100% Renewables – A year in practice
Adam Clarke from The City of Newcastle local government publishes this detailed look at what operating on a 100% renewable electricity contract looks like in practice, a year on.
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.
AEMC publishes Rule Determination on Semi-Scheduled Generators
This morning the AEMC has published its final rule focused on clarifying how Semi-Scheduled generators should follow dispatch targets – including in dispatch intervals where prices are negative, and some had been unexpectedly switching off.
Next domino? Yallourn closing in 2028 … four years earlier than original plan.
Two initial thoughts, following EnergyAustralia’s announcement that they will close Yallourn Power Station four years earlier than initially planned (mid-2028).
Report ‘Fast Erosion of Coal Plant Profits’ prompts questions
A report released this week by Green Energy Markets and the IEEFA exploring the prospect of accelerated coal closures, has itself caused some ripples…
The accelerating rise of Negative Prices in the NEM
A longer-term trend of the incidence of negative prices across each region of the NEM … and, most interestingly, the pattern by time of day.
Reflections (from afar) on the electricity shortages and load shedding in Texas
Watching what’s unfolded in Texas over the past 24 hours has been rather disconcerting … but also prompted questions about the broader energy transition. Here are some thoughts.
Pain at AGL Energy … part 2
Following last week’s ASX & Media Release, this week’s half-year results presented by AGL Energy has more questions being asked. Here are some …
AEMO publishes Handbook for Wind and Solar Generators
As promised in the Intermittent Generation Forum late in 2020, the AEMO has released an important Handbook for operators of Semi-Scheduled (wind and solar) assets.
New Sources of Strength
Guest author Allan O’Neil puts together an in-depth explainer about system strength and looks at the current approach to system strength management in South Australia, its impacts and the imminent installation of synchronous condensers on the SA grid.
AGL Energy announces $2.6b impairment … of which $1.9b for legacy wind farm off-take agreements
Today AGL Energy announces a big impairment … with a big chunk related to long-term wind offtake agreements which AGL entered into between 2006 and 2012.
Using the GSD2020 to explore operating patterns across generation types
With the release of the Generator Statistical Digest 2020, Marcelle Gannon takes a look at how it can be useful for identifying and exploring different patterns of generation.
How aggregate production from Wind and Large Solar in NSW dropped last week – one factor contributing to price spikes and Reserve Trader
An unfortunately timed significant slump in output across all Wind and Large Solar plant in NSW was another of the factors contributing to the price volatility seen in NSW last week.
What’s up with the fleet of 16 x coal-fired units in NSW?
Following a week where several days saw price volatility in NSW (with this being so extreme that Reserve Trader was triggered on Thursday 17th December) we’ve taken a look at the comparative performance of coal units across the NEM (and particularly in NSW) compared to prior years.
Increasing the transparency and correctness of intermittent generation availability information to AEMO
Following up to AEMO’s recent Intermittent Generator forum, Marcelle looks at the challenges for wind and solar farms in providing consistently good plant availability information to AEMO and the value of transparency of this data.
PPAs aren’t as easy as they used to be!
This is the fourth of a short series of video snippets extracted from the 17th September 2020 presentation by Marcelle Gannon and Jonathon Dyson for the Clean Energy Council entitled ‘Maximising Profitability in the NEM’ for Wind Farms.
How does a wind or solar farm make money?
This is the third of a short series of video snippets extracted from the 17th September 2020 presentation by Marcelle Gannon and Jonathon Dyson for the Clean Energy Council entitled ‘Maximising Profitability in the NEM’ for Wind Farms.
Constraint Case Study Followup – Early outcomes of the new “X5 constraint”
On 25th November, guest author Allan O’Neil examined the ‘X5 Constraint’. Two weeks of operation have passed, so now Allan reviews some of what’s happened.
Conformance and compliance–what’s the difference?
This is the second of a short series of video snippets extracted from the 17th September 2020 presentation by Marcelle Gannon and Jonathon Dyson for the Clean Energy Council entitled ‘Maximising Profitability in the NEM’ for Wind Farms.
Do you know your obligations as a Semi-Scheduled Generator?
This is the first of a short series of video snippets extracted from the 17th September 2020 presentation by Marcelle Gannon and Jonathon Dyson for the Clean Energy Council entitled ‘Maximising Profitability in the NEM’ for Wind Farms.
What’s “Primary Frequency Response” and why does it matter anyway?
Paul McArdle recently drew my attention to a short Twitter thread started by David Osmond on the arcane topic of NEM system frequency behaviour: At Paul’s invitation I’ve dived further into this issue to fill in some background, provide…