Villain #5c – too much focus on COST, not enough focus on VALUE
Some thoughts (triggered by the latest wave of focus on "cost" on social media this week) about why we need to rapidly shift our focus to what customers "value" and the market needs.
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.
Large Solar in the NEM mainland regions
The growth of Large Solar in the NEM has been phenomenal, and a sign that things are changing quickly in the Australian energy industry. The chart attached is the maximum output of each region...
Villain #6–reaching for (or believing in) a “Magic Wand”
We've noted what seems to be an increasing tendency of all of us to reach for some form of "magic wand" as a cure-all for the vexed challenges confronting us in this energy transition.
Too much solar? For whom exactly?
Recently there have been a number of media reports of energy industry people talking about too much solar. One of our guest authors takes a look.
How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 3
In our guest author's third article, Michael Williams comments on the growing trend for corporate energy buyers to contract directly with certain wind and/or solar plant for renewable energy supply over a longer-term time...
Villain #5 – not focusing on the real problems
Fifteen months after first speaking at Clean Energy Summit about the train wreck that's ongoing in terms of our mismanaged energy transition (and coincident with another industry gathering in the form of the AFR...
How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 2
In the previous article on reducing electricity costs we looked at energy efficiency and the fact that the cheapest electricity is the electricity that you don’t consume. In this article we will look at...
How To Reduce Electricity Costs – Part 1
We all know that electricity prices have escalated dramatically over the last couple of years. But did you know that it is possible to offset these increases and even achieve cost reductions in the...
Lessons from the trenches – 10 tips for new entrant generation developers
Through our consulting business, Greenview Strategic Consulting, we have had the pleasure of working with a variety of new entrants and NEM-veteran organisations alike in the generation sector of the NEM over the past...
Villain #4 – the yawning gap between our Sector-Wide Aggregate “Energy Literacy” and what we require
A year after I first spoke about "Villains" playing a role in the train wreck of our energy transition, I've finally found some time to post about Villain #4.
Further thoughts on the emergence of the “Solar Correlation Penalty”
Some further thoughts on what we've termed a "Solar Correlation Penalty" which point-view of some specific dispatch intervals seems to suggest is occurring
New hedging options emerge in the NEM as the energy transition accelerates
Our guest author, Dave Guiver from ERM Power, outlines some new options for hedging in relation to the influx of many new large-scale solar PV projects
Just because a company wears a “green halo”, that does not mean it can disrespect its potential customers [UPDATED]
An advertisement seen on TV in recent days from a (relatively) new entrant in the energy sector reinforces, to me, the need for the energy sector more broadly to do a much better job...
Power System Frequency – What is it doing? – Why does it matter?
The East Coast power system of Australia has the worst frequency regulation in the developed world. This puts the system at risk whenever an event occurs which requires the generators to respond quickly –...
Short term forecasting of wind power plant generation for the provision of ancillary services
As NEM wind power plants progressively work towards implementing FCAS, the criticality of ensuring that the power system either a) takes account of the variability in the wind forecasts coming from the wind power...
Let’s Keep Talking About FCAS
Following on from the Let's Talk About FCAS post, the focus of this post is the business case and subsequent optimisation challenge for getting involved in FCAS, now that the technical performance components have...
Grandfathers Axe or Low Hanging Fruit?
Upgrading our existing coal thermal fleet to increase efficiency and flexibility could provide a cost-effective opportunity to add dispatchable capacity and lower the overall carbon intensity of our electricity sector.
Villain #3 – those at either extreme of the Emotion-o-meter
It seems to us that the people at either extreme of the Emotion-o-meter are causing this energy transition to see-saw off the tracks. For this reason they are Villain #3.
How does frequency regulation help avoid Blackouts?
What are the lessons about frequency regulation that can be learned from the SA blackout?
It’s complete baloney to claim that there’s “less than 1%” of peak demand in the NEM that is currently providing Demand Response
Some quick thoughts (before I run out of time) about why it's all-too-commonly (but mistakenly) stated that there's not much Demand Response in the NEM