AEMC Rule Change (Feb 2020) agrees with much of what ERM proposed – for ‘Improving transparency and extending duration of MT PASA’

ERM Rule Change Request (ERC270)
incl Publication of individual DUID data

ERM Rule Change Request (ERC271)
12 Month Extension of Duration

AEMC Final Determination

On 29th March 2019, ERM Power submitted a rule change request to the AEMC for ‘Transparency and Accuracy Amendments’.

From our perspective, one of the key changes proposed in this request was a simple change to clause 3.7.2 (f) (5):

(5) aggregate and individual scheduled generating unit PASA availability for each region;

Also on 29th March 2019, ERM Power submitted a related rule change request to the AEMC for ‘12 Month Extension of Duration’.

ERM noted:

‘Whilst originally satisfactory at a time where the super majority of generation was dispatchable with collectively a high level of firm output and high margins of reserve capacity, the current 24 month (2 year) duration is, in ERM Power’s view, no longer of sufficient duration due to the observed changes in market conditions. ‘

On 20th February 2020 (i.e. the date we chose for this article), the AEMC published its Rule Determination – about Improving Transparency and Extending Duration of MT PASA.

From our perspective, the key outcomes from this rule change was that, from 20th August 2020, the AEMO was:

(a)  To start publishing individual DUID ‘PASA Availability’ for each Scheduled generating facility (though notably not Semi-Scheduled facilities!); and

(b)  To extend the MT PASA time horizon from two years to three years into the future.

Date

Article before Rule Change

15th August 2019

We discussed the ERM Rule Change in the context of our (recently released) GRC2018 in the article ‘Transitional challenges require greatly enhanced analytical capability (exemplified in MT PASA Rule Change proposals, for instance’.

18th November 2019

The ERM rule change was referenced again in discussing ‘Probability, Consequence (and Risk) as it relates to summer 2019-20 in the NEM’ with respect to the ESOO 2019.

13th January 2020

Date

Article after Rule Change

3rd January 2021

Whilst working on an early beta of ez2view v8, we used the new ‘MT PASA DUID Availability’ widget (using this new data set) in publishing this ‘Status update, on availability of the 48x remaining coal units across Q1 2021’.

21st June 2021

Given the broader dramas that occurred through Q2 2021 that led to considerable price volatility, it was natural to use the same widget in ez2view, utilising the data being published by AEMO to ‘… compare unit availability with expectations prior to Q2 2021’.

21st June 2021

Also on the same day, we posted about ‘Villain #8 – the Invisible Man’ – highlighting the AEMC’s rule change as one case in which the market reform process was (partially*) successful in combating some aspect of lack of transparency in the NEM

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*  Unfortunately, the ‘partial’ note was made (as noted in other articles previously as well) because the rule change did not incorporate extending this visibility to Semi-Scheduled plant.

10th July 2021

The ERM Rule Change (and the lack of visibility of availability for Semi-Scheduled plant) was also referenced in relation to this ‘AEMO rule change proposal – replacement of ST PASA process, and data set’.

September 2021

Future.

No doubt others will be added over time.