Is the bottom going to fall out of ‘Market Demand’ on a NEM-wide basis tomorrow (Sat 26th Oct 2024)

This evening …

1)  we’ve already wondered ‘Is the bottom going to fall out of the NSW ‘Market Demand’ tomorrow (Saturday 26th October 2024)?’.

2)  And also provided this longer term trend for NSW demand for context.

We wondered what that might mean for NEM-wide demand – so we flipped the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widgets to look at NEM-wide ‘Market Demand’ and our jaws hit the floor:

For context, remember that:

1)  It was 5 days ago that we saw ‘NEM-wide ‘Market Demand’, falls below 10,000MW for the first time ever* – on Sunday 20th October 2024’ (down at 9,975MW); and

2)  That level was 525MW lower than the prior ‘lowest ever*’ point back on 1st October 2023 (10,500MW target for 11:35 dispatch interval).

3)  So if the most recent forecast shown above (8,795MW at 13:00 … notwithstanding Tripwire #1 and Tripwire #2) then this would be:

(a)  1,705MW (or 16%) below the lowest ever* point at Sunday 1st October 2023; and also

(b)  1,180MW (or 12%) below the lowest ever* point from Sunday 20th October 2024.

Wow!

Questions abound … including :

Q1)  what the level of inertia might be across the grid, and particular regions.

Q2)  what’s the level at which AEMO might be concerned about ‘Minimum System Load’ in locations more than just Victoria (noted here on Tue 22nd Oct 2024)?