NSW renewable energy plan seals death warrant for six gigawatts of coal
David Leitch and Ben Willacy of ITK Services provide analysis of the NSW Government's recently announced renewable energy plan.
Areas of deeper analysis
What’s “Primary Frequency Response” and why does it matter anyway?
Paul McArdle recently drew my attention to a short Twitter thread started by David Osmond on the arcane topic of NEM system frequency behaviour: At Paul’s invitation I’ve dived further into this issue...
Does the NEM need to be redesigned?
Guest author Stephen Wilson chaired an 'ESIG Down Under' conference webinar on 'Designing the Energy Markets of the Future'. Whilst introducing the session, Stephen presented a diagram that helped to clarify the combination of...
Some are waking up to the shortcomings of current methods of support for ‘Anytime/Anywhere Energy’
A couple glimmers of hope spotted recently, that there might be some (belated) awareness that the current methods of support for 'anytime/anywhere energy' are not scalable, or sustainable.
Which state pays for interconnectors?
Ben Skinner from the Australian Energy Council examines how transmission is currently funded in the NEM.
‘Maximising profitability in the NEM’ for Wind Farms
Short note to follow presentation by Marcelle Gannon and Jonathon Dyson on Thursday 17th Sept 2020 to an audience organised by Clean Energy Council (CEC).
Seasonality and deep storage in a highly decarbonized NEM
David Leitch of ITK Services examines the seasonal effects of Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) and some underlying challenges in this energy transition [this article is based on presentation at 'Smart Energy Virtual' on Wed...
Diving deeper (part 2), about low demands on Saturday 29th August 2020
Prompted, in part, by yesterday's record low for Victorian demand, today I have finished off my earlier review of what happened on Saturday 29th August (8 days earlier) when demand levels also dropped in...
Revenues for Wind Farms (and Solar Farms) in the NEM take a hit
A question over the weekend prompts this article, which follows from discussions to a Vestas-organised audience about revenue patterns and trends for Wind Farms in the NEM.
Extrapolating from the trend of ‘Aggregated Raw Off-Target’ results, to yield some clues to what the future might hold … and one challenge for NEM 2.0
Following on from Friday's article (which considered the AER Issues Paper) this article delves into more detail of those extremes of 'Aggregate Raw Off-Target' across all Semi-Scheduled units that have been recorded over the...
Semi-scheduled generation–what are the real issues?
Marcelle digs into the data to find out what the real issues are in the AER's proposed rule change for semi-scheduled generators.
It’s good news that time-weighted average prices for Q2 2020 are down on prior years – right?
Spurred by a number of concurrent requests I've returned to the pattern of prior analysis of Q2 prices (completed in 2016, 2017 and 2018) to look at what's changed for Q2 2020 that's just...
Why Have Home Battery Forecasts Been Staggeringly Wrong For Years?
Ronald Brakels looks at the state of the home battery market and reflects on how past predictions of its evolution look in hindsight.
Looking gloomy at Oakey 2 Solar Farm again?
Yesterday I received a call from the people at PV Magazine who were preparing for the ‘Virtual Roundtables Europe 2020’ event on this week in Germany – i.e. Tuesday evening (now!) and Wednesday evening...
Feedback we have received about the 2019 edition of our Generator Statistical Digest
Just over 4 months have passed since the release of the Generator Statistical Digest 2019. We take a look back at some of the compliments and comments we've received and seen from a variety...
Reasonably widespread deviations delivers highest ‘aggregate Raw Off-Target’ for the 2019 year for ‘all Wind’
This is the 3rd of 4 Case Studies to follow on from the main article (summarising results across 105,120 dispatch intervals through 2019 for ‘all Coal’ and ‘all Wind’ groupings). In this case, let’s...
Stanwell unit operation on 12th October 2019 delivers most negative ‘aggregate Raw Off-Target’ for the 2019 year for ‘all Coal’
This is the 2nd of 4 Case Studies to follow on from Tuesday’s main article (summarising results across 105,120 dispatch intervals through 2019 for ‘all Coal’ and ‘all Wind’ groupings). In this case, let's...
Kogan Creek trip on 9th October 2019 delivers highest ‘aggregate Raw Off-Target’ for the 2019 year for ‘all Coal’
Following on from Tuesday's main article (summarising results across 105,120 dispatch intervals through 2019 for 'all Coal' and 'all Wind' groupings), this is the first of 4 x Case Studies that look at each...
Observing Easter Saturday, a little belatedly
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, invests some time to explore a number of different aspects of Easter Saturday (11th April 2020), each noteworthy in their own right (including low demand, high percentage share renewables, negative...
Do you know the difference between Virtual Inertia and Fast Frequency Response?
Our guest author Stephen Sproul looks at how the Dalrymple Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), currently the only source of virtual inertia on the NEM, responded to the November 2019 SA islanding event.