Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT)
The Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) is a function conferred on AEMO to maintain power system reliability and system security using reserve contracts.
AEMO may provide further explanatory information on this webpage after the initial publication of the EOI. AEMO will endeavour to notify interested parties if further information is published on this webpage however, interested parties should monitor this webpage to check for further information.
What is RERT?
The Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader is a function conferred on AEMO to maintain power system reliability and system security using reserve contracts.
AEMO’s powers and obligations relating to RERT are set out in three areas:
Short and Medium Notice RERT Panel and Long Notice RERT
AEMO maintains a panel of RERT providers that can provide short notice (between three hours and seven days) and medium notice (between ten weeks and seven days) reserve if required and for whom technical details are pre-agreed. Panel members for short notice RERT agree on prices when appointed to the panel, whereas panel members for medium notice RERT do not, and prices are negotiated if and when reserve is required.
The RERT panel allows AEMO to run an expedited tender process in short and medium notice situations, as the tendering process is pre-agreed and makes use of pre-determined agreements and standard tender forms.
If Unserved Energy (USE) is forecast via the ESOO, AEMO may procure long notice reserve through invitations to tender where it has 10 weeks or more notice of projected shortfall.
What reserve is acceptable for RERT
Typical examples of reserve that can be procured for RERT include:
- Unscheduled load that can be curtailed and restored on request from AEMO, this can be large industrial load or a group of aggregated smaller loads
- Unscheduled generation assets (such as standby diesels).
To be eligible, reserves provided under a reserve contract must not be available to the National Electricity Market through any other contract or arrangement in the trading intervals which the reserve is required.
In addition there are a number of criteria that AEMO will use to assess the reserve, these include:
- What is the availability of the reserve over the summer period
- Whether the reserve can be activated as a block of not less than 10MW
- Whether the reserve can be activated continuously for at least 30 minutes
- The potential reserve does not submit bids and offers into the National Electricity Market.
Further detail on the reserve requirement is available in the expression of interest documents. AEMO is able to negotiate on many aspects of the RERT requirements and interested parties are encouraged to contact AEMO if they have any questions.
What triggers RERT
AEMO continuously assesses whether forecast reliability and security is outside a relevant NEM standard. If it observes this and it considers there is no market resolution to it, then AEMO may choose to procure reserve.
The trigger for the activation of reserve depends upon the lead time required to activate the reserve and the nature of the reserve shortfall.
Terms
RERT contracts can have provisions to pay providers for availability, pre-activation (for non-scheduled reserves only), usage, and early termination. There are no payments made for being on the RERT panel.
1 In particular, clause 3.20 of the NER.