How Good is Solar Farming?
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, takes a look, via the GSD2019 (released today), at the four different headwinds facing solar farm developers and operators operating in the NEM.
Energy Transition
A large collection of articles pertaining to the ongoing ‘Energy Transition’ in any of a number of ways.
Specific sub-categories relate to such things as Coal Closure, and other aspects of the transition.
What is the RRO and why has the South Australian Energy Minister just triggered it?
Perhaps missed amongst all the bushfire-related action in the NEM, the SA Minister for Energy last week initiated the Retailer Reliability Obligation. Guest author Allan O’Neil tries to come to grips with what this means, and what happens next?
AEMO speaks directly to Wind and Solar Farm operators – please alert us to temperature limitations on your assets
In what seems (to me) to be an extraordinary measure, AEMO speaks directly to the operators of Wind and Solar assets in the NEM, asking them to update the AEMO on the high-temperature limitations of their plant. How did it come to this?…
The collapse in Queensland renewable energy investment – the canary in the coal mine
Guest author, Tristan Edis, looks particularly at the Queensland Region of the NEM, and an almost complete stop in the development of new renewables projects.
New supply in the NEM – what’s happening?
Today’s guest author, Ben Willacy, examines current trends in commisioning activity and new grid connections for new supplies in the NEM.
The (ongoing!) opacity of distributed, small-scale solar PV output
42 months after I posted some initial thoughts about “the opacity of rooftop PV” it seems that – when viewed in certain ways, discussed here – the problem is actually getting worse, not better.
Do you know of people who can help us?
Readers at WattClarity might recall that we have asked the question above a couple of times in recent weeks – and a big thanks to those who responded already! We’re blessed with opportunities at present (have been for a while,…
Insights: How do weather patterns impact wind REZ correlations?
RepuTex Energy builds on the Generator Report Card 2018 to provide insights into how different weather patterns impact wind production and the implications for system diversity and portfolio risk.
All aboard the Negawatt Express … but where are we really headed?
Better late than never (perhaps?) today I post a few thoughts about the AEMC’s proposed draft rule change for the incorporation of NegaWatts into centralized dispatch.
Lessons learnt in bringing new wind and solar to commercial operations stage
Our guest author Maria Cahill, offers insights and details lessons learnt over the past two years since moving to Melbourne from the UK to set up K2 Management’s Australian office.
Investments in increasing the flexibility of Coal-Fired Power
Some operations at Stanwell Power Station unit 1 in the past couple weeks caught our attention, and are presented as a useful illustration of some concepts related to flexibility of power generators (in this case, coal-fired power).
Some observations about Storage
Last minute complications mean that I cannot speak at today’s “Queensland Smart Energy Summit” (with Jonathon Dyson being an even better substitute). Here are some of the observations I would have liked to discuss with the audience there…
Who’s responsible for those negative prices?
Rapidly growing solar PV output has been widely tagged as the cause of low and even negative prices in Queensland. But in any market it’s the behaviour of ALL participants that determines price outcomes. Guest author Allan O’Neil takes a closer look at recent NEM bidding.
The Fuel Mix supporting the NEM is at the start of a massive transformation
Two pages taken from our Generator Report Card following several different requests from people who attended different events recently where the Report Card was discussed.
Transitional challenges require greatly enhanced analytical capability (exemplified in MT PASA Rule Change proposals, for instance)
A few additional thoughts about proposed changes to the MT PASA process, informed by our conclusions in Theme 14 within Part 2 of our Generator Report Card.
Initial thoughts and questions about last Friday’s under-frequency load shedding in Great Britain
Some brief data gathering and analysis, primarily because I could not resist the exploration, of what might have happened with the load shedding in the electricity grid across England, Wales and Scotland on Friday last week.
Calculated level of inertia in the South Australian grid, supplied by synchronous generation plant
Last week’s notable under-frequency load shedding in Great Britain following what appears to be the loss of two generation units in quick succession prompts me to publish some of the analysis of aggregate levels of inertia supplied by synchronous generators in South Australia as part of the Generator Report Card.
Two different storm warnings in South Australia – one literal, and one metaphorical
Coincidentally this week it seems to me that we’re facing storm warnings on two different fronts – one literal (and much easier to prepare for), whilst the other one is metaphorical and operates at several different levels (and is much, much more difficult to manage).
Assessing the diversity of intermittent (wind and solar output) as one piece of analysis in the Generator Report Card
In terms of diversity of intermittent supplies, we need to understand that we’re not just comparing data series on a scale that runs from “highly correlated” to “random”…
A page for each DUID in (Part 3 of) the Generator Report Card
Worth sharing the level of detail we’re going to, in Part 3 of the Generator Report Card (5 parts in total), where we have assembled millions of data points into a single page summarizing the last 10 years of performance of a particular generation unit. There’s a page for each operational unit (327 in total).