Category: Energy Markets

WHO WERE AUSTRALIA’S TOP EMITTERS?

Last Thursday the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) published the latest National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) data outlining the largest 400 emitters across Australia.

As expected, Australia’s energy companies ranked highest in the list with AGL leading the list, with greenhouse gas emission reported as 42.2 million tonnes of scope-1 emissions for 2020 financial year. AGLs emitter was more than double that of the second highest emitter Energy Australia, at 17.9 million tonnes.

Other high emitters included:

Origin Energy with 16 million tonnes
Stanwell Corporation and CS Energy emitting a combined 30.3 million tonnes.

Following the list dominated by thermal generation came the oil and gas producers.

Chevron Australia emissions equaling 10.2 million tonnes
Woodside Petroleum reported 9.2 million tonnes
Santos emitting 7.3 million tonnes

As AGL owns the oldest and dirtiest power stations due to the fuel they burn, it is not surprising they top the list of emitters with 8% of Australian greenhouse gas emissions.

AGLs largest emitting stations was the brown coal fired Loy Yang A coal power station with 16.7 million tonnes and Bayswater Power Station at (14.0 million tonnes), which burns black coal.

With the release of these results, it will put increased pressure on the retailers to clean up their generation by moving towards renewable generation.

Emission reductions have changed across various sectors in the 2019-20 year, which was mostly due the impact of COVID-19 however as seen below the electricity generation sector had continued a historic trend of reduced emissions due to the higher penetration of renewables.

Emissions from the electricity sector dropped by 7.5 million tonnes compared to the previous year. Emissions from the oil and gas sector dropped by 3.4 million tonnes as result of reduced venting and flaring of gas.

What is the spot market and the spot price?

Understanding the spot market and spot prices is fundamental to understanding how much you ultimately pay for electricity.

The National Electricity Market (NEM) operates as a ‘spot market’. This means that supply and demand are matched instantaneously, and generators are paid a spot price for the energy they generate in any given period.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) manages the spot market, balancing supply and demand in real time. With the safe delivery of energy the priority, AEMO controls a number of physical aspects of the market which ultimately impacts which generators are dispatched, and what spot price is achieved.

AEMO provides the market information regarding how much demand is expected. Generators compete to supply this energy by providing a bid stack to AEMO that ultimately tells the market operator how much energy they are prepared to generate for a given price. AEMO aggregates all the bid stacks from cheapest to most expensive, manages the physical requirements of the system (which stands to impact some generation with constraints, ancillary services, interconnector flows, etc.), and sets the spot price in a region at the lowest price where actual demand intersects the relevant bid stack. . All supply at and below this level is required to generate and will be paid the spot price.

Supply and demand is physically managed by AEMO varying the market in 5-minute dispatch intervals. For the purpose of financially settling the spot market, it is done in 30-minute trading intervals (an average of the six 5-minute dispatch intervals). This means the spot market currently operates in a way that physical dispatch and financial settlement are determined over different timeframes. The market was designed in this manner to incentivise slow ramping thermal generators and large users to benefit from changes to load up to 25 minutes after the price signal has been sent.

The spot market and the setting of spot prices is highly complex and governed by stringent rules for both bidding and dispatch processes (all of which go well beyond the high-level principles outlined in this article). Despite this, the dispatch and settlement timing mismatch has led to disorderly bidding practices whereby generators have been accused of ‘gaming’ the market. The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) determined that in the long-term, the pricing anomaly may lead to inappropriate investment and higher prices for consumers.

Consequently, in a move to further enhance the market, from 01 July 2021 the market will start to move to 5-minute spot pricing. This means dispatch and financial settlement will be aligned, disorderly bidding will be managed, and fast response technologies such as batteries will be rewarded.

Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader Scheme

The Morrison Government have again distorted the Electricity market when Angus Taylors office announced it was intervening to pay Victoria’s Portland aluminum smelter in Victoria nearly $80 million to act like a “giant battery” in the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) scheme.

The announcement surprised the market and means that Portland will be the only provider of RERT services. They will be paid just to be on standby to deliver emergency power reserves.

The intervention was announced on Monday under the veil of securing Victoria’s energy system, while subsidising the Alcoa owned smelter with guaranteed revenue, with up to $76.8 million of RERT revenue over the next 4 years.

