With demand soaring, and interconnectors constrained, generators in South Australia and Victoria took what opportunity they had to force the price high. So successful were the South Australian generators that the Cumulative Price Threshold was reached in South Australia and, under NEM Rules, an Administered Price Cap was applied for a period of time.
In March 2008 (after summer had officially ended) South Australians were forced to endure a record 15 straight days of temperatures climbing above 35ºC. Victorians also experienced extreme heat for a number of days.
This sweltering weather forced demand through the roof as people used every available technology to keep their cool.
Victoria experiences a large blackout in the afternoon and evening of 16 January 2007, when bush fires cause three main transmission lines to trip.
This created chaos throughout much of Melbourne, and represented perhaps the most significant stress the NEM had experienced since its inception on 13th December 1998.
Over the period of summer 2006-07, we prepared a number of articles about other occasions of note in the NEM (in addition to the blackout of 16th January 2007, which has been written about separately).
Our Managing Director was asked to speak at the “Queensland Energy” conference in Brisbane on Wednesday 12th March – specifically addressing the topic of price volatility in the NEM.
To provide the basis of discussion during the conference, we focused our analysis solely on Queensland region (to make the topic more manageable).
In our review of volatility in the Queensland region, we focused specifically on 3 core attributes of the market: Queensland dispatch prices; NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin; and the concept of “Economic Islands”.
Over the period of summer 2005-06, we prepared a number of articles about other occasions of note in the NEM. These articles are linked here.
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