An evolving perspective – forecast impacts of the South Australia short, sharp ‘Circuit Breaker’ COVID response
Some brief notes about the impact that South Australia’s ‘Stay at Home’ order might have on demand in the region.
South Australia
AEMO releases ‘Operational management of low demand in South Australia’
On Thursday 22nd October, the AEMO also released a short document titled ‘Operational management of low demand in South Australia’.
The decline to zero continues… SA demand and whole-of-NEM both drop even lower on Sunday 11th October 2020
Records continue to tumble in the off-season, with the rise of rooftop PV. Both South Australia and Whole-of-NEM hit new low points Sun 11th October 2020.
New minimum point for Scheduled Demand in South Australia on Sunday 13th September 2020
Hot on the heels of a new record low point for Scheduled Demand (a week ago) in VIC, today sees Scheduled Demand in SA plunge to 315MW in the 11:50 dispatch interval on Sunday 13th September 2020.
Exploring deeper (part 1), about minimum demand on Saturday 29th August 2020
Out of curiosity, and driven by questions received from several people, I’ve invested a bit of time today to delve further into the record low level of Scheduled Demand seen in the Victorian region (and perhaps also across the whole of the NEM) on Saturday 29th August 2020.
AEMO’s notice of Inertia Shortfall in South Australia
AEMO also published something else today which (whilst not as publicised as the ESOO) will be of keen interest to many stakeholders in South Australia…
Case Study of 16:20 on 28th September 2016 (aggregate Raw Off-Target +894MW for Semi-Scheduled units)
This 8th case study in this series presents tabular results for all Semi-Scheduled DUIDs which were operational at the time of the SA System Black event.
Case Study of 03:25 on Tuesday 5th April 2016 (aggregate Raw Off-Target +359MW for Semi-Scheduled units)
After publishing three Case Studies on Saturday, this 4th Case Study in a long series is much more complex – with 8 different Semi-Scheduled Wind Farm units across VIC and SA exhibiting significant deviations from Target. This Case study looks at April 2016, which is also 3 years after the first 3 case studies.
It’s good news that time-weighted average prices for Q2 2020 are down on prior years – right?
Spurred by a number of concurrent requests I’ve returned to the pattern of prior analysis of Q2 prices (completed in 2016, 2017 and 2018) to look at what’s changed for Q2 2020 that’s just ended. Some stakeholders clearly taken by surprise. Analysis includes the SWIS in Western Australia
Observing Easter Saturday, a little belatedly
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, invests some time to explore a number of different aspects of Easter Saturday (11th April 2020), each noteworthy in their own right (including low demand, high percentage share renewables, negative prices and dynamic bidding)
Scheduled Demand in South Australia drops to levels not seen since the history of the NEM (excluding System Black)
Alarms in one of our NEMwatch dashboards alerted me to the plunging level of Scheduled Demand seen this afternoon in the the Victorian and South Australian regions of the NEM – a new record low point for South Australia.
Surviving on the island – again
Another islanding event separated the SA region from the rest of the NEM yesterday (Monday, 2nd of March). Allan O’Neil investigates what happened before the event and possible causes.
Reviewing the ‘accelerated accidental experiment’ thrust on SA during the islanding (31st Jan to 17th Feb) – a 1st review
As time has permitted, I’ve invested some time to prepare this first stage of a review of what went on during the period from 31st Jan 2020 to 17th Feb 2020 – a period during which the South Australian region formed its own frequency island following the transmission line damage. A period we’ve called an ‘accelerated accidental experiment’.
South Australia islanded again – Monday 2nd March at 12:00
Two weeks ago (Monday 17th February) a ‘temporary fix’ was put in place to reconnect SA with VIC following the transmission line outage that began on 31st January 2020. Well, we’ve islanded again today….
Don’t Forget About FCAS!
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, takes a look at what’s happened in the (islanded) market for FCAS services in South Australia over the past two weeks with Heywood out of service. He notes:
“generators in SA as a group would have paid out roughly twice in contingency raise FCAS costs what they earned from selling energy”
January 31 Followup – How did the lights stay on in South Australia?
Guest author, Allan O’Neil delves further into understanding what happened in response to the transmission tower failures on 31st January 2020 that sent system frequency in South Australia and led to a large reversal of flows.
13 headline questions and observations following the long-term islanding, starting Friday 31st January 2020
In order to help us (internally) map out all the different threads to explore in terms of what happened on Friday 31st January 2020 on a remarkable day in the NEM, I’ve identified a few of the key threads here over the weekend. More articles to follow as time permits….
A further look at Thursday Jan 30th
Guest author, Allan O’Neil does a masterful job with limited time in reviewing some of the goings-on in the NEM (particularly VIC and SA) on Thursday 30th January 2020
Thursday 30th January 2020 sees demand reach 34,257MW and LOR2 notice issued for both VIC and SA
A brief overview of a stressful afternoon/evening in the NEM, where a confluence of events (heatwave-driven high demand, low wind, coal unit trip, etc…) drive LOR2 low reserve condition notice in both VIC and SA, and gear AEMO up to call on Reserve Trader (yet again!)
What is the RRO and why has the South Australian Energy Minister just triggered it?
Perhaps missed amongst all the bushfire-related action in the NEM, the SA Minister for Energy last week initiated the Retailer Reliability Obligation. Guest author Allan O’Neil tries to come to grips with what this means, and what happens next?