The short term solution to Energy security in Victoria will cease in 2025 when new electricity market reforms are expected to be in place.

Under Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO’s) RERT mechanism, RERT participants are paid to reduce demand at times when the supply / demand balance become tight, but only pays if parties participate. In the Portland cases they will get paid to just be on standby.

This year AEMO is seeking 1,600 Megawatt (MW) of RERT, apart from the guaranteed money going to the Portland smelter. RERT will not cause market participants anything unless it is activated.

In the 2020, AEMO published the Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO). AEMO commented that it was highly unlikely that Portland’s services will be called upon this summer, due to the additional generation in the region from wind and solar.

Smelters are well placed to provide long duration outages. Other industrial processes like mineral processing are best suited to short duration outages. It is understood, in return for the guaranteed revenue, the RERT agreement means the Portland smelter will participate to the maximum extent possible. This is likely to include the smelter being shut down for an extended duration, most likely during the highest stressed times of the year.

The Portland smelter and other smelters in Australia are struggling to remain competitive on the world stage. The Portland smelter has received around $1.1 billion of subsidies from the Victorian Government since 2017 and a $40 million interest free loan from the Federal Government.

Market participants have raised their concerns over the government’s intervention, highlighting that it has distorted the pricing and availability of RERT available to AEMO. Other concerns are that it may encourage other smelters such as Tomago in NSW and Boyne smelter in QLD to seek similar payments.

The Clean Energy Council released it latest renewable investment confidence survey and a key concern named federal government market intervention as one of the turn-offs for prospective large-scale wind and solar developers.

What is a VPP?

Many of you would have seen the acronym VPP floating around the energy industry, in AEMO documents and publications like the Integrated System Plan (ISP). So, what is a VPP? A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is basically an aggregation of resources. These can be generation, storage and controllable load from decentralised sources. All being coordinated to deliver services to the power grid including electricity, FCAS and other power system services.

Last week battery manufacturer Sonnen reached the magic threshold of 1MW to operate in the National Electricity Market (NEM) and plans to operate a VPP.

The German based company, Sonnen, now owned by Shell, has built a network of customers to allow their Sonnen branded home batteries to participate in the company’s new virtual power plant. This has been designed to provide frequency control services. The customers will receive a financial benefit through cash payments. Sonnen’s new program will also provide grid stability services.

The VPP branded, sonnenConnect is Sonnen’s first VPP worldwide.

Each Sonnen battery will not be heavily relied on due to the nature of the VPP aggregating all outputs. To operate in the FCAS market, each household will only be required to supply 4kWh of energy to provide the essential grid stability services.

To be eligible to participate in Sonnen’s VPP and rewards program, households will need to have one of Sonnen’s batteries installed, with at least 4kWh of capacity. No additional equipment will be required to allow batteries to participate in the program as Sonnen batteries incorporate the necessary control systems.

Sonnen has chosen Australia to launch its VPP products as Australia is more open to the establishment of VPPs, along with the high uptake of battery storage system installations compared to other parts of the world.

“With the growing uptake of rooftop solar and home batteries globally, utilities are recognising the importance of home batteries in Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) or what is known as demand response, to stabilise the grid when there is a surge in the demand for electricity”, Nathan Dunn, Sonnen Australia CEO said.

He also said “through sonnenConnect, we are rewarding customers who are providing us access to their Sonnen Battery when needed for demand response. Not only will they enjoy being energy independent, Sonnen Battery owners are working together as a community to stabilise the energy grid that connects millions of homeowners in the National Electricity Market.”

Sonnen has established a manufacturing facility at the former Holden factory in Adelaide. This allows Sonnen to be branded Australian made. They plan to use the Australian facility to produce other components and software for the energy industry including electric vehicle charging units.

Electric Vehicle’s to Power the World

Greenpeace have published a report outlining that batteries from Electric Vehicles (EVs) could meet the worlds energy storage requirements. The report highlights the problems emerging from decommissioned lithium-ion batteries out of EVs.

The report also examines the impact of the growing EV sales across the world will have on the supply chain Ore that is mined to produce the minerals to then produce lithium-ion batteries.

