We’ve already posted a number of articles pertaining to last week’s Thursday 12th June 2025.
So it was with interest that one of our team members noted David Osmond’s comment earlier today when he said:
‘Note: June 12 was one of the most challenging days of the last 4 years for my mostly renewable NEM simulation. Very poor wind on a day with extreme demand!’
You can find more of David’s short report here on LinkedIn:
As some point in future, we’ll circle back and explore/comment further (but that won’t be straight away, as we have too many other things on) … for now just note that:
1) I’ve always thought that it’s a very useful exercise that David’s been doing each week for the past ~4 years (and have noted this elsewhere beforehand);
2) But readers should be very careful in reading too much into the outcomes – especially in thinking that ‘it proves, or disproves, [SOME HOBBY HORSE]’ …
… because fundamentally, as I have noted before, ‘forecasting (or modelling) is a mugs game’.
David’s model is a copper plate model. As such, it could prove what is impossible; but not what is possible.
For example, if a battery capacity of X GWh in a copper plate model was insufficient to get through a particular low wind night, then it would be impossible for any real world placement of X GWh of batteries to service that night. But the fact that X GWh IS sufficient in a copper plate model to get through some night tells you close to nothing about the possibility of finding a suitable configuration to get through that night. David’s not an idiot, he knows this, but he still repeatedly misrepresents his model as being relevant to real world feasibility … it isn’t.