A quick summary of aggregate yield from Large Solar on Tuesday 28th November 2023
A quick look back at Tuesday 28th November 2023, a day of lowest Large Solar yield through 2023 Q4.
Large Solar Farm
Looking back at the high demand levels seen in the past two days in Queensland
Taking a quick look back at two days of extreme levels of demand in Queensland during the ‘sleepy period’ between Xmas and New Year.
Rooftop Solar is crushing* the returns for Large-Scale VRE
Following the release of GenInsights Quarterly Updates for 2023 Q3 we’ve chosen to share here one of the clear challenges for large-scale VRE that is emerging (particularly in 2023 Q3) due to the rise and rise of rooftop PV.
Why capacity factor is an increasingly simplistic way to compare solar farm performance
Dan Lee explains why capacity factor could be becoming an increasingly less useful measure for comparing how different solar farms are performing and begins an exploration into some of the factors in play when trying to conduct more comprehensive analysis into generator performance.
Using the (draft of) GSD2022 to investigate those Solar Farms suffering significant curtailment
An article on RenewEconomy this week (about some analysis by analysts at ANU) coincided with our review of sequential drafts of the GSD2022, and prompted this article to have a look at some reported lost production at a number of solar farms across the NEM.
Enhancement of ASEFS and AWEFS forecasts provided by AEMO – from Wednesday 23th November 2022
A short article, to record the upgrade of the ASEFS and AWEFS forecasts for Semi-Scheduled (i.e. Wind and Large Solar) units.
Exploring some things that could affect a Large-Scale Solar Farm’s value proposition
A short synopsis of my brief presentation last week (Thu 19th May 2022) at CEC Large Solar Forum in Brisbane.
Summary view of supply-side contributions in QLD during ‘heatwave week’ – particularly Tue 1st Feb 2022 and Wed 2nd Feb 2022
An initial review of some (wholesale) supply-side factors contributing to the extreme price volatility (and Reserve Trader etc) that occurred in the first week of February 2022 in the QLD region of the NEM.
Widespread rain event one factor in pricing volatility in QLD on Thursday 11th November 2021 (Part 2)
Second short article, looking into what has been happening through Queensland on Thursday 11th November 2021.
A sneak peak at the increasing volume of bidding at some Large Solar Farms in the NEM
A short article today, to share an image from the upcoming GenInsights21 release, and to pose some questions – about what’s been happening with the rise (and fall!) of bid volumes at Large Solar Farms in the NEM.
Large Solar production in QLD on Saturday 16th October crushed between Rooftop PV and Coal
A short note at a ‘new normal’ condition that we can expect to see increasingly in NEM regions (including QLD) as rooftop PV continues to grow in scale.
A quick look at the generator bids across Sunday 23rd August 2021 (when Solar temporarily eclipsed Coal)
Prompted by reports elsewhere of solar PV production eclipsing coal-fired production on Sunday for a period of time, I had a quick look (including at aggregate bid volumes).
Price volatility in the QLD region on Saturday 3rd July 2021
A rainy Saturday morning reminds us the price volatility for Q2 in QLD has not totally gone away … with elevated prices for ENERGY and also Contingency FCAS (Raise 6 second and Raise 60 second).
Several QLD price spikes on Saturday 10th April 2021
Three price spikes in the QLD region on Saturday 10th April 2021 help to remind us that how increasingly dependent we are on various machinations of the weather (including, on these occasions, cloud cover and solar output).
Solar Returns – ain’t what they used to be?
Guest author on WattClarity (but co-author of the Generator Statistical Digest 2020) uses the GSD2020 and numbers for preceding years to look at how some of the older solar farms are seeing some changes in performance metrics.
Marcelle Gannon to share insights (this Thu 11th March 2021) at CEC Large-Scale Solar Forum
Here’s three key insights to listen for this Thursday … when Marcelle Gannon speaks at the CEC’s Large-Scale Solar (virtual) Forum.
Case Study Part 5 – Why did those constraint bind – in QLD on Tuesday 13th October 2020?
In part 5 of this expanding Case Study of the unexpected price spike on Tuesday 13th Oct, linked to a large & sudden drop in output across 10 solar farms, we take a detailed look at the constraint set ‘Q-BCNE_821’ invoked to deal with the transmission outage between H11 Nebo (in ‘North’ zone) and H10 Bouldercombe (in ‘Central-West’ zone)
Case Study Part 3 – digging still deeper, about what happened in QLD on Tuesday 13th October 2020
In part 3 of this expanding Case Study of the unexpected price spike on Tuesday 13th Oct, linked to a large & sudden drop in output across 10 solar farms, we dig deeper to explore… including wondering whether it would have been expected in advance.
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 generation was lost, causing the price to spike to MPC.
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 unclear).