Expectations for high demand in NSW this (hot) evening – Monday 5th February 2024

A little while ago, Ben Domensino from Weatherzone posted this update on Twitter pertaining to the high temperatures (and dew points) being experienced in Sydney:

We’re looking at the same activity, but from a different lens … our interest is the forecast impact on the NSW region of the National Electricity Market.  To look at this, here’s a snapshot of a 4 x ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget window in ez2view at the 14:10 dispatch interval (NEM time):

Remembering that this widget allows the user to ‘look up a vertical’ to see ‘that other dimension of time’, with reference to the numbered annotations:

1)  On the right-hand side is a view of forecast LOR condition (back a week in the ST PASA run) … seeing (right at the top) the forecast LOR2 condition for this evening has recently moderated compared to that earlier mentioned here.

2)  On the left there are three different views of P30 predispatch data (i.e. ignoring the older ST PASA data) – with ‘Market Demand’ being in the center pane.  In this case the most recent forecast runs have grown a little cooler, with demand turning out a little below prior expectations

3)  In contrast underneath is Available Generation, which we see is growing a little more red during the evening period (i.e. successive forecasts being for lower Available Generation).

4)  The intersection of these two (somewhat opposing) trends would mean considerable uncertainty about price expectations for the same period this evening – but the AEMO’s most recent P30 predispatch forecasts are for prices to be lower than earlier thought.

Time will tell…