Highlights from the 2020 GSD

David Leitch highlights some themes that stuck out to him as he read through this year’s edition of the Generator Statistical Digest – including a look at how batteries are dominating the FCAS market, some surprises with capacity factor, and other things





Transition Fooled?

Through the lens of the GSD2020, Allan O’Neil looks at the much-discussed role of gas-fired generation in the ‘energy transition’ of the NEM’s generation sector


The Generator Statistical Digest 2020 (GSD2020) is released

From Monday 1st Feb 2021 the (720-page) Generator Statistical Digest 2020 is more broadly available – here’s some of what’s in it, and how you can access. Those dozens of clients who had submitted earlier pre-orders were provided early access on Friday 29th Jan 2021.









Sunday 24th Jan 2021 – a couple discrete incidents

It was forecast it would be a hot day in the southern part of the NEM and it did not disappoint. The hot weather was one of the factors that contributed to price spikes … in Regulation FCAS, and then in QLD and later in South Australia.



Yesterday’s unexpected loss of ~500MW of rooftop PV in South Australia (another type of Contingency event – Credible, or Non-Credible?)

Wednesday 13th January 2021 was a busy day in the NEM, with a couple of different events occurring. In this article we explore a sudden and unexpected drop in output across both rooftop PV and large-scale solar in South Australia that delivered both price spikes, and also broader questions about emerging challenges for the grid (and market).





Cranking the handle, to produce the Generator Statistical Digest 2020

In the same week that the Energy Security Board publishes it’s ‘The Health of the NEM’ reports, looking from a top-down systems perspective, we crank the handle to produce the ‘Generator Statistical Digest 2020’ as a bottom-up 10-year review of the performance of all Scheduled, Semi-Scheduled and some Non-Scheduled generators and scheduled loads across the NEM that operated through some part of 2020.