Yesterday one of our team members noted something strange at Wellington North Solar Farm ... here we take a quick look at the last few days and see a few things.
The team noted this yesterday (Friday 22nd May 2026) morning … so here’s a quick note to record the sustained period of mild frequency sag.
This is the 2nd of two articles today … this one specifically focused on Wind (i.e. the Semi-Scheduled units) and the aggregate Dispatch Error across all 288 dispatch intervals on Tuesday 27th January 2026.
This is the 1st of two articles today … this one specifically focused on Large Solar (i.e. the Semi-Scheduled units) and the aggregate Dispatch Error across all 288 dispatch intervals on Tuesday 27th January 2026.
Following a growing number of articles on WattClarity about “VRE under-performance dragging frequency down”, guest author Allan O'Neil takes a look at how the one sided nature of the SDC plays a role - and suggests a possible action that would help.
With yesterday (Thursday 15th January 2026) serving as a reminder of the need for frequency control in the event of the unexpected, here’s a snapshot of a 1-hour timespan today (Friday 16th January 2026 at 15:00 NEM time) to reinforce that all is not well,...
... the answer might not be what some people might immediately think it is.
Another short article about (what looks to be) another period of VRE-induced frequency weakness, this one on Sunday afternoon 21st December 2025.
On Wednesday 3rd December, the AEMO held its annual Intermittent Generation Forum and discussed a number of different aspects of challenges and opportunities, including with respect to the frequency weakness on Friday 31st October 2025 contributed to by large aggregate Dispatch Error across Solar Farms
We can see that the frequency weakened late in the afternoon (Wednesday 10th December 2025), falling down towards the Normal Operating Frequency Band.
We’ve already posted about how ‘Mainland Frequency dragged downwards around sunset, on Sunday 30th November 2025’. Here, we see how underperformance across Large Solar Farms was a major cause.
This late afternoon weakness in system frequency (on Sunday 30th November 2025) seems noteworthy.
An update of earlier article (from 8th Sept 2025) comparing Frequency Excursions with instances of large AggROT across Semi-Scheduled units - for 2025 Q3 and 2025 Q4 (ytd).
I’m not sure if related to the severe weather warnings for both QLD and NSW today, but here’s a quick record of some afternoon weakness in frequency control on Saturday 15th November 2025.
With respect to the ~17:00 period on Thursday 30th October 2025 (and the frequency drop, possibly outside the NOFB), we take a look at the Dispatch Error of individual Semi-Scheduled units to find patterns.
We’ve just noted the frequency drop on Friday afternoon 31st October 2025, and so take a look at 'Aggregate Dispatch Error’, to see if it's likely we are correct in our hypothesis - that this was another instance of frequency weakness due to Semi-Scheduled unit...