What’s going on at the Callide power stations?
Prompted by a few media questions (on a day when all 4 units were offline together for about 3 hours), have taken a quick look at the status of the four units on the...
generator trip
Tarong unit 2 trips on Tuesday afternoon (1st February 2022)
Adding into the tight supply-demand dynamic, the coal-fired unit Tarong unit 2 tripped this afternoon.
Loss of ~2000MW of demand in Queensland on Tuesday 25th May
A quick snapshot from NEMwatch at 14:20 today highlighting the loss of approximately 2000MW of demand this afternoon – dropping the level of Scheduled Demand down to 3,775MW: The AEMO Market Notice highlighted says:...
Case Study Part 2 – did Rooftop PV kill Large Solar Farm output (and cause the price spike) in QLD on Tuesday 13th October 2020?
Based on some preliminary analysis of the Powerlink's 'Qdata' set (available in ez2view) we present our current hypothesis as to the sequence of the events yesterday in the QLD region, where 600MW of solar...
Case Study part 1 – Queensland price spikes to $15,000/MWh at 09:45 on Tuesday 13th October 2020 … coincident with many Large Solar Farms (tripping**)
Alerted to a price spike at 09:45 this morning in the QLD region, we discovered some reduction in load (spot-exposed Demand Response probably) and also a large collective trip in Solar Farm output (reasons...
Two units at Vales Point trip simultaneously on Sunday 7th June 2020
A quick look at the two units tripping at 13:33 on Sunday 7th June 2020, and some earlier operational problems the day before (perhaps unrelated).
Kogan Creek trip on 9th October 2019 delivers highest ‘aggregate Raw Off-Target’ for the 2019 year for ‘all Coal’
Following on from Tuesday's main article (summarising results across 105,120 dispatch intervals through 2019 for 'all Coal' and 'all Wind' groupings), this is the first of 4 x Case Studies that look at each...
Observing Easter Saturday, a little belatedly
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, invests some time to explore a number of different aspects of Easter Saturday (11th April 2020), each noteworthy in their own right (including low demand, high percentage share renewables, negative...
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...
A further look at Thursday Jan 30th
Guest author, Allan O'Neil does a masterful job with limited time in reviewing some of the goings-on in the NEM (particularly VIC and SA) on Thursday 30th January 2020
Thursday 30th January 2020 sees demand reach 34,257MW and LOR2 notice issued for both VIC and SA
A brief overview of a stressful afternoon/evening in the NEM, where a confluence of events (heatwave-driven high demand, low wind, coal unit trip, etc...) drive LOR2 low reserve condition notice in both VIC and...
Initial thoughts and questions about last Friday’s under-frequency load shedding in Great Britain
Some brief data gathering and analysis, primarily because I could not resist the exploration, of what might have happened with the load shedding in the electricity grid across England, Wales and Scotland on Friday...
Brief comment on the extended outage at Loy Yang A unit 2
Following the notice from AGL Energy on Friday last week about the extended outage occurring at Loy Yang A unit 2, here's some initial thoughts via WattClarity (with more to come as time permits)
Five different aspects of assessing the “dependability” of coal-fired power (in the Generator Report Card)
The framework we used to analyse the extent to which coal-fired power is "dependable" in the Generator Report Card, and the extent to which it's been changing.
Off-Target #1 = Unit trip – Mt Piper Unit 2 on 24th October 2018
Highlighting one example of a unit trip. We expect we will find many in the process of compiling our Generator Report Card 2018 - the bigger question being whether the incidence is increasing (and,...
Power station ‘trips’ are normal, but blackouts are not
Understanding the difference between blackouts, generator trips and intermittent generation and how these events are managed.
2 x Loy Yang A units offline this afternoon
Two units temporarily offline at Loy Yang A on Monday 8th May (not without coincidence/conspiracy theories)
Two evening price spikes send jitters …
The dispatch price in Queensland spiked to $1,500/MWh at 18:25 and again at 22:40 yesterday evening – triggering jitters in some who fear a return to the volatility of summer 2013.
Updated animation of 20th December 2012 – a volatile day in the Queensland Region
An updated animation of 20th December 2012 focused on the Queensland region - a volatile day for that region.
Wild price gyrations in Victoria (and elsewhere) today following a station trip at Yallourn
An animation of 90 minutes this morning where the price gyrated wildly in response to a trip at Yallourn, and numerous subsequent reactions by market participants and the AEMO.