hydro

  • 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...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    I can be your hydro baby, I can ramp away the pain

    The recent suite of energy market reforms proposed by the Energy Security Board (ESB) has prompted much discussion about the type of capacity that needs to be procured in a future NEM that seems certain to have a very high penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE). In this Chart of...

  • 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 | A tale of two cities: batteries vs pumped hydro & solar vs wind

    On 1 April 2020 the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released the final Marginal Loss Factors - MLFs - for 2020-21. This week's Chart of the Week looks at how the MLFs have changed and which assets benefited the most. If we look closely at the MLF results over the past...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Australian Chart of the week | Pumped storage: Silent winners in the energy transition so far?

    Last week’s Chart of the week discussed the price-setter role renewable technologies are increasingly playing in the NEM. Following on, this week’s Chart examines the impact these pricing dynamics are having on pumped storage operations across the market. To run, storage technologies – pumped hydro/ batteries – typically exploit arbitrage...

  • 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

    Pixie Chart of the week | Community energy in 2018: mixed messages

    Community Energy England (CEE), a not-for-profit organisation which is the voice of the community energy sector, launched its State of the Sector 2019 report at an event on 22 June, coinciding with the start of community energy fortnight. Our chart this week illustrates that communities raised £2.3mn in development funding and £40mn...

  • Commercial and market outlook

    Pixie Chart of the week | CARES Publishes Financial Analysis for Renewables Projects

    In this week’s Pixie Chart of the week, following the closure of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme to new generation on 31 March 2019, Community and Renewable Energy Scotland (CARES) has produced guidelines to help assess returns for investment in small-scale renewable energy. The CARES Project Viability Modelling Post Feed-in Tariff investigates the economic...