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In this edition of the Weekly Dispatch: The AER have released the 2023-24 DMO with prices increasing around 20%. Meanwhile Japan’s government has announced price rises of between 14% and 42%. Meeting communique from the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial…

In this edition of the Weekly Dispatch: Gas spot prices have been above $12/GJ since 28 March and have averaged $17/GJ so far in May. Energy Policy WA has released a consultation paper proposing significant reforms to the Reserve Capacity…

Every 5 minutes, AEMO will dispatch generators across the National Electricity Market (NEM) in order to meet demand. To achieve this, AEMO needs to predict what demand will look like 5 minutes in the future.     Currently, AEMO uses…

Note: This article was first featured on WattClarity.  As the NEM transitions to a generation mix increasingly made up of wind and solar it is becoming increasingly important to understand the impact of constraints on dispatch. The NEM dispatch engine…

In this edition of the Weekly Dispatch: The 2023-24 Federal Budget includes measures that focus on: Funding for auctions for the Capacity Investment Scheme in South Australia, Victoria and NSW (in partnership with the Roadmap) later this year; Growing the…

In this edition of the Weekly Dispatch: AEMO Services has announced the successful projects from their first competitive tender with contracts awarded for 1,120 MW of solar PV, 275 MW of wind generation and a 50 MW 8-hour battery. Energy…

In this edition of the Weekly Dispatch: Ocean surface temperatures hit new records and the Bureau of Meteorology’s latest model run suggests El Niño is increasingly likely later this year. Lynne Kiesling writes how a misdiagnosis of the 2021 ERCOT…

The Weekly Dispatch is a new blog post series summarising the latest developments in the Australian and global energy markets. With so much happening across the sector we want to provide a quick digest of developments we come across during…

The second quarter of this year has witnessed a series of high price events in Queensland. These price spikes have been profoundly influenced by the dynamics associated with 5-minute dispatch, 30-minute settlement (hereafter ‘5/30’). The second quarter of this year has witnessed a series of high price events in Queensland. These price spikes have been profoundly influenced by the dynamics associated with 5-minute dispatch, 30-minute settlement (hereafter ‘5/30’).

Since the release of Dr Finkel’s review, the term ‘dispatchable generation’ has been appearing more and more across the NEM. The term does not yet have a clear definition, but seems to be used to refer to generating units whose short-term availability is largely determined by the operator (as opposed to the weather). Dispatchable generation therefore seems to encompass all generation except for wind, solar, and run-of-river hydro. Despite extensive discussion about the need for dispatchable generation, there has been little analysis of the demand for it. Against this backdrop, this week we look at the historical demand for dispatchable generation in the region of South Australia.

Following the announcement of the National Energy Guarantee, the sector has been awash with speculation about the specifics of this major new policy. Doubtless the NEG will continue to be the centre of much focus for weeks and months to come, and so we shall turn to this in future issues. Instead, this week we respond to a request from one of our readers to take a look at frequency control ancillary services (FCAS) costs. FCAS costs have often been dismissed as ‘small potatoes’ in the scheme of electricity supply, but have risen substantially in recent years. We examine this trend in this week’s charts.

For the last couple of weeks, the energy industry has been dominated by discussions about the long foreshadowed closure of Liddell. There has been a great deal of focus on the consequences of the closure during times of high demand. Amidst all the focus on highdemand, South Australia has been experiencing amazingly low levels of demand in recent weeks. Given that unusually low demand is unlikely to make the headlines, this week we thought we would make it our focus by examining the recent minimum demand outcomes in South Australia and Victoria.