It’s a day before Thursday 12th May (the day with the on-again-off-again forecasted LOR3 warnings from AEMO which continue to cycle) but it’s clearly tight on the supply-demand basis in South Australia, as seen in this snapshot for the 07:50 dispatch interval this morning with the spot price in SA up at the $15,100/MWh Market Price Cap:
With all the volatility that’s beset the NEM in recent times, cue the EUAA National Conference, which starts this morning…
One of three founders of Global-Roam back in 2000, Paul has been CEO of the company since that time.
As an author on WattClarity, Paul's focus has been to help make the electricity market more understandable.
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, drills into considerable depth to understand, and clearly explain, some of what happened during a volatile period in the VIC and SA regions on Friday 1st March 2019
With a severe weather warning issued for much of Australia (with Sydney and Brisbane almost being the only exceptions) and lasting several days, it’s timely to look at what AEMO is forecasting demand to be in the week ahead.
6 Commentson "Morning volatility in South Australia on Wednesday 11th May 2022"
Many of the SA peakers have been running this morning peak but Barker Inlet has been offline and Torrens Island limited to 80MW instead of up to 400MW in recent days. Pelican is still offline. Currently SA/VIC interconnectors are very severely constrained.
Hi Paul, it would be great to have a look at the generation profiles and bids that have resulted in the prices.
We’ve had a few occasions in the last week where there has been over 150MW liquid fuel at these times. Would not be surprised if the generators who routinely bid at $-999MW/h have probably been impacted by calm & cloudy days and those who can turn on are wanting to make some cash to make up for the all too frequent periods or even whole days of negative regional prices.
Yes calm and cloudy in Adelaide Friday and diesel generating 127MW and I noticed it as high as 157MW around 2:15 in the arvo yesterday Thursday. Is diesel cheaper than gas or just available?
Here’s a puzzle. Friday night tonight and around 3:50pm total SA output is 1704MW with 564 gas 478 wind and the rest solar when diesel kicks in as high as 173MW as solar shrinks to zero around 5pm and both battery storage comes on from SA and Vic in that time. SA diesel continues down as low as 115MW until it drops out around 8pm and by then wind has picked up. At one stage gas reaches 910 with wind the rest for 1717 total and wind is picking up while all batteries have dropped off.
By 9 pm SA price is around $300 Vic $320 and NSW $340 and Vic is feeding NSW suffering a max shortfall around 1000MW maxm and Vic is in turn being fed by SA and Tas. By this stage SA wind is 1436 and gas 338 in SA and at one stage all States batteries are supplying. The main surprise for me was to see SA diesel running for around 4 hours and clearly competitive with gas for the period.
Whereas earlier in the week when most of the diesel generators were in action, on Friday the diesel output was only from Snapper, which was at 120MW. This is the highest I have seen it in the commissioning process. Pelican Point ramped up from outage during the afternoon reaching 450MW before going offline at 9pm. Barker Inlet returned from outage this afternoon.
11:35 am Monday morning and the prices per MW in round figures are showing Qld-$525 NSW-$130 Vic-$120 Tas $112 while SA is NEGATIVE $95 yet SA power consumers pay the highest power prices. Clearly power retailers factor in lack of predictability in their business models and something for easterners to look forward to as they follow SA’s lead with solar and wind penetration.
How AEMO people deal with that lot beats me but it doesn’t seem like an optimal career choice if you like the quiet life.
Many of the SA peakers have been running this morning peak but Barker Inlet has been offline and Torrens Island limited to 80MW instead of up to 400MW in recent days. Pelican is still offline. Currently SA/VIC interconnectors are very severely constrained.
Hi Paul, it would be great to have a look at the generation profiles and bids that have resulted in the prices.
We’ve had a few occasions in the last week where there has been over 150MW liquid fuel at these times. Would not be surprised if the generators who routinely bid at $-999MW/h have probably been impacted by calm & cloudy days and those who can turn on are wanting to make some cash to make up for the all too frequent periods or even whole days of negative regional prices.
Yes calm and cloudy in Adelaide Friday and diesel generating 127MW and I noticed it as high as 157MW around 2:15 in the arvo yesterday Thursday. Is diesel cheaper than gas or just available?
Here’s a puzzle. Friday night tonight and around 3:50pm total SA output is 1704MW with 564 gas 478 wind and the rest solar when diesel kicks in as high as 173MW as solar shrinks to zero around 5pm and both battery storage comes on from SA and Vic in that time. SA diesel continues down as low as 115MW until it drops out around 8pm and by then wind has picked up. At one stage gas reaches 910 with wind the rest for 1717 total and wind is picking up while all batteries have dropped off.
By 9 pm SA price is around $300 Vic $320 and NSW $340 and Vic is feeding NSW suffering a max shortfall around 1000MW maxm and Vic is in turn being fed by SA and Tas. By this stage SA wind is 1436 and gas 338 in SA and at one stage all States batteries are supplying. The main surprise for me was to see SA diesel running for around 4 hours and clearly competitive with gas for the period.
Whereas earlier in the week when most of the diesel generators were in action, on Friday the diesel output was only from Snapper, which was at 120MW. This is the highest I have seen it in the commissioning process. Pelican Point ramped up from outage during the afternoon reaching 450MW before going offline at 9pm. Barker Inlet returned from outage this afternoon.
11:35 am Monday morning and the prices per MW in round figures are showing Qld-$525 NSW-$130 Vic-$120 Tas $112 while SA is NEGATIVE $95 yet SA power consumers pay the highest power prices. Clearly power retailers factor in lack of predictability in their business models and something for easterners to look forward to as they follow SA’s lead with solar and wind penetration.
How AEMO people deal with that lot beats me but it doesn’t seem like an optimal career choice if you like the quiet life.