There are critical supply chain risks for primarily the lithium and cobalt required for the batteries. Countries like China, South Korea and Japan manufacture 85% of the worlds EV batteries however do not have the large quantities of raw materials available locally.

It is forecast that over the next 10 years the global Lithium battery market will expand at such a rate that 30% of the worlds Cobalt reserves will be exhausted. During the same time 10.35 million tonne of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese will be mined.

EV batteries are replaced once their usable capacity drops below 80%, this normally occurs within 5-8 years from manufacture. Although not useful in EVs, the batteries can be repurposed to meet other needs.

The report finds that repurposed EV batteries could cover all global demand for energy storage in 2030, calculated to be around 368GWh of capacity.

Decommissioned EV batteries could be repurposed and used as backup power systems in telecommunication infrastructure and data centres. They can also be used for energy storage devices across the National Electricity Market (NEM) and remote area power supplies.

Written by: Alex Driscoll, Senior Manager, Markets & Trading

Green Star Building Rating Reject Gas

In a major overhaul of the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Green Star rating system, Australian buildings hoping to achieve the gold standard for sustainability will now have to ditch gas.

For buildings to achieve the highest 6 star rating, the building will be required to be fossil fuel free and 100% renewable powered.

The Green Star rating system was launched by the GBCA in 2003 as an independent and voluntary certification system that assesses the sustainability of construction projects across all stages of their life cycle.

Green Star rated buildings have been recognised as having a higher standard of sustainability and energy efficiency than buildings that meet the National Construction Code.

The industry has supported the need to eliminate carbon emissions from buildings and construction to meet obligations under the Paris Agreement, this has resulted in the new focus.

Atlassian, the company behind energy-savvy billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has signed on to use Green Star Buildings for its flagship new Sydney headquarters.

The new ratings will push for electrification however emerging technologies, such as green gas will be beneficial to reaching the higher standards as it aligns with Australia’s goals in energy transformation and emissions reduction.

Electricity Energy

Quarterly Report – Q320

Here at Edge Utilities, we specialise in delivering enterprise buying power to businesses, Strata and Body Corporates. The Edge Utilities Quarterly Report is a resource that educates you more about the energy and utilities market, in turn, helping you. The report consists of an educational segment, market information (such as movements and forward fundamentals), and the occasional profile piece.

In this report, we will look at the National Electricity Market (NEM) and what factors impacted pricing and demand in the second quarter of 2020 (Q320). The impact of which COVID-19 had on Q320, has only been modest in respect to demand. Q320 saw the lowest wholesale electricity and gas prices in the National Electricity Market (NEM) since 2014. Some of the key drivers behind this result included:

East coast wholesale gas prices averaging $3.85/GJ, down from $9.75/GJ in 2019
Changes in the generation mix
Power system security concerns
Operational demand continuing to fall
Spot prices dropping
Falls in Electricity futures
Weather

Also featured in this report, is an article on the benefits behind using a broker or consultant.

Are you ready to Re.Think your utilities contracts to save money and get better value?

Download a copy of the full Q320 Report here: Edge Utilities – Quarterly Report – Edition 2

To keep up-to-date with Edge Utilities, connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edge-utilities/

AEMO’s governance in question

Energy Networks Australia (ENA) represents Australia’s electricity transmission, distribution networks, and gas distribution networks. The Australian Energy Council (AEC) represents generation companies. Recently, ENA and the AEC have engaged Cambridge Economic Policy Associates (CEPA) to investigate the governance arrangements of Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) within the National Electricity Market (NEM).

The AEC and ENA raised concerns over AEMO’s expenditure on transition studies and planning. Specifically, the pace of change proposed by AEMO and their approach to new technologies such as virtual power plants and new market mechanisms.

CEPA reviewed similar government models from international market operators and has now proposed alternate models. Among the suggested new models were options to make AEMO answerable to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). CEPA suggested that a budget and planning committee with members from AEMO and member representatives could be created.

It appears that these actions have come off the back of AEMO’s recently published Integrated System Plan (ISP). The ISP mapped out AEMO’s pathway to a shift to renewable energy within 20 years. AEMO commented that thanks to Australia’s fleet of ageing and increasingly unreliable coal generators, there is a need to transition to a renewable energy future. The only thing that could deliberately slow down this transition would be due to industry or government policy changing. AEC members want to hear this as they are heavily invested in coal fire generation assets and, in recent times, gas powered generation.

