Following to the fourth article today (about Actual LOR2 and wafer-thin IRPM) I thought it would be of interest for some users to see what’s running, and what’s not running, at times when the supply/demand balance in QLD is so tight – using this snapshot from ez2view at 21:50.
With reference to the numbering on the image:
1) Pay particular notice to the successive large drops in Available Generation in the QLD region that have followed the inception of Administered Pricing following reaching the Cumulative Price Threshold
(a) No doubt part of the reason for the Market Direction
(b) This will be something that would be worth closer attention in the coming days, with the benefit of ‘Next Day Public’ data
2) On the QLD schematic we see:
(a) Far too late in the evening for any solar
(b) Of the wind farms:
i. Coopers Gap in south-west is running quite hard (290MW),
ii. but Mt Emerald in the north is quite light (67MW of 178MW MaxCap).
iii. The Kennedy Energy Park Wind Farm is at 18MW (of 43MW MaxCap)
3) Of the coal units:
(a) Three units of four at Callide are offline
(b) Two units at Gladstone are offline
(c) There’s a unit at Millmerran offline
… so in total 6 units of 22 units are offline.
4) Of the hydro units:
(a) The NQ hydros are running strongly
(b) But Wivenhoe shut down … and I’d have questions about how this is going to manage to operate under Administered Pricing!?
5) There are a number of gas & liquid units not running, including …
(a) Swanbank E is on long-term forced outage
(b) Braemar only has 3 units of 6 running across A and B stations (some ramped down at B station in the past hour)
(c) Barcaldine has stopped running
(d) Neither Mt Stuart or Yabulu are running
(e) Oakey is not running
(f) Roma is not running.
(g) Thankfully Darling Downs CCGT is running hard.
6) Also the Wandoan BESS stopped running at 20:35.
‘Fun’ times ahead…
A price cap, in any market, tends to be the last step before outright physical shortage emerges.
That basic pattern has been at the heart of physical shortfalls overseas in various countries. Generation shutting down for purely financial reasons with the end result being physical shortfalls.
Same applies to gas since the recent price capping simply thwarts a shift to diesel, thus holding gas consumption higher and depleting storage more rapidly.
We are in interesting times indeed.