Edge News

Our team is dedicated to being across the energy industry. We analyse any changes within the market and evaluate the impact to our clients. Here you will find a range of articles ranging from major industry events through to our detailed views on energy market movements.

13 Nov STATE OF THE ELECTRICITY MARKET – WINTER MARKET OVERVIEW

Posted at 12:29h in Edge Insights, Electricity, Energy Markets, News by Alex Driscoll

Electricity spot prices in Q319 (July to September) were relatively in line with Q3 2017 and 2018, however much higher than prices seen from 2014 to 2016 inclusive. Although, Q319 prices were softer than any other quarter for the year (2019) in majority of the NEM regions. The past three months have seen multiple negative price events in SA and QLD due to mild demand, constrained interconnectors and strong renewable generation volumes in solar (rooftop PV and large scale) and wind. SA’s Q319 price is on a downward trajectory from the massive jump-up it experienced in 2016, taking with it NSW and QLD which both had lower Q319’s in comparison to...

13 Nov Predicted Shortfall of LGCs for 2019

Posted at 12:27h in Edge Insights, News by Alex Driscoll

LGC’s remain relatively elevated at ~$50/certificate. Volumes are being traded whilst liquidity is still being indicated as reasoning for increased prices for CAL19 certificates market. The Clean Energy Regulator came out on Thursday 31 October and announced based on forecasts and certificates created thus far this year, there is likely to be a shortfall in CAL19 certificate creation by 2 million certificates which has resulted in an uplift in prices. Despite this, we are seeing continued strong wind and solar generation around the NEM which will continue to have a positive impact on creation levels, with fewer interconnector constraints and transmission constraints intra-regionally impacting energy flows. Tas Hydro’s fleet of run-of-river hydro...

13 Nov Are you on your way to transitioning your Baseline?

Posted at 12:24h in Edge Insights, Electricity, News by Edge Admin

As has been heavily documented the Safeguard Mechanism (which covers approximately 50% of Australia’s covered emissions) is one of the measures in place to help Australia meet its Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) reduction targets of 28% under 2005 levels by 2030. Following the updates to the Safeguard Mechanism rules in March 2019 facilities should review their current arrangements to ensure they are best placed for the upcoming changes and are best positioned to meet their future obligations. Edge has been working with clients to review what the changes could mean for them and provided positive outcomes for their environmental reporting and Safeguard baseline applications. We ensure clients are not only on...

23 Aug 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities

Posted at 12:27h in Electricity, Energy Markets, News by Alex Driscoll

Yesterday the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released its 2019 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO), which forecasts electricity supply reliability in the National Electricity Market for the next 10 years. An important change in this year’s ESOO is the inclusion of forecasting of reliability shortfalls that form part of the Retailer Reliability Obligation framework. AEMO continues to forecast a fine margin between supply and demand in several regions. Although most margins are tight, Victoria is forecast to not meet the reliability standard for unserved energy. AEMO has flagged Victoria as a significant risk of insufficient supply to meet demand that could result in load shedding. The key driver for this is the...

30 Jul Queensland Government direction to Stanwell lifted

Posted at 12:05h in Electricity, Energy Markets, News, Uncategorized by Alex Driscoll

The CEO of Stanwell was quoted yesterday in Reneweconomy.com.au stating that "bidding direction ended on 30 June 2019” in reference to the direction given to Stanwell form the Queensland Government in May 2017 to lower wholesale prices. Spot prices have been soft since 1 July 2019 across the NEM and there is currently no evidence to suggest that Stanwell (and CS Energy) have immediately reacted to the lift of the direction. When the direction was first given by the Queensland Government in 2017 to Stanwell, energy prices materially came down and generally speaking have been less volatile. Key assets such as Swanbank E and Wivenhoe have been utilised by Stanwell and CS...

11 Jul Updates to EdgeLIVE

Posted at 11:01h in Edge Insights, News by Edge Admin

With our vision to create a superior energy management platform, we are constantly developing EdgeLIVE to improve its look and overall functionality for our customers. Our technology team have been working tirelessly to completely overhaul the EdgeLIVE Dashboards and navigation functions relating to your ‘end of month’ account management reporting. Dashboards EdgeLIVE now has dedicated dashboards for Accruals and Invoice Reconciliation. The new dashboards display a summary of the invoice for each NMI, as well as a line-by-line breakdown of the individual invoice items. The new functionality is easy to follow and can provide users with as little or as much detail as is required. Snapshot Dashboard EdgeLIVE also contains a snapshot dashboard to...

09 Jul Enhancements to RERT

Posted at 08:48h in Edge Insights, Electricity, Energy Markets, News by Alex Driscoll

The Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) is an existing intervention mechanism that allows the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to contract for additional reserves such as generation or demand response that is not otherwise available in the market. AEMO uses RERT as a safety net at times when a supply shortfall is forecast or where practicable for power system security. RERT is classified as an emergency reserve or strategic reserve as it may only be used as a last resort to avoid unnecessary load shedding. This is typically required when the market is under pressure from extreme weather or during unexpected generation failure. RERT can be additional generation or load curtailment...

09 Jul Gas Market Update

Posted at 08:47h in Edge Insights, Gas, News by Alex Driscoll

The Queensland State Government increased the petroleum royalty rate by 2.5% to 12.5% in the 2019/2020 budget, claiming that it will increase revenue by $467 million over the four years ending 2022/2023. The increase received condemnation from LNG producers and their investors. In the announcement, Queensland Treasury drew comparison to royalties in the USA and Canada. The resources sector at large has claimed that the higher tariffs put future investment and jobs at risk. AGL announced during the week that it anticipates first gas to be delivered from its proposed LNG import terminal in the second half of FY22. Originally, AGL indicated that gas would be delivered during FY21, however it...

09 Jul STATE OF THE ELECTRICITY MARKET – AUTUMN MARKET OVERVIEW

Posted at 08:46h in Edge Insights, Electricity, Energy Markets, News by Alex Driscoll

The electricity spot prices in Q219 (April to June) were unsurprisingly lower than the preceding 3 months of Q119 (January to March). Although Q219 experienced some volatility, this was far from the extremes we saw in Q119 with VIC and SA hitting the market price cap in February. Prices during Q219 were higher than Q218 in QLD, VIC and TAS, however lower in NSW and SA. Looking back across the last 10 years, prices have been higher for all regions. Figure 1: Historical prices for autumn (Source: AEMO) It should be noted that prices in both 2012 and 2013 were affected by a carbon tax, which was subsequently repealed in 2014. Since 2015 there...

09 Jul High solar generation vs spot prices in Queensland

Posted at 08:45h in Edge Insights, Electricity, Energy Markets, News, Renewables, Solar by Alex Driscoll

Solar generation and its impact on spot price is a topic of major discussion, particularly in the ‘Sunshine State’ of Queensland where there is a continuous pipeline of solar generation development. This raises the question: is strong solar generation having an impact on spot prices, and if so, is it lowering or increasing prices? Increasing Large-scale Solar Penetration in the NEM It is no secret that solar generation has increased dramatically over the last 12-18 months. From 1 January 2018 to 30 June 2018 (inclusive) the average daily production of large-scale solar generation in Queensland was only approximately 14.2 MW, only accounting for 0.085% of total Queensland generation. (Source: AEMO) For the six...