Queensland is back for round 2 – Wednesday 9th March 2022

Yesterday (Tue 8th March) we saw Queensland set a new all-time-maximum record for electricity demand, experience a run of extreme pricing almost 3 hours long, and just scrape through after dark with 210MW spare capacity.

… so like the thrill seekers in the theme parks, why wouldn’t we dust ourselves off to try again this afternoon?

(A)  Forecast LOR Lack of Reserve for Wed 9th March

At 23:32 last night AEMO issued Market Notice 95185 speaking of possible LOR1 Low Reserve Condition this evening between 18:00 and 19:00 (minimum capacity reserve 798MW).   This was updated at 05:54 this morning with Market Notice 95200 speaking about a longer time period in LOR1 (i.e. 16:30 to 19:00) and a deeper trough (i.e. 592MW lowest reserve).

This was further updated at 09:38 with Market Notice 95202 as follows:

——————————————————————-
MARKET NOTICE
——————————————————————-

From :              AEMO
To   :              NEMITWEB1
Creation Date :     09/03/2022     09:38:56

——————————————————————-

Notice ID               :         95202
Notice Type ID          :         RESERVE NOTICE
Notice Type Description :         LRC/LOR1/LOR2/LOR3
Issue Date              :         09/03/2022
External Reference      :         Update – PDPASA – Forecast Lack Of Reserve Level 1 (LOR1) in the QLD Region on 09/03/2022

——————————————————————-

Reason :

AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE

AEMO declares a Forecast LOR1 condition under clause 4.8.4(b) of the National Electricity Rules for the QLD region for the following period:

[1.] From 1730 hrs 09/03/2022 to 1930 hrs 09/03/2022.
The forecast capacity reserve requirement is 868 MW.
The minimum capacity reserve available is 621 MW.

Manager NEM Real Time Operations

——————————————————————-
END OF REPORT
——————————————————————-

So this third notice has the LOR1 period being somewhat shorter than the second notice, but also shifted later.  The trough is also not quite so low (621MW).

(B)  The difficulty of forecasting the supply-demand balance!

The people in the AEMO Short Term Forecasting team are having a hell of a time trying to understand what the weather might do (e.g. afternoon storms may, or may not, arrive) and what that might do to electricity consumption levels … both in terms of cooling off air-conditioning load, but also suppressing rooftop PV in the south east as Linton has shown happened significantly on 1st and 2nd February 2022.

Here’s a snapshot from the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view (actually three of them, mashed together) showing the challenge:

With respect to the numbering:

1)  Forecast evening peak in ‘Market Demand’ is currently that it will be lower than yesterday … but remember that:

(a)  yesterday’s actual level of demand surprised on the upside; and

(b)  without digging up the details, my sense is that the forecasts for this evenings demand (around 9,550MW at the highest point) are about the same as what was forecast around the same time yesterday).

2)  Also note that the peak in demand is forecast to span over the decline in Available Generation capacity at the end of the day … at least in part because of the assumptions about the declining capability of Large Solar capacity as we fade into sunset this evening.

3)  No wonder prices are forecast to be high this evening as well!

Strap in for what might be a re-run of the roller coaster ride!