Following yesterday’s warnings about the potential for a tight supply/demand balance in South Australia this week, it was not really a surprise when the SMS alerts from NEM-Watch began buzzing for the 07:20 dispatch interval this morning (NEM time), highlighting that the dispatch price in SA had jumped to $12,199.20/MWh. This has continued through the morning.
Augurs to be an interesting day in South Australia today, with two (now three) price spikes already this morning – due in part to no supplies from coal, or from wind.
Prompted by a reader’s question, we provide some further analysis into which brown coal plants have been declining output in recent times, and why this might be the case.
Spot prices in South Australia have been seen to be higher in the month of April than in the prior months, which is somewhat counter-intuitive. Prices also spiked this evening on a number of occasions above $500/MWh – here’s some of the reasons why.
The Macarthur Wind Farm opening was officially opened today, but the wind did not make an appearance.
Some starting thoughts, about the extent to which increased wind farm output has been responsible in the drop in spot prices in South Australia from the high levels seen in 2008.
Placing some context around reports of a record share of electricity demand in South Australia yesterday being met by wind production.
A quick look at the extent to which wind supplies (across all wind turbines in the NEM) are diverse enough for supplies to have a degree of dependability.
Some quick notes today, on day #2 of the Carbon Tax, prompted by some prices that jumped all around the place (not so much due to carbon, though).
An article recently in one of the main papers about increased flows down the Snowy River prompted the question, internally, about how much the La Nina pattern of the past 24 months had impacted on production volumes from the hydro facilities around the NEM.