gigatokens’ worth of analysis on social and mainstream media. This post aims to cut through all these to the proximate cause?
Articles by Allan O'Neil
Loopy – or not?
Guest author, Allan O'Neil takes a look at one particular dispatch interval (09:20 on Sunday morning 4th October 2026) to explore an instance of counter-priced flow incorporating the South Australian and neighbouring regions (including via PEC Stage 2).
The boundary effect
NEM demand tragic and occasional WattClarity guest author Allan O'Neil drills into an apparent discrepancy in AEMO's demand calculations following the 1 July 2026 transition of the Basslink interconnector from MNSP market participant to Regulated status.
Still air, empty tanks and a hot joint
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, goes into some detail of exploring the various factors contributing to the price volatility in South Australia that bookended the night of Sunday 21th June into Monday 22nd June 2026.
Semi-dispatch caps are loading the deviation dice
Following a growing number of articles on WattClarity about “VRE under-performance dragging frequency down”, guest author Allan O'Neil takes a look at how the one sided nature of the SDC plays a role - and suggests a possible action that would help.
Runway cost allocation – ready for liftoff?
Allan O'Neil unpacks a proposal under consideration by the AEMC to apply “runway” cost allocation to contingency FCAS, explaining how this could materially change who pays for frequency security in the NEM.
NEMDE nightmares – parallel pathways and clashing constraints
Prompted by a question by a client in a training session for a new ez2view user, guest author Allan O'Neil has written 2,940 words to explain the price outcome in one particular dispatch interval for one particular region (19:05 on Tuesday 11th February 2025 in...
Some remarks on Victorian demand
Allan O'Neil takes a closer look at Victorian electricity demand on Sunday, February 2nd — which stood out as an unprecedented anomaly when looking at the history of weekend demand in the region.
PEC Stage 1 in operation – be careful what you wish for
Guest author Allan O'Neil looks at how operation of Project EnergyConnect Stage 1 may affect market outcomes, with some early indications that impacts won't be as straightforward as you might think.
Northern NEM capacity outlook next week – a series of unfortunate events
A very quick post to look at one of the several reasons we are seeing LOR3 and LOR2 forecasts for NSW and Queensland respectively next Wednesday (27 November). Previous posts from Paul (including this one) have looked at a range of factors, including weather /...
Watt scarcity?
Guest author Allan O'Neil examines some recent episodes of price volatility (particularly 30th July to 5th August 2024) and whether they were driven by a shortage of supply, or other factors.
With the benefit of hindsight – or who’d be an auto-bidder?
Following on from earlier articles about price volatility on Tue 30th July 2024 (particularly in South Australia), guest author Allan O'Neil takes a closer look at the operation of battery units in South Australia.
Missing megawatts and phantom generation
Seven days ago, AEMO notified the market of a Scheduling Error from 24th Jan 2024 to 7th March 2024. A client asked us what it meant - so guest author Allan O'Neil has helped to explore and explain.
Victorian renewable generation on 13 February 2024: One picture and a thousand (sorry, many more) words
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, takes us several steps further in understanding the events in Victoria on Tuesday 13th February 2024 - especially with respect to VRE (wind and solar) production.
Early observations from examining the AEMO’s four-second SCADA data from Tuesday afternoon
Allan O'Neil provides a couple of initial observations regarding Dundonnell Wind Farm and Loy Yang A from his first glance of at the 4-second SCADA data from the events in Victoria on Tuesday afternoon.
Victorian power system event 13 Feb 2024 13:08 – a few quick notes
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, adds some insights in a rapidly evolving situation on Tuesday afternoon 13th February 2024 in Victoria.
Summer 2023-24 demand – high or low?
Inspired (or provoked) by Paul's earlier article noting 'NEM-wide demand has been quite low through summer 2023-24 (at least to date)', guest author Allan O'Neil takes a look at how aggregate consumption stacks up for this summer, compared to prior.
Out with a bang or a whimper? And a puzzle or two.
Guest author Allan O'Neil continues our series of posts on very low system demand levels in South Australia and Victoria on New Year's Eve, with a few unresolved questions remaining
What’s happening around Wagga?
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, takes a detailed look at how VIC1-NSW1 transfer capability has been limited frequently due to constraints related to the 051 line in southern NSW, and what it means in terms of inter-regional settlements residue accumulations, market efficiency overall, and the energy...
An ESOO snippet – how effective are different technologies at enhancing reliability?
In his second article about the 2023 ESOO, guest author Allan O'Neil takes a look at what the AEMO has published with respect to various options for firming capacity to increase the reliability of aggregate supply to below the two thresholds (the Reliability Standard and...