{"id":43035,"date":"2019-01-21T08:26:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43035"},"modified":"2019-01-21T08:26:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:26:22","slug":"nsw-power-imports-in-january-2019-heatwave-exceed-2-gw-drive-up-electricity-prices%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43035","title":{"rendered":"NSW power imports in January 2019 heatwave exceed 2 GW, drive up electricity prices\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NSW power imports in January 2019 heatwave exceed 2 GW, drive up electricity prices<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Maximum demand for electricity increased from 9,500 MW on 13 Jan 2019 (16:00) to a whopping 14,000 MW on 17 Jan 2019 (17:30).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NSW-7days\"
Fig 1: Heatwave pushing up power demand<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"20190117
Pic 2: Power generation graph downloaded from Open NEM website
https:\/\/opennem.org.au\/#\/regions\/nsw<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Downloading the data in XLS format allows us to restack the above graph to show more details on coal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NSW_power_generation_17Jan2019\"
Fig 3: NSW power generation with coal stacked first<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlack coal net of pumps\u201d means that off-peak pumping for hydro storage has been deducted from the total coal generation. We see that the off-peak pumps replace only part of the main hydro generation (around 1\/3) so Snowy would run dry without replenishment by rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coal fired power generation reached around 9,000 MW by 1 pm and continued at that level until 10 pm. That is 93% of the maximum theoretical capacity of 9,660 MW as per following table:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NSW-coal-generation-capacity_2017-2028\"
Fig 4: Capacities of coal fired power plants in NSW<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.aemo.com.au\/Electricity\/National-Electricity-Market-NEM\/Planning-and-forecasting\/Generation-information<\/a>
Note that Liddell\u2019s capacity was reduced to 1,800 MW (which seems to be 4\u00d7450 MW). However, the Australia Institute has only 4\u00d7350 MW as per December 2018.
http:\/\/www.tai.org.au\/content\/unit-trip-liddell-nsw-2018-12-23<\/a>
This aging coal plant is scheduled to be closed in 2022 due to ongoing technical problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s zoom into generation excluding coal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NSW_excluding-coal_17Jan2019\"
Fig 5: NSW power imports and generation without coal<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When the demand peak happens between 16:00 and 18:00 solar output is going down. Imports can\u2019t increase due to capacity constraints of interconnectors and also generation availability in other States so hydro has to cover the peak on top of gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NSW-interconnectors_2017\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NSW power imports in January 2019 heatwave exceed 2 GW, drive up electricity prices Maximum demand for electricity increased from 9,500 MW on 13 Jan 2019 (16:00) to a whopping 14,000 MW on 17 Jan 2019 (17:30). Downloading the data in XLS format allows us to restack the above graph to show more details on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6292,2746,1062],"class_list":["post-43035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-crude-oil-peak","tag-heat-wave","tag-new-south-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43036,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43035\/revisions\/43036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}