Price volatility in SA on August 1, 2023
Light winds and a constrained interconnector contributed to elevated prices on 1 August 2023.
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.
Engineering the transition and control of electricity
Kate Summers gave the keynote address for the “System and market design for a high renewables future” session at the CEC’s Clean Energy Summit earlier this week. This article contains the full text of her speech.
Operations of coal-fired generators (Vales Point, and Eraring?) extended in NSW
Friday 14th July 2023 sees some media articles and commentary about several coal-fired generators running longer than previously thought, as the energy transition hits some speed bumps.
From the outside looking in: Checking back in with the NEM via Australian Energy Week 2023 coverage
After having had an extended break abroad, the coverage from last week’s AEW event provided a unique opportunity to check back in with the energy market from an outsider’s perspective.
Increasing curtailment of Wind and Solar across the NEM
With Q2 drawing to a close, we’re gearing up to produce GenInsights Quarterly Update for this quarter. Timely to look back at Q1 at what was reported about curtailment of wind and solar in that earlier Quarterly Update.
A cold evening drives NEM-wide demand high, and IRPM low, on Tuesday 20th June 2023
The ‘Australian Energy Week’ conference this week in Melbourne, and the NEM this evening has given a real-time example of some energy transition challenges.
Another research paper into solar and wind droughts in Australia
A quick note at another research paper (focused on an area of interest to us) that’s crossed our field of vision.
Digging further into ‘Aggregate Scheduled Target’, to understand what Dispatchable Capacity is actually required
In conjunction with the analysis done to complete GenInsights Quarterly Update for Q1 2023 (released today), here’s 14 years of daily data of ‘Aggregate Scheduled Target’ that might help to illustrate the aggregate requirement for fully dispatchable capacity of some type as the closure of coal accelerates into the future.
An imminent improvement to the bidding and dispatch process for Semi-Scheduled units
AEMO is re-enabling the ‘MaxAvail’ figure in bids for Semi-Scheduled units. It will act as a limit on capacity available, feeding into the NEMDE dispatch process for the unit. We look at how Semi-Scheduled plant have currently been treating MaxAvail in the bid and share some insights.
AEMO’s MMS 5.2, ez2view v9.7, Semi-Scheduled MaxAvail in the Bid, and a self-forecasting example
Today (Tue 23rd May) is the go-live date for AEMO’s EMMS v5.2 – which will contain new data for some market enhancements. Here’s a quick look at where this first change will appear in ez2view, highlighting some considerations for Semi-Scheduled units and self-forecasting.
Too Early to Say?
Guest author, Allan O’Neil, publishes some analysis for WattClarity on price and generation mix changes apparent in the NEM coincident with (but not wholly caused by) the closure of the last remaining units at Liddell Power Station.
We’re not building enough replacement dispatchable capacity
With completion of GenInsights Quarterly Update for Q1 2023 approaching, and following some conversations recently (and probably this week at EUAA Conference) here are two charts looking backwards just at fully dispatchable plant that highlight one of the ways in which ‘the level of risk in the NEM is escalating’.
How dispatch works … it’s much more than just a bid stack
New guest author, Ryan Esplin progressively builds a more precise model of the NEMDE dispatch process to illustrate why the stylised ‘Merit Order’ bid stack model is increasingly not enough to explain dispatch and price outcomes in the NEM
Renewable curtailment – forced and not quite so forced
Inspired by the recent article by Tristan Edis (who referenced the GSD2022 in analysis of curtailment of some wind and solar farms), Allan O’Neil follows on with more analysis of the two main types of curtailment. Allan differentiates these as ‘forced curtailment’ and ‘economic offloading’
Liddell’s ghost stalks the market
During early morning Monday 1st May prices spiked in the NSW quite unexpectedly. Guest author Allan O’Neil takes us into the complexities of the EMMS and NEMDE to help us understand the mechanics of how this happened.
Australia’s Renewable Energy Boom – The Good, The Bad and the Downright Ugly
Tristan Edis from Green Energy Markets takes a deep dive into generator performance across the NEM. He provides his take on which wind and solar farms have outperformed and underperformed, through the recent renewable investment boom.
That’s all folks: the last unit of Liddell Power Station closes
Liddell Unit 1 ramped down it’s output to 0MW at roughly 10:30am this morning, signaling the full retirement of Liddell Power Station.
AEMO intermittently forecasting LOR2 (Low Reserve Condition) for NSW for Saturday 29th April 2023 – the day after the last Liddell unit is scheduled to close
As many know, Liddell Unit 1 is slated to close today (the last of the 4 units), Friday 28th April. Unfortunately coincident with that, AEMO is forecasting LOR2 low reserve condition for the middle of the afternoon tomorrow, Saturday 29th April 2023.
Fat lady singing for three down (with LD02 on the way out) and one to go at AGL’s Liddell Power Station
A short article to mark the closure of Liddell unit 2 on Wednesday evening, 26th April 2023.
Liddell’s unit 4 closes
A quick note to show the last dispatch interval of output from Lidell Unit 4, with the two remaining units slated to follow suit in the coming days.