How Good is Solar Farming?
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, takes a look, via the GSD2019 (released today), at the four different headwinds facing solar farm developers and operators operating in the NEM.
FCAS
Combined Solar & Storage Economics: Creating a credible grid scale business model in the National Electricity Market
Guest Author, Warwick Forster, looks at designing a combined solar & storage business model for the NEM
Almost three years on – reflections on Frequency Control in the NEM
Guest author (and power system control specialist), Kate Summers, looks at what's changed since she published a paper on frequency control in the NEM back in January 2017.
Further analysis of the (very rare) double-islanding events of Saturday 25th August 2018
The multi-region islanding event on Saturday 25th August was a very rare event - perhaps the only one's that occurred in the history of the NEM. It has generated plenty of questions - and...
My recent presentation: “Power system control or market control of a power system”
Guest presenter, Kate Summers, spoke at UoM Climate and Energy College on 15th August 2018, with the presentation recorded. Kate shares this today with WattClarity readers.
When the NEM’s Largest Generating Unit Trips …
A follow-on to my earlier article of a couple weeks ago, looking at another instance where a team effort was required to counter a drop in system frequency following the loss of generation at...
FCAS in Action – What Happens When a Generator Trips? (or Never let the data get in the way of a good story)
Understanding the FCAS response by all generators when a unit trips in the NEM. A detailed look at the Loy Yang A unit trip in December 2017 and the contribution of the Hornsdale Power...
Power System Frequency – What is it doing? – Why does it matter?
The East Coast power system of Australia has the worst frequency regulation in the developed world. This puts the system at risk whenever an event occurs which requires the generators to respond quickly –...
Short term forecasting of wind power plant generation for the provision of ancillary services
As NEM wind power plants progressively work towards implementing FCAS, the criticality of ensuring that the power system either a) takes account of the variability in the wind forecasts coming from the wind power...
Let’s Keep Talking About FCAS
Following on from the Let's Talk About FCAS post, the focus of this post is the business case and subsequent optimisation challenge for getting involved in FCAS, now that the technical performance components have...
How does frequency regulation help avoid Blackouts?
What are the lessons about frequency regulation that can be learned from the SA blackout?
Using this train analogy to critique some recent developments with Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS)
[PART 2 of] a post by guest author, Bruce Miller – which was initially posted on LinkedIn as one piece, but which has been broken into two on WattClarity as each part serves different...
Introducing a train analogy to explain Power Systems 101
[PART 1 of] a post by guest author, Bruce Miller - which was initially posted on LinkedIn as one piece, but which has been broken into two on WattClarity as each part serves different...
Energy prices below zero in South Australia, but Raise Regulation FCAS prices through the roof
Low energy prices in South Australia combined with high prices for Raise Regulation
High Regulation FCAS Prices on Tuesday 18th April in South Australia
Quick review of a spike in FCAS Prices in South Australia on Tuesday 18th April 2017 - leading to Administered Pricing for Raise Regulation Services.
Adding a Slice of Cheese
The South Australian Blackout of 28th September 2016 is not as simple as it looks.
NEM FCAS causer pays factor issues for wind and solar farms
Generators used to consider the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) FCAS causers pays factors (CPF), used to allocate FCAS regulation costs across the market, as an obscure and unimportant technically challenging curiosity. Since 2014,...
Fast Frequency Service – Treating the symptom not the cause?
The National Electricity Market (NEM) is designed to operate at 50 Hz. Frequency deviation occurs when generation and load are mismatched. It is important in a lightly meshed and long network such as the...
Let’s talk about FCAS
Ancillary Services Matter! No longer just realm of electrical engineer or energy trading boffins, ancillary services (and particularly Frequency Control Ancillary Services or FCAS which will concentrate on today) have become front and centre...
AEMC published final determination about ‘Demand Response Mechanism and Ancillary Services Unbundling’
On 24 November 2016 the AEMC made a final rule to create a new type of market participant (a ‘Market Ancillary Services Provider’ (MASP)) who can aggregate and offer Demand Response into the FCAS...