At this time, the NSW to Victoria interconnector has been disconnected, and there is currently no immediate impact on consumers in either state.
The LOR notice signals a reduction in predetermined electricity reserve levels, and is seeking a response from the market, through either generator offering more supply, or large industrial or commercial consumers reducing their demand.
AEMO has despatched Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) to improve the provision of additional reserves. RERT is a function available to AEMO to meet consumers’ energy requirements and maintain power system security using reserve off-market generation and demand management contracts.
To help minimise the stress on the system, AEMO is calling on consumers in New South Wales to temporarily reduce their energy usage where it is safe and possible, by:
- Avoiding running multiple appliances at once,
- Setting air conditioners to 24 degrees, and
- Temporarily switching off pool pumps. Click here for more energy saving tips.
AEMO acknowledges that the health and wellbeing of consumers remains the highest priority, so please only conserve energy if it is safe to do so.
Should the situation worsen further and AEMO loses all reserves available and energy unavailability continues to risk impacting the security of the National Electricity Market, as a last resort, AEMO may be forced to instruct controlled load shedding in NSW.
AEMO will continue to closely monitor reserve levels to maintain adequate supply and will provide further updates.
For more information, please refer to AEMO’s fact sheets and explainers:
- Explaining electricity reserve levels and Lack of Reserve market notices.This includes issuing Lack of Reserve (LOR) notices when electricity reserves are depleting as a result of a combination of unplanned conditions. A LOR market notice signals a reduction in predetermined electricity reserve levels, and seeks a response from the market, through either generator offering more supply, or large industrial or commercial consumers to reducing their demand.
- Explaining emergency reserves contracts. This is about the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) mechanism which helps AEMO to maintain power system reliability and system security using reserve generation and demand management contracts from large users, such as industrial or manufacturing businesses, that sit outside the market.
- Explaining load shedding. This is about the deliberate shutdown of power to parts of the electricity network to reduce a predetermined volume of electricity usage to maintain system stability and the supply-demand balance.