peak NEM-wide demand











A brief look at peak NEM-Wide Demand over recent winters

This weekend, we have prepared this analysis of the entries we received for our “Peak Demand Forecaster” competition for winter 2009.

In conjunction with this analysis, we thought it would be of interest to also incorporate this chart (generated from a BETA version of the NEM-Review v6 software package) to highlight how the peak NEM-Wide demand unfolded over the previous winters…


A review of recent winters in the NEM

For those who weren’t aware, Winter 2009 has seen us offer our “Who’s the Best Demand Forecaster in the NEM” challenge – as a chance for the market to redeem itself, following what happened in summer 2008-09 (when the market surprised us all).



Massive Demand, Huge Prices, Load Shedding and the Cumulative Price Threshold (and lessons learnt?)

Wednesday 28th January saw demand across the NEM jump to unprecedented levels, setting a new record of 34,843MW at 16:00 NEM time. On Thursday 29th January, we saw the demand increase still further, leading to prices that stayed high for much of the day (to the point where the Cumulative Price Threshold was reached in VIC and SA and price caps were imposed), and a relatively small amount of involuntary load shedding occurring in VIC and SA.


And the winner for summer 08-09 is…

We noted yesterday, in the midst of the excitement, that the previous NEM-wide demand record had been beaten, by virtue of the heatwave assaulting VIC and SA over the day. We spoke too soon, however, as demand continued to climb through the afternoon.


New record all-time NEM-wide demand (and for VIC and SA) today!

The day is not over yet, but we thought you would be interested in the attached snapshot highlighting the first of the occasions on the day when prices jumped to VOLL in SA and VIC as a result of searing temperatures stopping the tennis, and melting VIC and SA into new demand records for each region.


New record summer demand!

We watched with interest today as demand crept up in all mainland regions to the point where the NEM-Wide demand rose slightly above 33,000MW for the first time ever, during a summer period.