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 extended outage of a Loy Yang unit and a Mortlake unit that are currently scheduled to return to service in late December 2019. If these units do not return to service as planned and additional supply is not secured there may be load shedding in Victoria during extreme weather days.
Following the upcoming summer, transmission is highlighted as a key driver to improve reliability and is required to allow dispatchable generation to supply the expected demand.
The first tranche of unit retirements does not appear to affect unserved energy. Following the closure of Liddell Power Station, the current reliability standard is not breached.
New South Wales appears to be of concern post 2022 during extreme weather events when demand may not be met if supply is impacted by unplanned outages.
AEMO has also flagged nine actions to avoid consumers being impacted by load shedding during extreme weather events. The actions include:
- Summer readiness plans;
- Commissioning of targeted transmission lines;
- Improved access to dispatchable resources;
- Modification to the reliability standard;
- Revised three-year strategic reserve;
- Wholesale demand response;
- Prioritise market reforms;
- Refine notice and mechanism of closure of generators; and
- Improve information transparency.
If you would like to know more about the 2019 ESOO, please contact Edge Energy Services on 07 3905 9220 or 1800 334 336.