As the Courier Mail tweets that 89,000 people in Townsville and Cairns are without power as TC Yasi approaches, I thought the following chart (taken from our ez2view application) might explain a bit of what that means:
Like everyone else, we will have to wait until tomorrow morning to know the full picture when daylight comes…
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.
On the 4th of February at around 11am energy users in NSW appear to have curtailed their load in response to high prices, resulting in a significant drop in demand. Simultaneously, network conditions and generator rebidding caused the NSW pool price to jump back and forth between extreme prices close to VOLL ($10,000/MWh) and the Market Floor Price (-$1,000/MWh).
Today (Fri 31 January 2020) saw NEM-wide demand reach levels never seen before (excepting 29th January 2009). This was just the start of the white knuckle ride.
Some initial analysis looking into the question of whether the increased penetration of solar PV is increasing the variability of scheduled demand to the point that generators can exert more pressure on spot prices.
1 Commenton "North Queensland Powers down with TC Yasi underway"
A lot of residential load was disconnected very early on Wednesday night (5:30pm where I live) when there wasn’t much wind yet. This would seem to suggest that the Ergon system really is quite fragile. I will need follow this up with Ergon once the dust has settled. With the rediculous hikes in prices they have been charging in recent years, I expect a corresponding improvement in service.
A lot of residential load was disconnected very early on Wednesday night (5:30pm where I live) when there wasn’t much wind yet. This would seem to suggest that the Ergon system really is quite fragile. I will need follow this up with Ergon once the dust has settled. With the rediculous hikes in prices they have been charging in recent years, I expect a corresponding improvement in service.