What happens, when Supply ≠ Demand?
For short term reasons (related to the Nelson Review and the NEMDev conference) and longer-term reasons, we thought it was useful to post this as a stand-alone article now.
All Posts
Why Gladstone’s prospective closure reveals a new kind of NEM failure
With the Queensland state government’s new energy roadmap due out tomorrow, Greg Elkins highlights how distorted signals and state interventions expose a new NEM failure.
Aggregate (estimated) curtailment of Large Solar exceeds 70% on Sunday 5th October 2025
On the prior weekend (Saturday 4th October 2025 and Sunday 5th October 2025) we saw high levels of aggregate curtailment across all Large Solar Farms.
Also difficult to see any fluctuation in Mainland Frequency on Sunday morning 5th October 2025, with BW02 offline (two-shifting)
Not seeing any obvious blip in system frequency (at the time BW02 came offline on Sat 4th Oct 2025) we also looked at the similar outage on Sun 5th Oct 2025.
Difficult to see any fluctuation in Mainland Frequency on Saturday morning 4th October 2025, with BW02 offline (two-shifting)
I was keen to see if there was any noticeable blip in System Frequency resulting from the BW02 unit coming offline on Saturday 4th October 2025 for the brief (two-shift) outage.
Talk about two-shifting … such as with BW02 on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th October 2025
Today's LinkedIn update from Geoff Eldridge at GPE about two-shifting at BW02 (such as on Sat 4th Oct 2025 and Sun 5th Oct 2025) coincides with other investigations, and prompts me to take a...
AEMO issues (short-notice, short-lived) direction for System Strength in NSW on Sunday 5th October 2025
A short article for Sunday 5th October 2025 to record the Direction issued for System Strength for NSW on Sunday 5th October 2025
New lowest* point for NEM-wide Market Demand on Saturday 4th October 2025?
A snapshot from NEMwatch at 10:55 on Saturday 4th October 2025, highlighting NEM-wide ‘Market Demand’ down at 9,393MW - a new lowest point?
The ENTSO-E ‘Factual Report’ on ‘Grid Incident in Spain and Portugal on 28 April 2025’ is out
Some of our readers will be interested to note that the Factual Report into the ‘Grid Incident in Spain and Portugal on 28 April 2025’ was released on 3rd October 2025.
AEMO updated MT PASA guidance, on 3rd October 2025
Worth copying in here AEMO's Market Notice 129413 published late Friday afternoon 3rd October 2025 pertaining to the coming two-year period - because of some changes and other notes.
Guest Authored Posts
24 GW in 24 months, a race against time for the NEM
Following his presentation at All-Energy in Melbourne last week, David Dixon reports on the state of the NEM's ambition to reach 82% renewables by 2030.
The implications of the Solar Sharer Offer (SSO) and Default Market Offer (DMO) review outcome on energy sellers
In this guest-authored article, Connor James explains the upcoming changes to the DMO, including the much publicised Solar Sharer Offer (SSO), and potential implications for energy sellers in NSW, SEQ, and SA.
Detailed Analysis
What inputs and processes determine a semi-scheduled unit’s availability
It is indispensable to understand how the semi-scheduled unit availability gets produced to optimally manage the critical inputs and comprehend dispatch outcomes. This article explains the key inputs and processes, focusing on the dispatch...
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...
GenInsights Quarterly Update for Q1 2023 released
A quick note on Wednesday 31st May 2023 to mark the release of GenInsights Quarterly Update for Q1 2023.
Case Study of 17:05 on 27th October 2022… Part 4: the geographical spread of +861MW AggROT
In the fourth instalment of this ongoing case study, Dan Lee maps the locations and contributions of the semi-scheduled units that contributed to the +861MW Aggregate Raw Off-Target that occurred on the afternoon of...
Case Study of 17:05 on 27th October 2022 … part 3 … (+861MW AggROT – source of AvailGen)
In Part 3 of this Case Study, we look at the source of the Dispatch Interval Availability forecasts for these units at 17:05 on 27th October 2022 (i.e. Self-Forecast or something else, incl AWEFS/ASEFS).
Why capacity factor is an increasingly over-simplistic metric
Dan Lee explains why capacity factor could be becoming an increasingly less useful measure for comparing how different solar farms are performing and begins an exploration into some of the factors in play when...
Case Study of 17:05 on 27th October 2022 (+861MW AggROT for Semi-Scheduled units) … Part 1 of (an uncertain number)
In Part 1 of this Case Study, we start to look at the large collective under-performance across all Semi-Scheduled units (i.e. Wind and Large Solar) at 17:05 on 27th October 2022. More to come...