coal

  • Commercial and market outlook

    Patriots ‘Dynasty’ off to a rough start, as New England suffers loss to the MLFs…

    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

    Loy Yang A closure: How much VRE and firming capacity is required to cover peak hours?

    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

    Boulevard of Broken Plants: Can NSW reserves handle non-Green Days?

    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

    Australian Chart of the week | Up and down: price volatility in Queensland

    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

    Australian Chart of the week | VRE pays more as PFR helps reduce coal FCAS costs

    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

    Australian Chart of the week | If I should stay, I’ll only be in your way: coal and the transition

    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

    Australian Chart of the week | When less could be more – on the states’ green targets

    This week’s ‘Chart of the week’ looks at the impact of the states’ targets on the overall NEM’s demand-supply profile. We start with the time-of-day average generation profile in 2020; add the extra renewable needed for the states’ 2030 targets; but also subtract coal and gas that are projected to...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Australian Chart of the week | Slow is smooth and smooth is fast for the NEM transition

    Reporting season is all but over for the energy majors in Australia and that has left us with a bevy of takeaways on the sentiment for the not-so-distant future. A key thread among reports has been the current low-price environment in the NEM. This is a topic that we have...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Australian Chart of the week | Show me the future: can storage bank on FCAS being bankable?

    Previously we have examined the importance in FCAS prices for the revenue stream for batteries. With a growing interest in batteries in the market, this ‘Chart of the week’ takes a deeper look into the impact of bidding behaviour on the Regulation Raise price since 2012. From January 2012 until...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Australian Chart of the week | Push it to the limit: the evolution of MPC & market tightness

    With summer officially starting last Tuesday, the National Electricity Market (NEM) is about to go through the season that typically has the highest demand. Market tightness usually seen during summer sometimes pushes power prices to their maximum level – the Market Price Cap (MPC) – currently set at $15,000/MWh. In...

  • Low carbon generation

    Australian Chart of the week | You’ll have to share your cake: wind v gas in ‘epeak’ battle

    Spot prices are back in the headlines with increased renewable generation impacting both long term price trends as well as driving intraday value shifts; especially across mainland regions. With significant renewable generation still to come to replace exiting coal as covered in Issue 39, the key question then becomes: how much value...

  • Low carbon generation

    Australian Chart of the week | A transition period is a period between two transition periods

    Australia’s energy transition enters a new decade. A big part of the first quarter has focused on greater renewable integration into the grid. Given the level of attention on these integration issues, now is a good time to review the last decade. This Chart of the week explores how black...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Australian Chart of the week | Early coal closure signalled: a sign of things to come?

    The news from Alinta this week that one of Victoria’s largest coal plants - Loy Yang B - is unlikely to see out the full length of its licence should not be a major surprise to the market. The 1.1GW Loy Yang B station has a licence to run until...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | The end of coal as we know it?

    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...