With this extracted trend of mainland NEM system frequency (measured at 0.1 second cadence) it appears that there was some large(ish) trip in demand somewhere on the Queensland network, given the spike in frequency at ~07:28 on Tuesday 14th October 2025:
Given that this is a 4-hour trend of frequency that includes some ~75 minutes prior to sunrise in Brisbane, it’s useful to highlight the difference in the ‘pre-sunrise’ pattern in frequency. We are increasingly seeing a marked difference.
Paul was one of the founders of Global-Roam in February 2000. He is currently the CEO of the company and the principal author of WattClarity. Writing for WattClarity has become a natural extension of his work in understanding the electricity market, enabling him to lead the team in developing better software for clients.
Before co-founding the company, Paul worked as a Mechanical Engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission in the early 1990s. He also gained international experience in Japan, the United States, Canada, the UK, and Argentina as part of his ES Cornwall Memorial Scholarship.
Returning to the theme of analysis of Q2 prices (completed in 2017 and 2016 due to Q2 historically being an uneventful period) we see that prices have backed off from the “off the charts” level of 2017, but are still much higher in all regions than most other regions. In some cases results are second worst in 20 years.
Based on forecasts NEMMCO had been providing through their PASA process, we expected that it might prove that this week would deliver huge demand levels, and high prices.
Not to disappoint, the market did deliver high levels of demand in all regions:
(a) Peak demand levels were reduced somewhat from the huge levels the previous week in Victoria and South Australia;
(b) Demand levels were also still building to the record level to be experienced the following week in NSW;
(c) Peak demand levels in Queensland were fairly steady (and high) for most weeks of summer.
(d) In combination, a new NEM-wide peak demand target of 30,994MW was set on Monday 23rd January.
High demand experienced in Queensland on Friday 3rd January could be a precursor to the highest demand ever experienced on a Saturday – if the AEMO’s forecasts (and the weather bureau’s warnings) are correct.
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