Renewable advocates have viewed this review as a way for thermal generators to slow down the regulatory process. By including the AER in decision making, they are reducing competition from renewable generators. The renewables industry sees the AEC as a pro-thermal generation body. Their Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sarah McNamara previously worked as Senior Energy Policy Advisor for Tony Abbott. Prior to this, she worked for AGL’s Corporate Affairs team as well as anti-renewable lobbies, Ian MacFarlane.

ENA members have been more positive towards AEMO’s ISP as they see the benefits of more transmission infrastructure. However, some members in the distribution business see a threat on the lower voltage networks by rooftop solar, battery storage and Electric Vehicles.

AEMO have also been offside with the renewable industry in its role responsible for Victorian grid connections. Last minute changes to connection requirements and agreements has caused delays and reductions in projects. Market participants, including end users, are also unhappy with AEMO following recent budget increases.

AEMO has been spending more money on projects such as the ISP, research and the development of new market mechanisms that will favour new technologies such as batteries and virtual power plants. The budget was set at $241 million this year which was an increase of 12% on previous budgets. Prior to this, fees generally remained static or increased by Consumer Price Index (CPI). AEMO have defended these increases by saying that the volume of rule changes in the NEM has tripled in the last three years. They stated that virtually all the rule changes have directly impacted them.

Queensland Energy Users Network (QEUN), a prominent consumer advocate in Queensland, have also come out against AEMO. They noted that AEMO’s total costs amounted to eight cents a week to the average consumer. They believe that development of the market should not be at the expense of the Australian economy, jobs, or reasonable living standards. QEUN suggested that AEMO sticks making sure the lights are kept on. They essentially told AEMO to stay quiet about any big plans for the future.

Written by: Alex Driscoll

To keep up-to-date with Edge Utilities, connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edge-utilities/

Read our latest article: https://edgeutilities.com.au/changes-to-the-generation-mix/

AEMO

Changes to your Energy Bill

The effects of COVID-19 have impacted the retail energy space heavily in the last 12 months. This has caused underlying costs of electricity production to decrease significantly. It is expected that costs will remain low for the next 6 to 12 months.

As the Australian economy begins to rebuild itself in the next 6 to 12 months, it is expected that costs will remain low. Following the impact of COVID-19, came price changes with the introduction of the Default Market Offer (DMO) and Victorian Default Offer (VDO).

The DMO outlines the annual maximum total bill amount that an energy company can charge to eligible residential and small business customers in New South Wales, South Australia, and South East Queensland. Energy retailers use the DMO as a reference price, to guide how they structure their charges. However, retailers can set their own supply and usage charges provided they are equal to or less than the DMO price. The VDO is like the DMO, however is applicable to eligible Victorian customers only.

High electricity offers have now reduced significantly. This reduction means end users who choose to switch offers will still save money but not as much as prior years. The difference between the highest standing offer and lowest market offer has decreased by 10%. Although there has been a decrease in the overall offer price, Victoria has actually seen a 10% increase. The average market offer price is still considered to be quite high at 56%. It is unclear whether these changes are because of the DMO and VDO changes, or by increased market competition.

Market Competition

The increased market competition appears to be pushing retail energy prices down after the introduction of 40 new retail brands. In the last 12 months alone, 35 new companies have entered the market. There have also been 8 existing brands who have expanded into other states jurisdictions and are now offering new products. Net retailer margins across the National Electricity Market (NEM) have also dropped due to increased competition. This has seen on average, a decrease of $93 to $66 per customer in the last 2 years.

Products deemed to be essential services such as electricity and gas, have also continued to evolve. To appeal more to customers, retailers are strategically using add-on products as a way of selling the underlying product. Most retailers are doing this by bundling electricity and gas with internet and phone services.

As we can see, there has been a large amount of changes to the market and to customers costs. However, an Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) survey has shown that end users are happier. The results of the survey showed that 57% of customers believed there was value for money at today’s price. Switching rates are a leading indicator of customer dissatisfaction, and recently these have lowered.

