The proximate cause
Last Monday’s spot price volatility in New South Wales has prompted gigatokens’ worth of analysis on social and mainstream media. This post aims to cut through all these to the proximate cause?
transmission constraints
Still air, empty tanks and a hot joint
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, goes into some detail of exploring the various factors contributing to the price volatility in South Australia that bookended the night of Sunday 21th June into Monday 22nd June 2026.
PEC Stage 1 in operation – be careful what you wish for
Guest author Allan O'Neil looks at how operation of Project EnergyConnect Stage 1 may affect market outcomes, with some early indications that impacts won't be as straightforward as you might think.
Energy price volatility on 30th July 2024
Observations of price volatility on 30th July 2024.
Morning energy price volatility in SA on 18 July 2024
Spot price volatility was observed in SA on the morning of 18 July 2024.
AEMO publishes update to ‘Guide to Mis-Pricing Information’ in conjunction with IESS
On 1st August 2024 the AEMO approved for distribution version 5 of the document 'Guide to Mis-Pricing Information' with reference to the IESS go-live on 3rd June 2024. Hence the date of this article referencing the document.
Looking closer at curtailment across wind farms in NSW last Wednesday 8th May 2024
A deeper dive into the geographic spread of wind farm generation and curtailment last Wednesday evening including a look into wind conditions and network topology.
Delving deeper, into Wind Farm performance in NSW on Tue 7th May and Wed 8th May
Looking back 4 days (including Wed 8th May 2024) at NSW wind farm generator bidding.
Victorian renewable generation on 13 February 2024: One picture and a thousand (sorry, many more) words
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, takes us several steps further in understanding the events in Victoria on Tuesday 13th February 2024 - especially with respect to VRE (wind and solar) production.
What’s happening around Wagga?
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, takes a detailed look at how VIC1-NSW1 transfer capability has been limited frequently due to constraints related to the 051 line in southern NSW, and what it means in terms of inter-regional settlements residue accumulations, market efficiency overall, and the energy...
How dispatch works … it’s much more than just a bid stack
New guest author, Ryan Esplin progressively builds a more precise model of the NEMDE dispatch process to illustrate why the stylised 'Merit Order' bid stack model is increasingly not enough to explain dispatch and price outcomes in the NEM
Renewable curtailment – forced and not quite so forced
Inspired by the recent article by Tristan Edis (who referenced the GSD2022 in analysis of curtailment of some wind and solar farms), Allan O'Neil follows on with more analysis of the two main types of curtailment. Allan differentiates these as 'forced curtailment' and 'economic offloading'
Liddell’s ghost stalks the market
During early morning Monday 1st May prices spiked in the NSW quite unexpectedly. Guest author Allan O'Neil takes us into the complexities of the EMMS and NEMDE to help us understand the mechanics of how this happened.
Bye X5, Hi X5
From 16th March 2023 the infamous 'x5 constraint' has been split into two. We quickly showed previously that the design of the Left Hand Side (LHS) does not vary. In today's article, valued guest author Allan O'Neil takes a look at what is different.
Palmerston to Waddamana lines returned to service on December 2, 2022
A successful return to service for the Waddamana to Palmerston 220 kV lines following damage sustained during landslides on 14 October 2022.
Who gets to run when everyone bids the same? A crash course in disorderly bidding and tie-breaking
Marcelle explores the little-understood concept in NEM dispatch of the tie-break principle, using the new 'Constraint Dashboard' widget in ez2view.
Expect the unexpected – It’s the NEM after all
Guest author, Allan O'Neil, returns to WattClarity with this review of southern region prices on Monday 31st January 2022 to highlight one example of counterprice flows on the VIC to NSW interconnector.
A Second Serving of the Q2 Elephant
For a second portion of Q2 “elephant eating”, I’ll look in some detail at the dynamics of an early instance of spot price volatility in Queensland, because many drivers turn out to be similar across other volatile intervals in the quarter. Table Setting As context,...
Which units were most impacted by constraints in 2020?
In this (lengthy) article today, Paul McArdle uses the newly released GSD2020 to take a look at the units that were most frequently impacted by constraints during calendar 2020 - with a view to how this has changed from 2011 to 2020.
Sunday 24th Jan 2021 (part 2) – down to the wire (because of bushfire) in South Australia
Second article today, focusing on what happened late in the afternoon and into the evening in South Australia.