A brief run of high energy prices in SA on 4th June 2024 was observed in the evening.
Energy prices as projected in the predispatch runs from earlier in the day had threatened to reach above $15000 but as time progressed we only saw three dispatch intervals above 1000 $/MWh.
Intervals 18:20 to 18:30 saw prices hit 3,936,60 $/MWh.
The screenshot from ez2view’s Trading Prices Table captures the event.
Source: ez2view
The devil will be in the detail (which we may well find in the next-day bids and delving further into the data), but two factors initially appearing as contributing were:
- A constrained interconnector. At the time, and since the morning, but only until 18:30, we’d seen the V_VS_LB_HY_50 constraint invoked. This was limiting exports from VIC into SA along the Heywood interconnector to at or below 50 MW, leaving Murraylink to import what it could (up to 140 MW at 18:30).
- Light wind conditions. In the 18:30 interval wind generation in SA was 13 MW (out of a max capacity of 2,732 MW).
In the 18:30 interval wind generation in SA was 13 MW (out of a max capacity of 2,732 MW)
So a capacity factor of just 0.4%.
This is why LCOE should include interconnectors as well because all the batteries in the NEM wouldn’t have been enough to keep the lights on in SA if they didn’t have fossil fuel generation.
Actually it’s more an illustration of why LCOE analysis of any kind is a complete waste of time if you’re trying to understand whole-of-system economics. Semi-arbitrarily adding various system-level costs – real or imaginary – into technology-specific cost measures is a fool’s errand.
CSIRO’s GenCost reports have done the industry a disservice by pretending that this approach is meaningful or even feasible. Don’t take this comment to mean that CSIRO’s data on underlying cost parameters is necessarily wrong, just that they have gone down an unhelpful path in then trying to shoehorn other costs into LCOE calculations, in response to the clamour from people who don’t understand how to do a system-level analysis.
daily 500kV outages out West Vic for the next two weeks.