Morning volatility in QLD and NSW on Thursday 22nd July 2021

A short article this morning as a brief record of what happened, and as something we might refer back to later.

As we can see from this list of SMS alerts received to date (available in NEMwatch Platinum, ez2view and deSide), the volatility commenced in QLD – and then later NSW joined in:

Of these spikes, here are two snapshots from NEMwatch v10.2 highlighting one in QLD and one in NSW:

(A)  Price spike in QLD at 07:05

Here’s the second excursion for the QLD region up above $15,000/MWh … this time to the new Market Price Cap at 07:05:

As noted on the image, only 890MW spare capacity in the QLD ‘Economic Island’ … meaning an IRPM down around 12% only.  The tight supply/demand balance clearly contributing to the spike.

(B)  Price spike in NSW at 08:10

Here’s the second excursion for the NSW region up above $1000/MWh – up to $14,451.75/MWh:

We see (also in this instance) constraints on interconnectors have formed an ‘Economic Island’ (this time just for NSW) … meaning an IRPM of 13% (1,356MW of spare generation capacity).

Again, a tighter supply/demand balance delivering price volatility.