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.
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.
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
Heightened Risk an increasing feature in the NEM these days…
A full page article in the FinReview today quotes a number of people (including our work in the Generator Report Card) speaking about heightened risk in the NEM. Coincident with this, we see another...
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...
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"...
Generator Report Card released (on Friday 31st May 2019)
For those who have already pre-ordered their copy, this is how you can access - and for those who have not, but would like a copy, this is how to arrange this as well.
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...
Degradation of performance at high temperatures
We're taking a much, much deeper dive into generator performance at high temperatures (for all DUIDs operational across the NEM) to see how each one of them, individually, is affected by high temperatures. Guess...
Despite growing diversity of Large Solar farms (NEM-wide), large weather events still have major dampening effects
Sharing a trend of daily capacity factor across all Large Solar plant (post commissioning) in the NEM (preliminary analysis for our Generator Report Card).
About claims that AGL was responsible for the uplift in prices after Hazelwood closed
With another upsurge in interest in the effect of Hazelwood closure on price outcomes in the NEM, we've invested some time to provide these thoughts.
The Network Investment Paradox
Guest author, Drew Donnelly, compares case studies of Argentine and Australia to highlight risks in under and over-investment in network infrastructure
Some thoughts about Demand Response, in parallel with AEMC deliberations
A collection of thoughts that have been bumping around in my head for some time about the latest push by various parties to facilitate a broader range of demand response in the NEM, and...
Villain #6c – Demand Response is not a magic wand
A note of caution, that Demand Response is not a magic wand - it *can* achieve a lot, but if can't be assumed to automatically appear to bridge any gap between supply and demand...