‘Operating in the NEM’ … from All Energy 2024

As already noted here, this week could be termed ‘conference week’ with respect to the Australian Energy Transition, with both occurring in the same week:

1)  On Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd October we had the AFR’s Energy & Climate Summit 2024 in Sydney; followed on by

2)  Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd Oct was All Energy 2024 in Melbourne.

Whilst we did not attend the AFR event in Sydney (albeit watching from afar, to the extent we could), some of our team did make a week of it in Melbourne:

1)  including our own client get-together on the Tuesday evening 22nd October for associated companies:

(a)  some of our team (at Global-Roam Pty Ltd), in conjunction with

(b)  Greenview Strategic Consulting, and

(c)  Overwatch Energy Pty Ltd (in which we invested 5.5 years ago)

(d)  and ETSI (in which we invested at the start of 2024).

2)  and participation in an enjoyable trivia night event organised by Alex and Declan of ‘Currently Speaking’ fame (amongst other things).

Specifically with respect to All Energy, I can categorically state that the ‘Operating in the NEM’ session that was conducted on Thursday 24th October 2024 was easily the best* session I attended throughout the event.

… * honestly speaking, it was also the only full session I managed to get into through the event – making sure on this occasion not to find myself waylaid by the short catch-up conversations that frequently delayed plans to enter other sessions (repeatedly/belatedly finding myself shut outside and with the session full after those conversations ended!)

That detail aside, it was a worthwhile session that featured the following 4 speakers, and was well chaired by Dr Alison Demaria from our clients, CS Energy:

Whilst I understand that collusion did not happen ahead of time, it was almost like the 4 speakers had prior agreement to drill in deeper into the topic of operating in the NEM (and particularly with respect to battery units, which seem very flavour-of-this-year):

First we had Pan Galanis from our clients, Akaysha Energy who started with an overview of ‘NEM volatility: A Curse or a blessing for battery storage?’:

With that overview, Alex Leemon from GridCog followed (thanks for the coffee mug from the Trivia Night!) and reeled off loads of stats about ‘Big battery revenues in the NEM’ … the type of presentation that would feel right at home here on WattClarity:

Next up was James Tetlow from Overwatch Energy Pty Ltd who (despite the lack of Star Wars puns this year) helped the audience understand how ‘BESS market operations are different to wind and solar: what you need to know’:

Rounding out the presentations, and leading into an engaging Q&A session was Philippe Orhan from our clients Neoen.  Philippe spoke about ‘Data Intensity of operating in the NEM, and implications for algorithmic bidding’:

Philippe even managed to sneak in a few snapshots from our ez2view software (like the ‘NEM Map’ widget above) to illustrate some of the underlying complexities of the dispatch process.

All four presentations (and the Q&A) were of good value … we hope that some of the speakers will consent to sharing their presentations in the near future with our readers here on WattClarity.