Today, AEMO has released its Q4 Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) report, outlining RERT activity between 1 October and 31 December 2019.
RERT is an intervention mechanism under the National Electricity Rules (NER) that allows AEMO to contract for off-market emergency reserves, such as generation or demand response, when other reserve options have been exhausted, typically during periods of high demand and tight supply.
AEMO has observed a significant increase in National Electricity Market (NEM) reliability risk in recent years, due to a combination of extreme weather conditions and higher outage rates from ageing generation assets.
Prior to the 2019/20 summer, AEMO determined the need for an additional 125 megawatts (MW) of reserve in Victoria over the summer period to meet the reliability standard.
In November 2019, AEMO contracted for 137 MW of long notice reserves in Victoria and has since established medium and short notice panel arrangements for 1,698 MW of reserve across the NEM, to manage unexpected risks to reliability.
The report issued today shows that AEMO activated RERT on one occasion in Q4 2019 in Victoria on 30 December, following extreme conditions on the power system (hot temperatures, high demand, bushfires and a line trip in New South Wales impacting the Victorian – New South Wales interconnection).
This resulted in a forecast shortfall in reserves of up to 346 MW within 45 minutes of the event, sustained over the next three hours. To reduce the potential impact of load shedding, AEMO activated 283 MWh (92 MW capacity) at a cost of $3.72 million, which resulted in an estimated average cost per Victorian household of $0.81 (incl GST).
AEMO published this report under clause 3.20.6 (b) of the National Electricity Rules (NER), and accounts for reserve contracts entered into and activated by AEMO in the period from 1 October 2019 to 31 December 2019.
For more information on RERT, please click here.