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
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NSW LOR and AEMO request for Generator Recall information
Yesterday, Tuesday 29 October 2019, AEMO issued a Market Notice requesting Generator Recall information from participants in the NSW region. This was issued at 15:27 on Tuesday 29 October 2019, and came after numerous Lack of Reserve notices, the first…
Network connection traps for new generation developers
Guest Author, Nathan Potter, analyses the challenges and complexities of new generator development in the market and outlines common traps that can be avoided.
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.
Lessons learnt in bringing new wind and solar to commercial operations stage
Our guest author Maria Cahill, offers insights and details lessons learnt over the past two years since moving to Melbourne from the UK to set up K2 Management’s Australian office.
How Retailers Use Contracts to Hedge Customers
Guest author, Warwick Forster, provides an explanation of some of the common ways that retailers hedge their risk exposure in the National Electricity Market
More on those negative prices – how do contracts affect bidding behaviour?
Guest author Allan O’Neil provides this handy explainer on how generators’ contract positions affect their bidding decisions and can make negative spot prices pay off, at least in the short term. Very useful for those readers not actively involved in wholesale trading in helping to understand why some conspiracy theories might not match reality.
Who’s responsible for those negative prices?
Rapidly growing solar PV output has been widely tagged as the cause of low and even negative prices in Queensland. But in any market it’s the behaviour of ALL participants that determines price outcomes. Guest author Allan O’Neil takes a closer look at recent NEM bidding.
ESOO Unboxing
Without resiling from last week’s criticism of how the headlines from AEMO’s 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) were communicated, it’d be churlish for me to fault the depth of disclosure and data sitting behind those results. Literally tens if…
ConfUSEd by the ESOO? You’re not alone.
I’d rather not add to the number of conspiracy theories in circulation, but I wonder if there’s a conspiracy to make understanding our electricity system in general, and its reliability in particular, as difficult as humanly possible. There’s no doubt…
War of Losses
Some thoughts from Derek Chapman, from Adani Renewables, in conjunction with two rule change requests at the AEMC relating to Marginal Loss Factors.
Some very preliminary details of the possible causes of the Argentinian Blackout
Some very preliminary information (based on an internet search) about factors that might have contributed to the blackout in Argentina and neighbouring parts of South America this week.
The Network Investment Paradox
Guest author, Drew Donnelly, compares case studies of Argentine and Australia to highlight risks in under and over-investment in network infrastructure
NEM spot prices remained stubbornly high in 2018 – what were the drivers?
The surge in NEM spot prices since 2015, and related impacts on contract and retail prices, have been extensively discussed and analysed in many forums, from ACCC inquiries to Twitter. The underlying reasons for the rise are well understood and…
NEM Summer Outlook 2018/19 – what is AEMO saying?
Following on from Paul’s article on Queensland, this post examines the summer outlook for the other mainland NEM regions, drawing from some key AEMO publications and datasources, namely: the Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) published in August this year AEMO’s Summer…
How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 4
In Michael’s fourth article of the series, he looks at the power of analysing electricity usage data to understand where and when users consume electricity so that they can identify cost saving opportunities.
Large Solar in the NEM mainland regions
The growth of Large Solar in the NEM has been phenomenal, and a sign that things are changing quickly in the Australian energy industry. The chart attached is the maximum output of each region from Large Solar installations on a…
Too much solar? For whom exactly?
Recently there have been a number of media reports of energy industry people talking about too much solar. One of our guest authors takes a look.
How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 3
In our guest author’s third article, Michael Williams comments on the growing trend for corporate energy buyers to contract directly with certain wind and/or solar plant for renewable energy supply over a longer-term time period. Mike shares some insights that could be of value to you, if you are involved in this areas.
Retail Energy, not so easy
It is curious that despite of the findings of the recent ACCC enquiries and the on-going regulatory uncertainty (at both a state and federal level), anyone would be willing to set-up an electricity retailer. New venturers in the energy market…