‘Underlying Demand’ above 38,000MW … on Monday 16th December 2024

In this article prior to 09:00 (NEM time) this morning we noted that the forecast for ‘Market Demand’ this evening still looked likely to be above 30,000MW this evening around sunset.  That article followed Friday’s note that ‘NEM-wide demand on Monday 16th December forecast to be highest in almost 4 years’.

Friday’s article included a long-term trend (spanning almost 17 years) of various measures of NEM-wide demand to show how rarely the ‘Market Demand’ has exceeded that level:

Most (but perhaps not all) of our readers will understand that:

1)  Back in 2008, when the trend chart begins, the amount of contribution from rooftop PV production was negligible across the NEM

… what this meant was that the level of ‘Market Demand’ at that time equated pretty closely to the level of ‘Underlying Demand’ back in 2008 (albeit that ‘Underlying Demand’ was not even a term that was in use way back then).

2)  Whereas dial forward to 2024 and the solar rooftop juggernaut has grown* massively:

(a)  to the point where ‘strong daylight hour’ periods see a large variation between the two terms.

(b)  re ‘grown * massively’ … with all the upsides and downsides that are part and parcel of this energy source.

 

Given that we’re now somewhat past midday, it might be useful for readers to reflect on the following snapshot from NEMwatch at the 14:00 dispatch interval (NEM time):

It’s clear to see that (notwithstanding a degree of invisibility in some numbers) the level of underlying demand has been above 38,000MW for some hours in the middle of the day today.  We can compare that to the high points for ‘Market Demand’ recorded here (including the ‘highest ever’ back on 29th January 2009) to see that ‘Underlying Demand’ has grown markedly over 17 years.