This morning the AEMO released his 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunity a few days prior to the 31st August deadline – you can access it at the linked image below:
Understandably, given the content, there was significant media coverage of some of the core messages included in this planning document:
…. and there will no doubt be many more articles written in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
The headline of this is story is that it’s one more reminder that the NEM is facing heightened risk, for a collection of different reasons.
We’re grateful that guest author Allan O’Neil has agreed to invest some time to take a measured walk through what the the document says – particularly noting the different issues flagged for summer 2019-20 (hence AEMO’s keen interest in Reserve Trader) and also summer 2023-24 (probably a year later than it might have been, given the delay in closure of Liddell).
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.
My participation in yesterday’s session about ‘Energy Technology – performing under (heat) stress’, organised by the Australian Institute of Energy, was an opportunity to reflect on what I saw as the Four Headline Events that gave example to a great many challenges we will have to grapple with as this energy (and climate) transition gathers pace.
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.
Recent invitations (from COAG Energy Council and AEMO) prompt some further analysis of the data set assembled for the GSD2019 in order to understand more about one of the challenges in balancing Supply and Demand in the NEM 2.0 world.
2 Commentson "AEMO releases its 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities – more tinder for the “energy wars” fire…"
Lots of focus on “unreliability” of fossil fuel plants while ignoring cause which is the market distortion due to government subsidies for renewables.
AEMO’s plan is to spend tens of billions reconfiguring our energy network so it can do what it did fine before renwewables were introduced. And we all know that just means the cost will flow onto consumers, driving our electricity prices even higher.
Ms Zibelman’s AFR contribution states that transmission is needed to replace generation.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Yes lots of wind power across SA sends power back to VIC. But the power comes from Traralgon when the wind drops.
It is disconcerting that the AEMO CEO did not mention intermittency once in her article. She gives more weight given to factors that will increase costs than factors that will reduce costs.
“Pay more accurately for firming capability” – well you don’t need to pay for it when it’s inherent in the technology.
The move to inverter supplies asynchronous intermittent generation might provide cheap power when the weather is favourable, but it’s also forcing the firming capabilities into separate pieces of equipment – fault level, inertia, voltage and part-time bulk power delivery.
So now we need all that plus bulk power capacity available all the time, plus lots of transmission, plus batteries plus hydro.
Lots of focus on “unreliability” of fossil fuel plants while ignoring cause which is the market distortion due to government subsidies for renewables.
AEMO’s plan is to spend tens of billions reconfiguring our energy network so it can do what it did fine before renwewables were introduced. And we all know that just means the cost will flow onto consumers, driving our electricity prices even higher.
Ms Zibelman’s AFR contribution states that transmission is needed to replace generation.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Yes lots of wind power across SA sends power back to VIC. But the power comes from Traralgon when the wind drops.
It is disconcerting that the AEMO CEO did not mention intermittency once in her article. She gives more weight given to factors that will increase costs than factors that will reduce costs.
“Pay more accurately for firming capability” – well you don’t need to pay for it when it’s inherent in the technology.
The move to inverter supplies asynchronous intermittent generation might provide cheap power when the weather is favourable, but it’s also forcing the firming capabilities into separate pieces of equipment – fault level, inertia, voltage and part-time bulk power delivery.
So now we need all that plus bulk power capacity available all the time, plus lots of transmission, plus batteries plus hydro.