First Bidirectional Units on 4th July 2024

Today, 4 July 2024, we see the first bidirectional units (BDUs) effective in Production in the Australian NEM (National Electricity Market).

This new category of unit was created to improve integration of energy storage systems into the NEM.

Changes to dispatch systems went live on 3 June, and a gradual transition of existing battery energy storage systems to the new category is now expected.

Currently, batteries are registered and operated under two individual dispatchable unit identifiers (DUIDs) – consumption and production separately.

The new category streamlines operation of the battery and supports it going from consuming to producing in a single dispatch interval.

The new units starting today are:

• AGL’s existing Broken Hill Battery in NSW (new DUID BHB1) and
• AGL’s existing Wandoan Battery in QLD (new DUID WANDB1).

We observed, today, initial power of 0MW, understanding that the cutover from the current
2-DUID systems to the single bidirectional DUID will occur in the coming days.

New bidirectional unit WANDB1 in the latest version of ez2view

The period spanning cutover is expected to typically entail:

• A period of 0MW availability for the bidirectional unit (12 days prior to cutover):
  1. Where the 2-DUID system operates as normal,
  2. And the BDU submits zero-availability bids pre-cutover interval, and non-zero availabilities for intervals post-cutover interval.
• Cutover – a specific dispatch interval.
• Post-cutover:
  1. Where the 2-DUID system offers zero-availability,
  2. And the BDU submits non-zero-availability bids to operate in an ongoing manner.
  3. The post cutover period lasts 7 days before the 2-DUID system is effectively retired from bidding.