South Australia experiences lowest (non System Black) Scheduled Demand in at least 21 years
Lowest point seen today since the start of the NEM (excluding the SA System Black) for the South Australian region.
Seasonal Record of Events in the Market
Collections of events that we see happening in the NEM, categorised in terms of the seasons in which they occur.
NSW LOR and AEMO request for Generator Recall information
Yesterday, Tuesday 29 October 2019, AEMO issued a Market Notice requesting Generator Recall information from participants in the NSW region. This was issued at 15:27 on Tuesday 29 October 2019, and came after numerous...
Second Case Study (Daydream Solar Farm on Tuesday 3rd September 2019) – another eventful day
Our second Case Study in a recent series, aimed to help us explore ways to continue the pushing the development of ez2view forward, but also shared with readers here on WattClarity. This time about...
AEMO forecasts new “lowest ever” demand today in South Australia – but misses by 200MW
A quick look at what would have been a new "lowest ever" point for SA Scheduled Demand today at 12;30 ... if the AEMO forecast had held to be valid.
Almost three years on – reflections on Frequency Control in the NEM
Guest author (and power system control specialist), Kate Summers, looks at what's changed since she published a paper on frequency control in the NEM back in January 2017.
‘Duck Curve’ delivers declining Minimum Demand levels in South Australia
An email alert from NEMwatch (noting Scheduled Demand under 500MW in South Australia today) distracts us, and prompts us to dig a little deeper at the longer-term trend.
A day in the life of a large-scale Solar Farm in the NEM –a Case Study of Ross River Solar Farm on Thursday 10th October 2019
Thursday 10th October 2019 presented another day of many negative price events in the QLD region. In this Case Study (prepared for dual purposes) we look at how one particular solar farm operated through...
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...
More on those negative prices – how do contracts affect bidding behaviour?
Guest author Allan O'Neil provides this handy explainer on how generators’ contract positions affect their bidding decisions and can make negative spot prices pay off, at least in the short term. Very useful for...
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....
Four quick thoughts, as the run of negative prices in Queensland continues…
The run of prices at $0/MWh and below is continuing in Queensland region this week as we pass into spring (many dispatch intervals today down as low as the Market Price Floor at -$1,000/MWh)....
ESOO Unboxing
Without resiling from last week’s criticism of how the headlines from AEMO’s 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) were communicated, it’d be churlish for me to fault the depth of disclosure and data sitting...
ConfUSEd by the ESOO? You’re not alone.
I’d rather not add to the number of conspiracy theories in circulation, but I wonder if there’s a conspiracy to make understanding our electricity system in general, and its reliability in particular, as difficult...
AEMO releases its 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities – more tinder for the “energy wars” fire…
AEMO releases its Electricity Statement of Opportunities today, with an initial flurry of press coverage. Another reminder of heightened risk that the NEM is increasingly facing...
Summer 19-20 is heating up already, with Reserve Trader called
Bit of an uncanny coincidence, having posted some concerns about the coming summer 2019-20 only 2 days ago, to find that the AEMO has called for expressions of interest for the Reliability and Emergency...
Two other opportunities to meet with us in Sydney during August, and discuss the Generator Report Card
Given the high level of interest in the Generator Report Card, both the Australian Institute of Energy and the Australian Energy Council have organised separate events (in Sydney in August) providing the opportunity to...
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...
Questions and Observations–about AGL’s Liddell, Torrens A (and Loy Yang A) stations
Some thoughts about some important questions we should be asking, to follow on from AGL's announcement last Friday in relation to Torrens A (linked to Barkers Inlet and Loy Yang A2) and also about...
Keeping the lights on this summer – possible impact of the Loy Yang A2 and Mortlake outages
Two large thermal generating units in Victoria with combined capacity of over 800 MW have recently experienced major electrical faults each requiring many months to repair. Previous WattClarity posts have covered initial assessments of...
Spot power at $0/MWh in all regions (Sign ‘o the Times*?)
A few thoughts about the dispatch price being at, or below, $0/MWh for a dispatch interval on Sunday afternoon - implications for the future...