Weathering the Storm: Victoria’s Record-Breaking Energy Day
Perhaps unrealised by many, but Tuesday afternoon’s events in Victoria resulted in a new record low in terms of number of coal units being online in the region, Geoff Eldridge explores.
guest author
A major blackout left 500,000 Victorian homes without power – but it shows our energy system is resilient
Dr Roger Dargaville from the Monash Energy Institute argues that Tuesday’s events in Victoria were a showing of a system resilience, and not fragility.
A look into minimum generation levels at various coal plants, using the GSD2023
Nick Bartels from Greenview Strategic Consulting uses the GSD2023 to examine minimum and maximum generation levels at various coal and gas plants in the market.
High impact weather lashes Victoria, igniting fires and leaving 500,000 without power
Weatherzone meteorologist, Ben Domensino, reports on the extent of the severe weather conditions across Victoria yesterday.
Victorian power system event 13 Feb 2024 13:08 – a few quick notes
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, adds some insights in a rapidly evolving situation on Tuesday afternoon 13th February 2024 in Victoria.
Batteries, coal revenues and demand response units: Insights from the GSD2023
David Leitch provides his top insights from reading his (pre-published) copy of our GSD2023 – due to be released later this week.
What is the point of the RRO?
Ben Skinner asks some philosophical questions about the Retail Reliability Obligation (RRO), and provides some commentary about its past and future.
Summer 2023-24 demand – high or low?
Inspired (or provoked) by Paul’s earlier article noting ‘NEM-wide demand has been quite low through summer 2023-24 (at least to date)’, guest author Allan O’Neil takes a look at how aggregate consumption stacks up for this summer, compared to prior.
Policy implications now and for the transition
The third and final part of this series of articles from Greg Williams about opportunity costs in electricity markets – this time narrowing in on policy implications.
Powering Up: Queensland’s Historic Leap in Energy Use
Geoff Eldridge of Global Power Energy publishes this summary of the demand records that were broken in QLD as the regoin sweltered through hot and humid conditions last night.
Parts of Brisbane could feel close to 50C today
Ashleigh Lange of WeatherZone reports on the high apparent temperatures being felt in South East Queensland today.
Why generation offers diverge from variable cost
In the second part of this three part series, Greg Williams explains how fuel cost scarcity, inflexibilities, opportunity costs and other factors affects generator bids/offers.
Comments and questions about the 2024 draft ISP
Clutch’s Mitch Baker has shared his initial thoughts and questions that jumped out to him from reading the AEMO’s 2024 draft ISP.
The effect of opportunity cost on wholesale prices in the NEM
Guest author, Greg Williams provides the first part of a three-parter about costs in the NEM. In part one here he explains modelling opportunity costs and the value of ‘the next best alternative’.
Out with a bang or a whimper? And a puzzle or two.
Guest author Allan O’Neil continues our series of posts on very low system demand levels in South Australia and Victoria on New Year’s Eve, with a few unresolved questions remaining
Generator Compliance Management – Is it the “monster under the bed”?
New guest author (Aditya Upadhye) posts some thoughts about Generator Compliance Management – especially in the light of AER’s stated priority of ‘improve market participants compliance with performance standards and standards for critical infrastructure’ in 2023-24.
SA Islanding: Managing solar on the island
In our third guest authored post this week, Blake Ashton from SA Power Networks talks about the SA islanding event that occurred just over twelve months ago – how SAPN managed solar curtailment, and how their new ‘flexible exports’ option can address future challenges.
Do we really need Eraring when we’ll have 5,500MW of batteries by 2026?
Tristan Edis from Green Energy Trading discusses whether a surge in renewable energy projects and battery capacity would be sufficient to fill any reliability gap before (and after) Eraring’s scheduled closure.
What’s happening around Wagga?
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, takes a detailed look at how VIC1-NSW1 transfer capability has been limited frequently due to constraints related to the 051 line in southern NSW, and what it means in terms of inter-regional settlements residue accumulations, market efficiency overall, and the energy transition.
An ESOO snippet – how effective are different technologies at enhancing reliability?
In his second article about the 2023 ESOO, guest author Allan O’Neil takes a look at what the AEMO has published with respect to various options for firming capacity to increase the reliability of aggregate supply to below the two thresholds (the Reliability Standard and the Interim Reliability Standard)