SA nears the Cumulative Price Threshold
On 19th January, high prices were sustained in SA for several hours, bringing the Cumulative Price within a whisker of the $150,000 threshold, at which prices would be capped.
high prices
September in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. Here we examine the trends in price and demand across the NEM for September, and take a closer look at the effects of the 2007 drought on this particular month.
A hot day in SA yesterday, and prices soared!
Just as had been forecast, Tuesday 13th January 2009 saw hot, dry weather roll in across South Australia, and then into Victoria. The high temperatures caused demand to climb, but not to the level at which NEMMCO had forecast demand to climb over the summer period. As a result we saw the price in SA jump to a level near VOLL at 13:40, and remain there until about 18:00 (i.e. more than 4 hours).
August in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM – in which we examine the trends in price and demand across the NEM for the month of August.
June in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. June has brought us several cases of “economic witholding of capacity” – particularly in 2002, and in 2007 the NEM had a very interesting week in which the IRPM plunged to its lowest level ever.
May in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM – in which we examine the trends in price and demand across the NEM for the month of May.
February in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. February has seen multiple price spikes over the years often as a result of high demand caused by the summer heat, but also during times of surplus available generation capacity.
March in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM – covering notable events of March, such as the unforgettable South Australian heatwave of 2008 which caused the Cumulative Price to reach the Cumulative Price Threshold for the first time in our memory.
April in the NEM (a review of 10 years of history)
One of 12 articles on the months past in the NEM. Here we present a detailed analysis of prices in each region of the NEM, for the month of April over the past 10 years.
NEMMCO Market Event Report – 31 October 2008
A Market Event Report has been published on the NEMMCO website discussing the market outcomes of the high energy prices in the New South Wales and Queensland regions on Friday, 31 October 2008.
31st October 2008 – High Prices and Low Reserves in NSW
A tight supply/demand balance in NSW on the 31st October, exacerbated by transmission constraints into the region led to sustained higher prices in NSW.
High Prices and Low Reserves in NSW
An illuminating view of the NEM during the high NSW prices on 31st October 2008, illustrated with screenshots and a dynamic video from the new NEM-Watch v8.
VOLL Pricing on 23rd July 2008
It appears that we spoke too soon when we mentioned on the 22nd July that winter 2008 had been relatively uneventful.
Just over 24 hours from making these comments, we saw prices jump sky-high in the mainland regions, and go the other way (to the negative price cap) in Tasmania.
Volatility in the market over winter 2007
Our Managing Director spoke at the “Australian Energy & Utility Summit 08” in Sydney on Tuesday 22nd July 2008, touching on issues including the extremes of price volatility that were experienced over winter 2007.
“Power Prices Jump in Eye of the Storm”, from the AFR
Following from an alert to the situation provided by NEM-Watch, Duncan Hughes published an article “Power Price Jump in Eye of the Storm” that mentioned the extremely low levels of NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin (IRPM) that had occurred for a 60-minute period over both days.
Analysis of price volatility in the QLD region over summer 2007-08
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”.
22nd and 23rd February 2008 – a rare hot spell in Queensland
In Queensland we experienced one of the mildest summers I can remember. As a result of this, demand levels were subdued for most of summer. However, for a couple of days in late February, summer finally arrived, and struck with a vengeance.
Background information to the shortage of capacity in winter 2007
Following from the interest generated in the article published in the AFR, we completed some analysis of the trend in IRPM over the history of the NEM up until June 2007.
The results of this analysis revealed that at no time before 2007 had the IRPM even dropped below 12% and that, except for the 2-day period (19th and 20th June) the IRPM had not dropped below 10%.
Winter 2007 – NEM-wide shortage of capacity
For two remarkable winter evenings in 2007 (19th and 20th June specifically) NEM-Wide Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin (IRPM) plunged to the lowest levels ever seen in the NEM (a mere 7.6%) as generators were caught short of capacity by a…
11th January 2007 – first spike in demand above 30,000MW
There was a temperature-driven spike in demand across the NEM later in the week beginning Sunday 7th January – culminating in the summer’s first demand peak above 30,000MW (on Thursday 11th January).
On this occasion, the spot price spiked above $1000/MWh in Queensland, NSW, Snowy and Victoria,