Given that it produced some pretty (significant and) strange outcomes in the NEM on the day (as noted in this initial article at the time) we’ll be reviewing this with keen interest… thanks to the WattClarity readers who alerted us about this!
… and, mainly for our own future reference as we find navigation on the AEMO website could be improved, this report is listed under ‘Scheduling Error Reports’ here.
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients.
Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.
Generators used to consider the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) FCAS causers pays factors (CPF), used to allocate FCAS regulation costs across the market, as an obscure and unimportant technically challenging curiosity. Since 2014, the cost of FCAS regulation services for generators has increased from just under $5 million per year to greater than $60 million for 2016 and now has the attention of all of the generators, especially if their portfolio includes generation assets in regions with a lack of FCAS regulation providers and high prices such as South Australia.
I’d rather not add to the number of conspiracy theories in circulation, but I wonder if there’s a conspiracy to make understanding our electricity system in general, and its reliability in particular, as difficult as humanly possible. There’s no doubt…
Quite a synergistic coincidence today that, at the same time as we are finalizing the release of the GSD2020, we see the AEMO publishes its Quarterly Energy Dynamics for Q4 2020.
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