A quick note, including a snapshot taken on Monday 27th June combining NEM-Watch and GasWatch to record how a confluence of factors (including high gas prices, low wind production and post-closure of coal generation at Northern) was leading to higher prices that day in the South Australian region.
Of course, a one-off 5-minute dispatch price of $410.42/MWh is not so exceptional – what’s more exceptional has been how prices have been consistently higher for a longer period of time – such as can be seen here in this trended chart from NEM-Review highlighting daily average prices for the past (approx) 540 days:
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.
Guest author Carl Daley from EnergyByte provides this summary of record-setting spot price outcomes throughout April. Carl also looks at how generator outages, rising global LNG and thermal coal prices, and other factors are putting pressure on spot prices.
Wednesday 28th January saw demand across the NEM jump to unprecedented levels, setting a new record of 34,843MW at 16:00 NEM time. On Thursday 29th January, we saw the demand increase still further, leading to prices that stayed high for much of the day (to the point where the Cumulative Price Threshold was reached in VIC and SA and price caps were imposed), and a relatively small amount of involuntary load shedding occurring in VIC and SA.
It was an article in the AFR, on the 6th of February 2024, that drew our attention back to generator closures. Engie have announced the early closure of Snuggery and Port Lincoln Power Stations.
There was a temperature-driven spike in demand across the NEM later in the week beginning Sunday 7th January – culminating in the summer’s first demand peak above 30,000MW (on Thursday 11th January).
On this occasion, the spot price spiked above $1000/MWh in Queensland, NSW, Snowy and Victoria,
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