Coal-fired generation is in the news again, as Great Britain experiences over 50 hours without any coal-fired power stations. This week’s Chart of the week we look at the key-value benchmark ‘clean dark spread’.
The clean dark spread is the notional profit from selling power and buying coal and carbon for an average station. The average dark spread for the winter just gone was just £5/MWh. Moreover for much of October and January value was negligible.
Commercial and market outlook
The Federal Government has legislated emissions reductions of 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. Sourcing electricity from renewable technologies is fundamental to meeting this, with a much-publicised target of 82% renewables in the grid by 2030 – up from a current value of 38% over the last year. Fortunately, the...
Commercial and market outlook
For many, the first of April is marked in calendars as a day for jokes and silly nuisances. For the few, specifically the energy industry, we have it pencilled in for the release of the upcoming year’s Marginal Loss Factors (MLFs). Over the last half-decade, movements in MLFs have received...
Low carbon generation
AGL has accelerated the closure of the Loy Yang A power station for the second time in 2022, a few days after the Victorian government announced a target of 2.6 GW storage by 2030, increasing to 6.3 GW storage by 2035. According to the AGL announcement, released on 29 September,...
Commercial and market outlook
It’s been easy to get caught up in all the news from the Victoria and Queensland governments proposing record-setting funding and environmental targets by 2030 and 2035, along with the news of AGL bringing forward the closure of Loy Yang A. This signals that energy transition is now well and...
Low carbon generation
In our previous ‘Chart of the week’, we observed increased intraday price volatility since late May, where we are seeing higher morning and evening prices. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO’s) released Quarterly Energy Dynamics (QED) report for Q2 2021 attributed the price increase to reduction of thermal generation supply...
Low carbon generation
In our previous ‘Chart of the week’ in November 2020, we reviewed the increasing percentage of causer pays cost that solar generators bear due to their generation profiles and how this results in them paying significantly more of the causer pays cost as a ratio of the generation they provide. More than...
Low carbon generation
Events in Queensland on 25 May 2021 tested the resilience of the Queensland demand/supply balance with 3GW of coal generation suddenly coming offline due to a loss of generation at the Callide power station. According to AEMO’s preliminary report – released on 1 June 2021 – on the event, the outage also...
Low carbon generation
This Chart of the week examines the historical captured prices of selected technologies within NSW for the last 10 years. Figure 1 shows the historical rolling monthly average of captured prices of various technologies within New South Wales against the monthly generation of variable renewable resources including small scale rooftop....