Written by: Alex Driscoll

To learn about what else is changing in the market, read our latest article: https://edgeutilities.com.au/2020-isp/

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The Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO)

On Thursday August 27^th, 2020, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its latest Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO). The ESOO is a 10-year projection of electricity supply reliability in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

In July 2019, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) introduced the Retailer Reliability Obligation (RRO). The RRO was introduced to provide stronger incentives to market participants for investing in technologies that will improve the reliability of the NEM. AEMO uses the ESOO to identify gaps in the NEM’s reliability. Over the next 5 years, AEMO will work with the AER if there is a significant gap identified in reliability. As the ESOO covers the next 10 years, the second 5 years following the RRO looks closer at forecasts for the major transmission upgrades and the continued development of renewable generation.

COVID-19 and other impacts

This year’s ESOO has assessed the impact that COVID-19 had on the NEM. It also looks at what affect this could potentially have on the outlook’s uncertainty. COVID-19 combined with the change in generation mix, demand changes, and gas market changes has provided a positive outcome. Due to these changes, AEMO has forecasted no unserved energy (USE) for the upcoming summer season. Unserved energy is a measure of the amount of customer demand that cannot be supplied within a region. This happens due to a shortage of generation, demand-side participation or interconnector capacity.

The ESOO will require an update if life after COVID-19 returns to normal faster than expected. AEMO has also stated a few points of concern relating to the delays or deferment of planned outages that could affect reliability over summer.

ElectraNet, South Australia’s high voltage transmission network specialists, have reduced the summer rating on the Victoria to South Australia Interconnector. This reduction follows the damage incurred during the bushfires in the beginning of 2020. One downside of the reduced flow across the interconnectors, is further delays in the commissioning of renewable projects across the regions. This means that AEMO may need to deploy the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) to manage the contingency events resulting in USE.

A new focus

After summer, the focus will shift to look at the reliability in NSW. This will be following on from the retirement of the Liddell Power Station. The outlook on this has improved since last years’ ESOO, with the augmentation of the Queensland to New South Wales Interconnector (QNI). This will take place in 2022-2023 and aims to increase renewable generation development in the region.

By 2025, minimum operational demand will change from the overnight period to occur at midday. This is due to an increase in rooftop solar panels and batteries. This will lead to challenges when managing voltage, system strength and inertia. AEMO has recognised this and are working with aggregators of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) to offer services such as increased photovoltaic (PV) controllability, load flexibility, storage, and load shifting.

New projects moving forward will require all new distributed PV installations to have suitable disturbance ride-through capabilities and emergency PV shedding capabilities. This will cause increased costs and delays in commissioning the projects.

AEMO is working with various stakeholders and industry experts to ensure energy supply is protected from the effects of increasing frequency, extremity and scale of climate induced weather events that have been observed in prior years. The NEM will continue to see a large quantity of renewable generation connections. Approximately 4,300 MW of new capacity is forecasted to be operational this summer and 1,900 MW of this is expected to be in Victoria alone.

A more realistic outlook on Summer

As COVID-19 is unpredictable, AEMO have warned that there is risk in their forecast regarding no USE this summer. Due to this, there is a level of uncertainty regarding the supply of electricity during the coming summer. Although, AEMO have still not seen a requirement to contract the volume of long-term RERT as seen in previous years. If renewable generators do experience delays, AEMO will continue to outsource short-term RERT suppliers as an emergency backup.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) are forecasting La Niña this summer. This occurs when equatorial trade winds become stronger, the ocean surface currents change. This then draws cooler deep water up from below. La Niña will result in a cooler, wetter climate for this year’s summer. Because of this, we are likely to see less stress on the supply/demand balance this summer.

Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor has referenced this years’ ESOO in a recent statement. He informed Australians that households and businesses will have reliable electricity moving forward. However, AEMO have tempered this statement commenting that there may be issues after 2023 if capacity does not increase. Although there are fewer planned outages for coal and gas generators this summer, COVID-19 may extend repair times. Due to this risk, AEMO is taking everything they can get as an emergency backup under the RERT scheme.

Written by: Alex Driscoll

Read our article on the recently published Integrated System Plan (ISP) here: https://edgeutilities.com.au/2020-isp/

To keep up-to-date with Edge Utilities, connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edge-utilities/