Renewable Energy, Resources

Adelaide – Melbourne hot days pressure power prices

9 Comments

Thanks to Siliggy for the heads up. AEMO has both South Australia and Victoria with “Scheduled Demand” prices for todays afternoon peak plus $10,000 MWh. Something to watch as the afternoon turns to evening – surely those sky-high prices will moderate as bids come in. OpenNem for SA and Vic shows clearly that yesterdays heat upped demand and wind power fades away exactly when needed across the peak. As a curiosity Tasmania was exporting through BassLink at max during the peak but at very low uneconomic prices from 1730hrs to 2000hrs. We need a Royal Commission into the Electricity Grid to force information and explanations public.

9 thoughts on “Adelaide – Melbourne hot days pressure power prices”

  1. This afternoon if the AEMO price prediction comes true. The price in South Australia will be above $10,000 per MWh for about 4 hours. The usage is predicted to be about 2350 MW.
    $10,000 * 2350 * 4 = 94 Million dollars.
    There goes more than twice the amount they claim the battery has saved in its life time.
    However some of the wind forecast models are predicting the wind speeds to drop off in vast areas of SA, N.S.W and Vic during the peak. At the same time temperatures are predicted to be very high. This means aircons will be running hard.
    Are we about to see the grid fail in fair weather?

  2. Ooops forgot a rough estimate of cost for Vic if the prediction holds true.
    Closer to $10500 per MWh for 3 hours at 8400 MW at the moment.
    = $264.6 Million.

  4. AEMO daily averages for December show the highest prices for SA and Vic were on the 6th and 7th – obviously caused by the two hot days. So after months of the Govt trying to talk tough with generators – we see all the expert AEMO planning can not stop prices ~doubling in the two weakest states due to a well forecast 2 day hot spell.

  5. Well it looks like the prices were held down to peak at $2237.41 in Vic and $2068.88 in South Australia. Held down by Heaps of power coming down from Queensland and a strange thing from Tasmania.
    Nearly the whole time instead of playing the market for the best price the AEMO screen seemed to show hydro supplied that states needs and donated a stable 478 MWh to the rest of the national grid at a small negative price. While the Tassie “Wind and other” was often at zero, what survived the green attack on Australian energy seems to be still rescuing us.
    The history in their own words explaining why hydro should never ever be counted as green energy.
    www.greenleft.org.au/content/lake-pedder-beginning-movement

  6. Very interesting graphs for VIC and SA, thanks.

    Notice how hydro and gas have average values nearly double that of wind. This is because whenever wind is available, it depresses the overall market price. The more wind power you have, the lower the market price, so the less the wind power is worth.

    Yet hardly anyone seems to realise the time-dependency of electricity prices. You just hear how wind is so cheap. It might be cheap to produce but like many cheap things it’s not as good – and you have to buy something expensive to make up for its low quality. In fact, since a continuous supply of electricity is absolutely vital, you have to be ready to spend a fortune to plug the gaps when wind suddenly drops out.

    This means that, despite wind power being “cheap”, if you got rid of it completely, prices would fall, since there would also be much less need for high-priced, instantly available power from gas and hydro (and even from distillate and batteries in SA – desperate and very expensive last-ditch alternatives to avoid blackouts).

  7. Despite weekend prices usually being subdued due lower demand compared weekdays and despite cooler weather Saturday; both Victoria and South Australia had near $100 average prices for Saturday showing how the price damage lingers on. Will anybody in ScoMo Govt be watching? Will anybody in ScoMo Govt be understanding?

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