Very tight supply-demand (NEM wide!) on Thursday 2nd June 2022

AEMO might have (earlier) cancelled the warnings for LOR2 low reserve condition for this evening:

1)  As noted in that article, had covered all of the 5 regions of the NEM at different times.

2)  I heard someone else describe this today as ‘dodging a bullet’ – and this was done, at least in part, by rescheduling two significant transmission outages that would have limited resource sharing between regions.

However looking at this snapshot from NEMwatch for the 17:45 dispatch interval highlights that it’s still very tight (NEM-wide!), from a supply-demand balance perspective:

With reference to the numbering on the NEMwatch snapshot:

1)  Prices in all regions are above $4,000/MWh at the 17:45 dispatch interval

2)  That’s slightly above the $3,000-$4,000/MWh range seen at 17:20

3)  ‘Market Demand’ is climbing into the evening, as expected:

(a)  The usual factors – lighting, heating, no rooftop PV

(b) with Market Demand 30,412MW at this time NEM-wide;

4)  In the fuel mix overall:

(a)  aggregate wind production is down below 1,000MW since this morning

(b)  coal units are available as noted in this morning’s article

(c)  which leaves  hydro, gas, liquid and the limited number of batteries to ramp to meet

5)  Meaning that the NEM-wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin having dropped to 10% at this point:

(a)  Market Demand at 30,412MW (noted above)

(b)  Available Generation at 33,570MW

(c)  Leaving 3,158MW spare, or a 10.4% IRPM.

Note that this dropped as low as 10.04% in the 17:50 dispatch interval (lowest at this point).

Hold onto your hats!