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.
guest author
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)
Stock up on candles?
Last Thursday (31st Aug 2023) the AEMO published the ESOO 2023, including forecasts of some possibility of unserved energy in Victoria and South Australia this coming summer 2023-24 (above the Interim Reliability Measure). Guest author Allan O’Neil takes a look.
Engineering the transition and control of electricity
Kate Summers gave the keynote address for the “System and market design for a high renewables future” session at the CEC’s Clean Energy Summit earlier this week. This article contains the full text of her speech.
Let’s talk about Inertia
Inertia is an important concept to understand as the technology mix in the NEM evolves during the energy transition. In this article, Jonathon Dyson talks about the importance of inertia and highlights an example of a specific incident where we observed relatively low levels of inertia in the NEM.
Too Early to Say?
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, publishes some analysis for WattClarity on price and generation mix changes apparent in the NEM coincident with (but not wholly caused by) the closure of the last remaining units at Liddell Power Station.
How dispatch works … it’s much more than just a bid stack
New guest author, Ryan Esplin progressively builds a more precise model of the NEMDE dispatch process to illustrate why the stylised ‘Merit Order’ bid stack model is increasingly not enough to explain dispatch and price outcomes in the NEM
Renewable curtailment – forced and not quite so forced
Inspired by the recent article by Tristan Edis (who referenced the GSD2022 in analysis of curtailment of some wind and solar farms), Allan O’Neil follows on with more analysis of the two main types of curtailment. Allan differentiates these as ‘forced curtailment’ and ‘economic offloading’
Australia’s Renewable Energy Boom – The Good, The Bad and the Downright Ugly
Tristan Edis from Green Energy Markets takes a deep dive into generator performance across the NEM. He provides his take on which wind and solar farms have outperformed and underperformed, through the recent renewable investment boom.
Timestamping Renewable Energy Certificates is a Bad Idea.
Tom Geiser argues against time-stamped Renewable Energy Certificates – and how the concept could impact trade, accuracy, market signals and other factors.
Bye X5, Hi X5
From 16th March 2023 the infamous ‘x5 constraint’ has been split into two. We quickly showed previously that the design of the Left Hand Side (LHS) does not vary. In today’s article, valued guest author Allan O’Neil takes a look at what is different.
The NEMs frequency behaviour – how is it going?
Following recent online discussions, Bruce Miller has produced this in-depth analysis of frequency behavior in th NEM.
Has adding wind and solar upped the need for FCAS in the NEM?
Allan O’Neil digs through historic FCAS enablement and utilisation levels to examine whether there is an increasing trend in recent years.