Guest author, Ben Willacy, takes a first look at the Generator Statistical Digest 2019 and highlights a few initial observations relating to the performance of wind, solar and storage in this energy transition.
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, takes a look, via the GSD2019 (released today), at the four different headwinds facing solar farm developers and operators operating in the NEM.
Today I managed to get about half-way (only!) through some analysis I wanted to do to ‘scratch that itch’ about what happened in the NSW Region on Thursday 23rd January – with LOR2 conditions necessitating RERT (Reserve Trader) in the NSW Region.
A first look back at yesterday (Friday 20th December 2019) in the Victorian region – where we saw extreme temperatures, high demand across VIC and SA and (perhaps because of high temperatures) a large discrepancy open up between forecast Wind Availability and actual. This would have contributed to the surprise LOR2 announcement and commencement of RERT negotiations.
Took 2-3 times longer than planned (as there were a few different interesting observations that came out) but here is our initial – and perhaps only! – review of what happened in South Australia on Thursday 19th December 2019 (i.e. yesterday).
42 months after I posted some initial thoughts about “the opacity of rooftop PV” it seems that – when viewed in certain ways, discussed here – the problem is actually getting worse, not better.
Four weeks ago, we observed a significant discrepancy between AEMO’s forecast for (what would have been) a record low point for Scheduled Demand in South Australia and what actually eventuated. We’ve now had time to explore further…
There are a number of reasons why we’re completing the analysis we are sharing via WattClarity – here are two big ones.
Readers at WattClarity might recall that we have asked the question above a couple of times in recent weeks – and a big thanks to those who responded already! We’re blessed with opportunities at present (have been for a while,…
Our second Case Study in a recent series, aimed to help us explore ways to continue the pushing the development of ez2view forward, but also shared with readers here on WattClarity. This time about Daydream Solar Farm on Tuesday 3rd September 2019.
Some operations at Stanwell Power Station unit 1 in the past couple weeks caught our attention, and are presented as a useful illustration of some concepts related to flexibility of power generators (in this case, coal-fired power).
Last minute complications mean that I cannot speak at today’s “Queensland Smart Energy Summit” (with Jonathon Dyson being an even better substitute). Here are some of the observations I would have liked to discuss with the audience there…
Guest author Allan O’Neil provides this handy explainer on how generators’ contract positions affect their bidding decisions and can make negative spot prices pay off, at least in the short term. Very useful for those readers not actively involved in wholesale trading in helping to understand why some conspiracy theories might not match reality.
Rapidly growing solar PV output has been widely tagged as the cause of low and even negative prices in Queensland. But in any market it’s the behaviour of ALL participants that determines price outcomes. Guest author Allan O’Neil takes a closer look at recent NEM bidding.
Two pages taken from our Generator Report Card following several different requests from people who attended different events recently where the Report Card was discussed.
A few additional thoughts about proposed changes to the MT PASA process, informed by our conclusions in Theme 14 within Part 2 of our Generator Report Card.
We’ve been invited by the Australian Institute of Energy (AIE) to speak this evening in Sydney about some of the lessons learnt in the process of completing our Generator Report Card. Here’s some context for those who are going to attend (in terms of answers to the 5 frequency asked questions) – and it might help others who are unable to attend, as well.
Some brief data gathering and analysis, primarily because I could not resist the exploration, of what might have happened with the load shedding in the electricity grid across England, Wales and Scotland on Friday last week.
Last week’s notable under-frequency load shedding in Great Britain following what appears to be the loss of two generation units in quick succession prompts me to publish some of the analysis of aggregate levels of inertia supplied by synchronous generators in South Australia as part of the Generator Report Card.
A full page article in the FinReview today quotes a number of people (including our work in the Generator Report Card) speaking about heightened risk in the NEM. Coincident with this, we see another instance of negative prices in South Australia (which has become increasingly common) but also something I can’t remember seeing before – an average negative price across the entire day so far!