First Spike in Demand this Winter As Temperatures Plunge
On Wednesday 10th June 2009, temperatures plunged across the NEM for the first time this winter, providing a long-awaited dump of snow to start the season, and driving electricity demand high.
winter
Analysis of the FCAS market in Victoria over the 23rd July, 2008
On the 23rd of July, 2008 one of the HWTS – LYPS 500kV Line was down for maintenance when a second one tripped, leaving only one line remaining. This caused NEMMCO to declare the failure of that remaining line the greatest single contingency in the NEM, causing them to buy large amounts of FCAS from generators.
July in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. Analysis of July has revealed that the peak NEM-wide demand for the past 3 years has occurred in winter – and has been significantly higher than the peak summer demand.
August in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM – in which we examine the trends in price and demand across the NEM for the month of August.
June in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. June has brought us several cases of “economic witholding of capacity” – particularly in 2002, and in 2007 the NEM had a very interesting week in which the IRPM plunged to its lowest level ever.
Who’s the best demand forecaster in the NEM?
The great bi-annual peak demand forecasting competition. Prove your forecasting prowess and you could win a great seasonal prize!
NEMMCO Report: Unplanned Outages of HWTS-LYPS line on 23 July 2008
On 13th November, NEMMCO released the final version of its report into the Power System Incident “Unplanned Outages of HWTS-LYPS line on 23 July 2008”
VOLL Pricing on 23rd July 2008
It appears that we spoke too soon when we mentioned on the 22nd July that winter 2008 had been relatively uneventful.
Just over 24 hours from making these comments, we saw prices jump sky-high in the mainland regions, and go the other way (to the negative price cap) in Tasmania.
Winter 2008
Miscellaneous articles on activity in the NEM during winter 2008.
Volatility in the market over winter 2007
Our Managing Director spoke at the “Australian Energy & Utility Summit 08” in Sydney on Tuesday 22nd July 2008, touching on issues including the extremes of price volatility that were experienced over winter 2007.
Prices depressed in the NEM – Winter 2008
Our Managing Director spoke at the “Australian Energy & Utility Summit 08” in
Sydney on Tuesday 22nd July 2008, touching on a number of issues including the depressed prices experienced in winter 2008.
NSW winter peak demand forecasts
Our Managing Director spoke at the “Australian Energy & Utility Summit 08” in
Sydney on Tuesday 22nd July 2008, touching on a number of issues including the nature of peak demand forecasts (for winter in the NSW region) over the coming 10 years
“Power Prices Jump in Eye of the Storm”, from the AFR
Following from an alert to the situation provided by NEM-Watch, Duncan Hughes published an article “Power Price Jump in Eye of the Storm” that mentioned the extremely low levels of NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin (IRPM) that had occurred for a 60-minute period over both days.
Winter 2002
Events of Winter 2002 in the NEM.
Background information to the shortage of capacity in winter 2007
Following from the interest generated in the article published in the AFR, we completed some analysis of the trend in IRPM over the history of the NEM up until June 2007.
The results of this analysis revealed that at no time before 2007 had the IRPM even dropped below 12% and that, except for the 2-day period (19th and 20th June) the IRPM had not dropped below 10%.
Winter 2007 – NEM-wide shortage of capacity
For two remarkable winter evenings in 2007 (19th and 20th June specifically) NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin (IRPM) plunged to the lowest levels ever seen in the NEM (a mere 7.6%) as generators were caught short of capacity by a…
Winter 2002 – Generator Market Power
From the start of the NEM through until 2001, the NEM was typified by a pricing dichotomy with sustained rock-bottom pricing in NSW, Snowy and Victoria and high and volatile pricing in the extremities (Queensland and South Australia).
In 2001, the QNI interconnection and many generation projects were developed. This led to the convergence of prices between all regions, and the disappearance of price volatility – circumstances that were a real threat to generator profitability.
In response, generators adopted an approach that came to be known as “the economic withholding of capacity” to engineer volatility into the market throughout winter 2002 – and hence higher prices as a result., and generator behaviour.