AEMO rule change proposal – replacement of ST PASA process, and data set

With the energy transition rolling onwards, the pace of regulatory change shows no sign of slowing down (and indeed might be accelerating).

As one of a number of mooted changes, on Monday last week (28th June 2021) the AEMO submitted this rule change proposal to the AEMC for ‘Redeveloping short term PASA (ST PASA) to more efficiently manage aspects of the National Electricity Market (NEM) transition’:

This has been added to the AEMC site here (rule change request ERC0332).

(A)  The proposed boost to market transparency jumps out

Please note that I have not read past the cover letter, and a quick skim of the 24 pages below, but what did jump out was the proposed boost in market transparency that notes:

“The proposed rule places a new requirement on AEMO to publish individual unit available capacity and PASA availability to improve the transparency of information available to network service providers and market participants to make operational and market decisions about the capacity they can provide at certain times”.

It should come as no surprise to readers here at WattClarity®  (including many readers across the AEMO and AEMC) that this sounds like a very good thing to me, on first reading – given what I have written before about Villain #8 being ‘The Invisible Man’.

I would just ask that, in considering this rule change, there is no repeat of (what seems to me to be) a very short-sighted decision made in response to the ERM-sponsored rule changes in MT PASA to only extend the new transparency arrangement to Scheduled plant… almost as if:

1)  Semi-Scheduled Wind and Solar never have physical maintenance; and

2)  They are not growing, as a category, to provide a more and more substantial share of the overall energy mix; and hence

3)  Their planned maintenance activities will never run the risk of impacting on security of supply, on transmission outage planning, on wholesale hedging, or other activities.

Doesn’t make sense to me?!

(B)  We’ll keep an eye on this one!

This would be one rule change process (once commenced by the AEMC) that we’d keep tabs on, as best as we have time to manage, given the way in which it would impact on various groups of our clients (one group being wholesale generators, and another group being large energy users who provide Demand Response via this method, plus there are others…).