AEMO’s summer readiness program for 2018–19

As with previous years, AEMO has already commenced work to prepare the power system for the summer ahead. The success of last summer illustrated that collaboration with the wider energy industry and governments was key to ensuring that energy consumers in the National Electricity Market (NEM) did not experience power supply interruptions due to insufficient generation.

This year’s program of work will take into account the lessons learned from the 2017–18 summer. As with last summer, the objectives of our program are to:

• Maximise the available generation fleet, transmission assets and demand side participation throughout the summer period
• Maximise transmission system resilience, recovery and contingency managemen
• Ensure additional off-market reserve capacity, where it is identified as being necessary, is available via the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) mechanism, for both energy generation and demand side management.

To support the achievement of these objectives, there are six work-streams for the summer readiness program:

• Generation availability – maximising possible generation by deferring or accelerating planned maintenance outages.
• Transmission network availability and capacity – maximising interconnector availability, and minimising network constraints over the summer period.
• Generator fuel availability – ensuring adequacy of fuel supply (coal, gas and diesel) and monitoring of hydro levels over summer. We are conscious of drought conditions impacting parts of Australia and will closely monitor this potential impact on relevant power stations
• Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) – where AEMO identifies a potential for reserve shortfalls in any region, procuring additional reserves to meet peak summer demand.
• Contingency planning – building on successful emergency exercises and other preparatory activities with key market participants and jurisdictional representatives.
• Operational improvements – building on operational improvements made last summer and continuing to enhance core forecasting, training and information flows.

AEMO has already commenced engagement with governments, generators and network businesses regarding summer readiness activities.

In addition, AEMO plans to undertake regular briefings, and updates leading up to and during the summer period, providing the opportunity to discuss the progress of our summer readiness plans, and highlight any remaining areas to reduce risk for the coming summer.

Close cooperation with industry and governments is critical as we all continue to work closely together to deliver the best outcome for Australian energy consumers.