Bright and early this morning, we received an email announcing the release of an Options Paper relating to post 2025 market design for Australia’s National Electricity Market:
It seems that the term ‘NEM 2.0’ has fallen out of favour in more recent times – perhaps because of a more incremental approach to reform? I wonder about the extent to which what’s in the two documents that follow will provide us a market design that will be fit-for-purpose out to 2040 and beyond, given the many different challenges that the NEM is (already) increasingly grappling with.
The email linked to these 3 documents:
Media Release
Options Paper
Appendices
There are four ‘critical areas’ referenced:
1) Preparing for old coal retirement
2) Backing up power system security
3) Unlocking benefits for all energy consumers of recent changes (incl solar PV, batteries and smart appliances); and
4) Opening the grid to cheaper large-scale renewables.
It quotes Dr Kerry Schott:
”rather than a single big bang reform, the pathway developed accommodates different jurisdictional schemes and priorities, while reflecting the urgency of the situation”
Chapter 3) Essential system services, scheduling and ‘Ahead’ mechanisms… 14 pages
Chapter 4) The integration of distributed energy resources and demand side participation… 20 pages
Chapter 5) Transmission and access… 17 pages
… which, together, make up the bulk of the document.
Each of the 4 ‘critical areas’ have their own coverage in separate appendices.
Key dates (as I understand them) are as follows:
Q3 2021
Our intended release date for ‘GenInsights21‘ will be sometime in Q3 2021 (but, speaking realistically, not before the 31st July 2021 date below).
As we are pulling together this update to the GRC2018 we will be keeping in mind what our review of historical data about generation performance is revealing about these options for the future.
~31st July 2021
The email says:
“In around three months, the Energy Security Board (ESB) will be providing final recommendations for comprehensive reform of Australia’s energy markets to ministers on the Energy National Cabinet Reform Committee.”
… which would make it around 31st July 2021 when final recommendations would be made.
The options paper says this as:
“The ESB will continue to work with the Post-2025 project advisory groups, jurisdictions and other stakeholders to inform the detailed market design and evaluation of these options ahead of recommendations to Ministers in mid-2021.”
Note that this due date (a key one?) was not featured in the email received this morning, nor in the Media Release … I had to first see it in various comments on social media before finally seeing it at pages 12 and 97 of the options paper.
Tue 4th May 11:00-12:00
Fri 7th May 13:30-14:30
Two briefings by the ESB are being held next week as part of this project’s final stage.
Fri 30th April 2021
(TODAY)
ESB releases the options paper, and this article is published.
5th Jan 2021
The ESB published ‘post 2025 market design directions paper’.
Must not have published an article on WattClarity about it, but have found the Directions Paper here.
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.
Chris Bowen this morning announced a new four-person independent panel, who will be given roughly 12 months to review and provide reform recommendations on “wholesale market settings”.
A recent development over in the WEM (paying energy users to consume, when there’s too much solar and wind) highlights the lack of foresight in the NEM … where we’ve implemented a significant reform (yet to start) that will do nothing to address negative prices.
Fifteen months after first speaking at Clean Energy Summit about the train wreck that’s ongoing in terms of our mismanaged energy transition (and coincident with another industry gathering in the form of the AFR National Energy Summit), we note about Villain no5 as the next contributor to our transition running off the rails…
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