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.

20 Jan Water – a top priority for Tarong Power Station

Posted at 16:20h in Edge Insights, Edge Utilities, Electricity, Energy Markets, News, Retail, Uncategorized, Water by Alex Driscoll

Current weather conditions are placing an increased reliance on the diminishing water catchments across Australia. These water catchments store water for use by various parts of the local community including drinking water for residents, irrigation and Electricity generation. Stanwell recently announced water sustainability is a top priority for its Tarong Power stations located within the South Burnett region. Water is an essential necessity for thermal power stations to make electricity. The water is used for steam production and cooling. Tarong power station consisting of 4 X 350MW thermal units and a 443MW supercritical unit. These units obtain their water from two sources, the primary source is Lake Boondooma and secondary from a pipeline using water from Lake Wivenhoe or...

13 Jan Retailer Reliability Obligation triggered in South Australia

Posted at 17:13h in Edge Insights, Edge Utilities, Electricity, Energy Markets, News, Retail by Jordan Greaves

The SA Government (South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining) has the power (under South Australian Legislation) to trigger a Retailer Reliability Obligation (RRO) upon informant from AEMO of a one-in-two year peak demand forecast shortfall event as published in the South Australian Gazette 17 December 2019, with the AER confirming and publishing the notice 9 January 2020. For the avoidance of doubt this means that unlike all other regions which require the Electricity Statement of Opportunity (ESOO) to predict an unserved energy event, SA can act independently without approval as such from the AER. The RRO was trigged for South Australia on the 9 January 2020 for the following periods: First...

13 Jan Semi-scheduled and Intermittent Non-scheduled Generators urged to advise of De-ratings

Posted at 17:09h in Edge Insights, Edge Utilities, Electricity, Energy Markets, News, Renewables, Solar, Uncategorized by Jordan Greaves

A new market notice within the National Electricity Market (NEM) posted by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), one we have not see before was issued to all market participants on the 23/12/19. The market notice requested and served as a reminder for all semi-scheduled and intermittent non-scheduled generators to ensure they update their market availability bids, update their SCADA Local Limit or, if unavailable, advise AEMO control room to implement a quick constraint to the reduced available capacity level; and update intermittent generation availability in the EMMS Portal to reflect reduced plant availability as is required under the National Electricity Rules (NER), per NER 3.7B(b).limits. This was an interesting...

23 Dec Gas power stations for Victoria and Queensland

Posted at 16:17h in Edge Insights, Energy Markets, Gas, News, Uncategorized by Alex Driscoll

The federal government recently announced an agreement to underwrite new gas turbines in Victoria and Queensland to provide relief from expected high peak prices. The operation of these assets, below the usual short run marginal cost of current open cycle gas turbines (QLD - $106 / MWh – AEMO 2019) will potentially limit the likelihood of high prices or price volatility over the morning and evening peaks resulting in reduced average spot outcomes. Under the new generation underwriting plan, which was proposed by the ACCC, the government will assure an amount of the electricity generated will be purchased for a set period into the future. The Victorian generator will be located at Dandenong,...

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...