Renewable Energy, Resources

First day post Hazelwood – Tassie Hydro props up Eastern electricity grid

13 Comments

Comments starting with Qld (grid “strongman” now) and during an eastern wind drought. Generation by Nemwatch – Price and Demand from AEMO. For bigger Nemwatch chart

QLD demand 6,042MW with generation 6,959MW running a modest surplus in view all grids need some spinning reserve.
NSW demand 8,306MW with generation 7,686MW running a surprising deficit. Must be maxing imports from Qld.
Vic demand 5,373MW with generation 5,328MW small deficit should have spinning reserve. I have never seen Vic in deficit in a year or more watching.
SA demand 1,525MW with generation 1,323MW running a deficit – must be importing from Vic.
Tas demand 1,277MW with generation 1,902MW running a big surplus – Basslink must be humming at near max 600MW feeding power to SA, NSW and Vic.
For months Vic has been the lynchpin State exporting as required to NSW, SA and Tas. Verily our politicians have wrought harm to our electricity system.
Latest AEMO “wholesale price” chart up to Hazelwood closing. Larger version.

Added 3 Apr – This is an interesting AEMO page too – gives a graphical presentation of flows between States. I have not worked out what the red and pale blue signify – on the labels with arrows showing flow between States.

13 thoughts on “First day post Hazelwood – Tassie Hydro props up Eastern electricity grid”

  3. From the link,

    Current % of Full Storage Energy = 38.4 %

    Not much rain forecast over the next week.

  4. I wonder how far into winter it will be before the Victorian Parliament is debating the shut down of gas?

    I can’t imagine the point scoring opportunity for whoever the opposition leader currently is will be missed.

    Perhaps the Vic electorate may be surprised to find they have an opposition – but their ABC will do their best to hide it.

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  6. Another lengthy failure in the Basslink cable will have a dramatic impact on the above capacity sharing circumstance.
    furthermore as power is now being dispatched over greater distances – i.e. Queensland backing up South Australia’s demand -transmission line losses are rapidly increasing.

  7. Clearly TasHydro does not have long term capacity to be a prop for the big grid to the north. But equally obvious they can assist in limited times of Vic shortage. TasHydro will want to build dam levels for next summer.
    Right now there is a bit of a wind drought only 553MW in all the Eastern States – so that will throw pressure on gas & hydro, as solar fades – unless wind increases for the evening peak. But with the weather moderate demand is way off peaks. The next possible tight situations IMHO could be calm and cold weather next winter across southern states.
    Generation by Nemwatch – reneweconomy.com.au/nem-watch/
    Price and Demand by AEMO –
    www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#price-demand
    and the AEMO graphic indicating interstate electricity flows –
    www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview

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  10. Eastern wind drought only 433MW wind power all Eastern States.
    Qld near 1400MW surplus exporting ~1000MW to NSW.
    NSW near 1000MW in deficit also importing 150MW from Vic.
    Vic only 500MW surplus importing 112MW from Tas but exporting 150MW to NSW plus exporting 370MW to SA. How does Vic maintain sufficient spinning reserve?
    As you say, Queensland is the generation strongman now.

  11. red on AEMO interconnectors means constrained ie flow = limit. Blue means flow is in between limits

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