On the 4th of February at around 11am energy users in NSW appear to have curtailed their load in response to high prices, resulting in a significant drop in demand. Simultaneously, network conditions and generator rebidding caused the NSW pool price to jump back and forth between extreme prices close to VOLL ($10,000/MWh) and the Market Floor Price (-$1,000/MWh).
Some quick notes about a price spike in QLD today.
A snapshot of a price spike in SA late at night.
A snapshot of a higher demand day in NSW, driven by higher temperatures as they move eastwards
Some notes about the heatwave in SA and VIC, and what it means for the NEM
Some further analysis of the MT PASA and ST PASA forecasts for other regions of the NEM (SA, TAS, NSW and QLD) for the day of 29th January 2009 – when a new record NEM-wide demand was established.
Some articles about the way summer 2009-10 unfolds
A record of high demand in the QLD region on Thursday 10th December 2009
A quick look at how useful NEMMCO’s PASA forecasts were, prior to the record levels of demand seen across the NEM on Thursday 29th January 2009
A few brief notes about a hot day across the mainland, with demand levels high in each of the 4 mainland regions
Summer 2008-09 is now well behind us, and there are a number of official reviews underway that will report back at some stage. Even so, we’ve been continuing to ponder a couple of things about what happened in January 2009…
We saw a massive new peak for NEM-Wide demand set on 29th January 2009, which surprised many (including us).
We return to that data and, by comparing with the previous 10 summers, see whether it should have been entirely unexpected.
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.
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.
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.
On 19th January, high prices were sustained in SA for several hours, bringing the Cumulative Price within a whisker of the $150,000 threshold, at which prices would be capped.
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.
An overview of the final range of estimates received for the peak demand guessing competition of summer 2008-2009.
Given that the holidays are now over (for most of us) and we’re returning back to “normal” life, we thought it would be a good time to provide a brief overview of what’s happened in terms of NEM-Wide demand, to date.
NSW experienced a record summer demand on Thursday 15th January, driven by high temperatures across the state. The extreme weather experienced in NSW followed the extreme weather that swept across South Australia and Victoria only two days beforehand.