Queensland generators sailed though a new record level of market demand this afternoon. Looking back from 19:00, the tightest supply-demand period of the day appears to have passed.
Queensland market demand (“total demand” in MMS-speak) reached 11,036 MW at 16:50 and stayed there for the 16:55 interval before subsiding into the evening. At the time of the peak, energy prices were rather ‘normal’ $93.50/MWh.
It was only as the solar generation fleet began its ramp-down with the setting sun that prices, as anticipated, ramped up. Energy prices for 18:25 and 18:30 reached $9,799.63/MWh.
The following charts the demand, supply and prices at the regional-level:
- Captured at 18:55, we see that demand levels had peaked relatively early in the afternoon: ez2view’s forecast convergence.
- By 18:55 the price spike was also evident and a widening of the distance between availability and demand (light and dark gray) was becoming apparent.
- Prices had squeaked back under $500/MWh by 18:55.
Meanwhile we have evidence of Energex throttling home energy usage in South East Queensland and loss of power in Moreton Bay Council regions (load shedding?) as solar came off for the afternoon.
So it seems supply was not able to actually keep up with what the consumer was demanding.
Hi V, thanks for highlighting those aspects. The ‘throttling home energy usage’ would have likely been seen by those with home devices (e.g. AC units) participating in demand response programs e.g. ‘Peaksmart’. But I’m aware that there is some consternation from affected renters who don’t own said appliance and didn’t sign up to the program themselves.
There was no load shedding or out-of-market direction to reduce demand at the state-level by the market operator and all market generators appear to have remained online. It is likely the local outages you reference were in the distribution network. Definitely appears the distribution network struggled and in the absence of these outages demand could have been even higher.
So why the massive power disruptions from 22nd to 23rd in SE QLD? No explanation from Energex whose website updates are useless, only telling how many customers are without power and no advise as to how long estimated to fix.
Hi Baz,
It’s clear there were many distribution-level outages, many unplanned and likely driven by the weather and demand circumstances on the day. The supply side – by which I mean electricity generators that supply the electricity market – and the high-voltage transmission network appeared to fare quite well.