A short article this morning to record a bout of volatility* in the South Australian region that began at 06:05 and ended with last spike at 08:25 on Wednesday 30th August 2023.
* in this case defining ‘volatility’ as spot prices above $1,000/MWh.
Here’s a snapshot of the initial run of prices captured in SMS alerts triggered by NEMwatch (a function also available in our deSide® and ez2view software):
The highest price in the >2 hour run was (as highlighted) to $12,600.44/MWh for the 06:45 dispatch interval. Here’s the earlier 06:35 price captured in a snapshot from NEMwatch at the time:
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.
Following from the release of the 2025 ESOO last Thursday, the subsequent weekly MT PASA run warns of *forecast* LRC (and unserved energy) in South Australia.
Our Managing Director was asked to speak at the “Queensland Energy” conference in Brisbane on Wednesday 12th March – specifically addressing the topic of price volatility in the NEM.
To provide the basis of discussion during the conference, we focused our analysis solely on Queensland region (to make the topic more manageable).
In our review of volatility in the Queensland region, we focused specifically on 3 core attributes of the market: Queensland dispatch prices; NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin; and the concept of “Economic Islands”.
1 Commenton "2+ hour bout of spot price volatility in SA on Wednesday morning 30th August 2023"
Interconnectors seem very constrained. Continuing planned outages on SA transmission lines?