Adding one more to the ‘Xmas Reading List*’ was the AER in publishing its ‘Wholesale Electricity Market Performance Report 2024’ on Friday 20th December 2024.
* a season-specific variation of the ‘if I had more time here’s something I’d like to read in detail’ List.
Here’s the PDF report:
(A) More information from the AER
There’s more information on its sub-site here, including a number of different downloads (in addition to the PDF above).
It’s obviously a deliberate choice in a media release (given the recent inception of the Nelson Review) to be quite pointed with the title ‘AER report outlines key considerations for wholesale electricity market design’. Perhaps no prizes for guessing what might be in a formal submission from the AER?
(B) In the media?
There’s been a few references in the media, including the following:
1) From the AFR:
(a) On Friday, we saw Angela Macdonald-Smith writing ‘Energy grid’s power imbalance could blow out bills, AER warns’ … and the AER even noted this interview here
(b) Also on Friday we saw Angela MacDonald-Smith wrote ‘Power findings show ‘failure of privatisation’: SA energy minister’, quoting South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis.
2) In the Australian…
(a) Did not see anything?
3) In RenewEconomy:
(a) On Friday, we saw Giles Parkinson wrote ‘How big utilities manipulate the energy market, even with a high share of wind and solar’.
4) In the Guardian …
(a) Did not see anything?
(C) What about social media?
I’ve not really seen anything particularly standing out that I thought we should reference here (at least, at this point).
Can someone point out which column in ‘Figure 4.9’ represents ‘Liquid Fuel’ as appears in the AEMO dashboard for South Aust? FWIW, another name for ‘Liquid Fuel’ would be?
The methods and assumptions document published alongside the report (section 10) notes that “share of fuel type analysis included only coal, gas, battery storage, hydro, wind and solar. Other fuel types such as liquid and biomass were excluded.”