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.
On Friday evening (28th May) and again this evening (Sun 30th May) my phone buzzed plenty of times – due to price volatility, and also alerting on low IRPM (enabled with Callide units offline, and low wind harvest at peak demand time).
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!
A short examination of some of the over-arching factors at play yesterday evening – where prices spiked above $3,000/MWh in all five regions simultaneously.
I watched wind generator output in Southern Aust in May and June and it was pathetic. Oh that’s right we did not have our laughable 100MW energiser battery. Thermal powerstations did all the heavy lifting and ensured reliable supply something which wind and solar will never achieve. I am all for renewable energy but let’s stop pouring taxpayer money into this sector. We are told the technology has improved out of sight so let the proponents put their money where their mouth is without sucking the taxpayer dry. The debate is really ramping up and so it should. The public have been conned long enough and had a gutfull of the climate change religion. Unfortunately many people and the Government have woken up too late.
The trick is how to capture and harness this highly variable energy source through effective storage technology, and that’s what our best people are working on
Wind may be predictable day to day but remains just as unpredictable as ever over the longer term.
I watched wind generator output in Southern Aust in May and June and it was pathetic. Oh that’s right we did not have our laughable 100MW energiser battery. Thermal powerstations did all the heavy lifting and ensured reliable supply something which wind and solar will never achieve. I am all for renewable energy but let’s stop pouring taxpayer money into this sector. We are told the technology has improved out of sight so let the proponents put their money where their mouth is without sucking the taxpayer dry. The debate is really ramping up and so it should. The public have been conned long enough and had a gutfull of the climate change religion. Unfortunately many people and the Government have woken up too late.
The trick is how to capture and harness this highly variable energy source through effective storage technology, and that’s what our best people are working on