Aggregate wind production peaked above 5,000MW for the first time (NEM-wide) – on Friday 1st May 2020
Quick notes about a new peak in wind farm output across the NEM that occurred on Friday evening last week (1st May 2020).
Articles by Paul McArdle
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.
Spot prices plunge in QLD, and may well remain underwater for the coming week
Three main factors contributed to the spot prices in Queensland dropping underwater today for a number of hours - with some factors suggesting this might be the pattern for the coming week...
AEMO releases its first* ‘Renewable Integration Study’ on 30th April 2020
An article today providing links to the 'Renewable Integration Study' which the AEMO released today, and also to the headline media coverage I have seen on my quick scan this morning.
Two papers released by COAG Energy Council are early stages in fleshing out ‘NEM 2.0’
Some brief initial thoughts, following the release of two discussion papers by the COAG Energy Council - the first on two-sided markets, and the second seeming to cover two different challenges (forward markets, and...
Careful with the ‘doomsday claims’ that COVID responses have (or will) massively reduced aggregate underlying electricity consumption in the NEM….
… because the evidence currently suggests that this is just not the case (in this article I explore and explain further)
Four units trip in Victoria on Easter Saturday
A quick look at Saturday 11th April (Easter Saturday) where there were major reductions in output at 4 units across Victoria - 3 coal units in the Latrobe Valley and the Macarthur Wind Farm...
Electricity demand as a Performance Metric, in the age of coronavirus
This started as a consideration of how applicable 'change of electricity demand' is as a general metric for communicating the impact of coronavirus (and measures taken to address it). However it is morphed into...
1st thoughts on possible impacts of COVID-19 on Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM)
Like everyone else, we're grappling with how COVID-19 will impact on us personally - and also in terms of what we do at work. Here's a few initial thoughts about the types of impacts...
Using the GSD2019 to explore the VALUE of Dispatchability
An article published by AEMC on the 'value of dispatchability' provided the spur to return to our intention of freely sharing insights gleaned from the Generator Statistical Digest 2019. Today's article highlighting the value...
Scheduled Demand in South Australia drops to levels not seen since the history of the NEM (excluding System Black)
Alarms in one of our NEMwatch dashboards alerted me to the plunging level of Scheduled Demand seen this afternoon in the the Victorian and South Australian regions of the NEM - a new record...
We’ve been killing New Entrants with kindness?
Last week saw more in a growing series of exits, and asset write-downs, amongst new entrants in the supply of renewable energy within the NEM. Today on WattClarity I ponder whether we have been...
Reviewing the ‘accelerated accidental experiment’ thrust on SA during the islanding (31st Jan to 17th Feb) – a 1st review
As time has permitted, I've invested some time to prepare this first stage of a review of what went on during the period from 31st Jan 2020 to 17th Feb 2020 - a period...
South Australia islanded again – Monday 2nd March at 12:00
Two weeks ago (Monday 17th February) a 'temporary fix' was put in place to reconnect SA with VIC following the transmission line outage that began on 31st January 2020. Well, we've islanded again today....
AEMC Rule Change (Feb 2020) agrees with much of what ERM proposed – for ‘Improving transparency and extending duration of MT PASA’
A back-dated article, looking back at the two ERM rule change requests which, when passed by the AEMC, had great effect in expanding transparency in the NEM in relation to generator availabilities from 20th...
Extreme temperature effects on generation supply technology
Summer 2019-20 is not yet done, but already we have seen some extremes in temperature in different places - which have led to different concerns. Today I use the GRC2018 and GSD2019 to take...
Rooftop Solar PV systems did trip in SA on Friday 31st January 2020 in conjunction with the Heywood trip
Investing some time over the weekend with a some higher-speed data on output of rooftop solar PV systems across VIC and SA reveals some interesting observations about what happened on Friday 31st January 2020...
Heat pushes QLD Scheduled Demand within 214MW of the all-time maximum level on 3rd February 2020
It feels like a lifetime ago, already, but I do vaguely remember that we released our Generator Statistical Digest 2019 last week, on Tuesday 28th January 2020. All the tasks that I had scheduled...
What happened with System Frequency with the SA Islanding on Friday 31st January 2020?
Cautioning readers that I am a novice at reading frequency data in this manner, I take a first look at how the frequency in Melbourne and South Australia varied at the time of the...
13 headline questions and observations following the long-term islanding, starting Friday 31st January 2020
In order to help us (internally) map out all the different threads to explore in terms of what happened on Friday 31st January 2020 on a remarkable day in the NEM, I've identified a...
Out of the blue, another LOR2 – NSW region on Saturday 1st February 2020
With the benefit of more data available today, can piece together why there was the sudden drop into LOR2 territory on Saturday 1st February 2020 (something that alarmed me, and resulted in AEMO directing...