guest author

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.





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…



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…



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…


How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 2

In the previous article on reducing electricity costs we looked at energy efficiency and the fact that the cheapest electricity is the electricity that you don’t consume. In this article we will look at how to pay less for the…


How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 1

We all know that electricity prices have escalated dramatically over the last couple of years. But did you know that it is possible to offset these increases and even achieve cost reductions in the face of increasing retail prices? Electricity…






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 a large power station (this time the single unit Kogan Creek power station – the largest single unit in the NEM).