RELIABILITY PANEL Reliability Panel AEMC FINAL REPORT ANNUAL MARKET PERFORMANCE REVIEW REVIEW 2018 04 APRIL 2019 Reliability Panel AEMC Final report Annual market performance review 2018 04 April 2019 INQUIRIES Reliability Panel c/- Australian Energy Market Commission PO Box A2449 Sydney South NSW 1235 E [email protected] T (02) 8296 7800 F (02) 8296 7899 Reference: REL0067 CITATION Reliability Panel, Annual market performance review 2018, Final report, 04 April 2019 ABOUT THE RELIABILITY PANEL The Panel is a specialist body established by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) in accordance with section 38 of the National Electricity Law and the National Electricity Rules. The Panel comprises industry and consumer representatives. It is responsible for monitoring, reviewing and reporting on reliability, security and safety on the national electricity system, and advising the AEMC in respect of such matters. This work is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, news reporting, criticism and review. Selected passages, tables or diagrams may be reproduced for such purposes provided acknowledgement of the source is included. Reliability Panel AEMC Final report Annual market performance review 2018 04 April 2019 RELIABILITY PANEL MEMBERS Dr Brian Spalding, Chairman and AEMC Commissioner Trevor Armstrong, Chief Operating Officer, Ausgrid Stephen Clark, Technical and Economic Lead - Project Marinus, TasNetworks Mark Collette, Executive - Energy, Energy Australia Kathy Danaher, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, Sun Metals Gavin Dufty, Manager of Policy and Research, St Vincent de Paul Society, Victoria Chris Murphy, Strategic Advisor, Meridian Energy; General Manager - Energy Market Interfaces, Telstra Damien Sanford, Executive General Manager - Operations, AEMO John Titchen, Managing Director, Goldwind Australia Richard Wrightson, Executive General Manager Wholesale Markets, AGL Energy Reliability Panel AEMC Final report Annual market performance review 2018 04 April 2019 FOREWORD I am pleased to present this report setting out the findings of the Reliability Panel’s annual review of market performance, for the period 2017/18. The Panel has reviewed the performance of the national electricity market (NEM) in terms of reliability, security and safety over the 2017/18 period, in accordance with the requirements of the National Electricity Rules (Rules) and the terms of reference issued by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC). Security concerns the technical resilience of the power system itself and is primarily the responsibility of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO); reliability is about having sufficient capacity to meet consumer demand for energy and is primarily driven by efficient market investment. We have considered both historic trends and projections of the security and reliability of the NEM. A number of key trends continued to play out during the period 2017/18. In particular, the generation mix continued to change, with significant new entry of variable, asynchronous generation. On the consumer side of the meter, there has been a continued uptake of distributed energy resources, with continued strong growth of rooftop PV. When coupled with the likely exit of older, thermal generation over the coming years, these trends will continue to create new challenges and opportunities for the secure and reliable operation of the NEM power system. The 2017/18 period saw an increasing number of market interventions to maintain reliability and security. Interventions to maintain security included the significant number of directions issued by AEMO in South Australia to maintain system strength (an important security parameter). In Victoria, there were a number of instances where AEMO had to manually switch off high voltage transmission lines, to maintain voltages at stable levels. In the reliability space, the Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (RERT) mechanism was activated for the first time in the history of the NEM. These market interventions are a purposeful part of the existing design of the NEM. They provide an emergency backstop to maintain the security and stability of the system. However, they should not be long-term solutions, as they come at a significant cost to consumers, and can have unintended consequences. Market interventions come at a significant cost to consumers; as an example, the system strength interventions in South Australia during the reporting period cost approximately $34 million per annum.1 The Panel considers that while intervening in the market is a necessary and important tool for AEMO, in the longer term it is preferable for the market to provide the services required to maintain security and reliability. Where these system needs are clearly identified and incentivised, the market would be expected to provide them at a lower cost than through intervention measures. 1 The cost of $34 million does not represent the total cost of directing generators in South Australia to ensure adequate system strength. It is also appropriate to take into account trading amounts that would otherwise be paid to those generators and wider impacts on wholesale market prices. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7 of the consultation paper for the AEMC’s Investigation into intervention mechanisms and system strength in the NEM. Source: AEMC, Investigation into intervention mechanisms and system strength in the NEM, April 2019. i Reliability Panel AEMC Final report Annual market performance review 2018 04 April 2019 The Panel notes that the market bodies have already undertaken, and continue to progress, an extensive program of reform to address these challenges. It takes time for these reforms to come into effect, however once they are in place, they should help to reduce the extent of the interventions needed. This AMPR provides an overview of this extensive work program; the Panel intends to monitor and review how the work program has progressed in its next AMPR. Over the 2017/18 period, the reliability of electricity supply continued to be maintained with no unserved energy over the period. However, this was in part due to the activation of the RERT on two occasions to maintain the power system in a reliable operating state. Prior to 2017/18, the RERT had only been procured three times and had never been activated. Consumers bore a cost of $51.99 million in 2017/18 for the activation of the RERT.2 Maintenance of power system security continues to be a key challenge for the NEM. System performance as measured against relevant system security standards has continued to be problematic. In the period 2017/18, the Panel notes that the frequency performance of the system has continued to degrade. In addition, new challenges are emerging in relation to system strength and maintaining stable voltages on parts of the power system. Frequency control: Good frequency control should meet the requirements of the frequency operating standard (FOS). To the extent that power system frequency deviates from the requirements of the FOS, this may reduce the resilience of the power system to non-credible contingency events. The likelihood that the system will recover from a contingency event increases when frequency is within the normal frequency operating band set out in the FOS. Some elements of the FOS normal operation requirements were not met in both the mainland and in Tasmania during 2017/18.3 On the mainland the frequency of the power system remained within the normal operating frequency band more than 99 per cent of the time, for each month of the reporting period (as per the requirements of the FOS). However, there were 50 events where system frequency took longer than allowed in the FOS to be returned to the normal operating frequency band following a disturbance. In Tasmania, frequency performance did not meet either of these FOS requirements for normal operation,4 with system frequency not being maintained in the normal band for more 2 AEMO, RERT 2017-18 cost update, 2018, p. 1. Available at: https://www.aemo.com.au/- /media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Security_and_Reliability/RERT-Update—-cost-of-RERT-2017-18.pdf 3 The frequency operating standard sets out a number of requirements for operation of the power system, including several different measures of frequency performance during normal operation. Only some of these normal operation requirements were met in 2017/18. The elements of the FOS relevant to normal operation of the power system include: 1) the range of allowable frequencies in bands corresponding to the operating state of the power system. The current requirement is that for 99 per cent of the time, the power system is maintained within the range of 49.85 – 50.15Hz (the normal operating frequency band), over any 30 day period, and 2) times for the stabilisation and recovery of the power system frequency following a frequency deviation. The current requirement is that during normal operation, if the power system frequency deviates outside the normal band, it must be returned to the normal band within five minutes. There are two separate FOS determined by the Reliability Panel, one for the mainland and another for Tasmania, reflecting the different physical characteristics of these two parts of the NEM. 4 The current frequency operating standard for the NEM mainland and Tasmania define different frequency boundaries that apply for different types of contingency events. This is due to the specific tolerances of Tasmanian generators