Tag: Making complexity understandable

LiveGen Widget goes live – “a world leader”

Our new internationally-focused LiveGenTM widget has been live for a short period of time, and can be accessed here:

http://data.RenewEconomy.com/LiveGen

We’re pleased to be able to work with the people at RenewEconomy to help make global complexity more understandable – in this case, in terms of the contributions of various generation fuel types across a growing number of locations (currently 29 locations across Australasia, Europe and North America with more coming…) .

We’ve built this to address one of the common points of feedback we received over the past 12 months or so of providing our NEM-WatchTM widget (accessed here and here and discussed here) to a growing number of people.

We noted that Ketan Joshi had described the new tool and “AMAZING” and had voiced some nice words about us being “a world leader in visualising” (complexity):

2016-02-02-kind-words-from-ketan

Thanks Ketan!  Always nice to hear when what we do helps to clarify something about the energy sector.

We’re looking for more locations to add in – let us know if you know of some!

 

 

Explaining what demand would look like on a renewable-heavy NEM to a wider audience

A previous article written by our CEO, Paul McArdle for WattClarity has recently been published on RenewEconomy.

Paul is booked in to speak at the 2015 All Energy conference about what role Demand Response might play in a future environment where intermittent generation sources supply a significantly higher percentage of the energy mix in the NEM.

In his article, Paul notes assumptions about consumption, the network and supply before going on to model a load duration curve.

DurationCurveUnservedNativeDemand03peak

Explaining South Australian wind generation to interested (and confused) stakeholders

After fielding a number of questions relating to wind farm production in South Australia over a two week period – our CEO, Paul McArdle took to WattClarity to help make the complexity of the situation understandable to many interested (and confused) onlookers.

To illustrate the yin and yang of wind over a 4-day period for broader consumption, we used our NEM-Watch entry-level dashboard. Using screenshots of NEM-Watch we were able to create the animation below to clearly explain what was happening over the 4-day period.

 

An influx of compliments on our new RenewEconomy generation by fuel type widget

We are very proud to have received a growing number of compliments after the release of our new Generation by Fuel Type Widget available on the RenewEconomy homepage.

We have received positive feedback from industry professionals such as renewable energy consultants:

“…the instantaneous NEM generation graphs by fuel type on Renew Economy are….Bloody Brilliant!   We can now track the demise of fossil fuels in the NEM on a half hourly basis.”

David Woodgrove, Renewable Energy Consultant/DPA Solar

21st March 2015

 to other general admirers:

“Congratulations on the widget. I follow it every day”

Bruce McMillan

17th July 2015

Click here to read more testimonials about the Generation by Fuel Type Widget and NEM-Watch.

Explaining why large energy users are concerned about last week’s machinations in South Australia

A week of unusual occurrences in the South Australian energy space fascinated many onlookers, particularly large energy users.

After fielding a number of calls from large energy users in South Australia who were wanting to know what was going on, our CEO, Paul McArdle wrote this article on WattClarity to explain why they were concerned, to note observations about what happened and to state the possible implications for the future.

New service (still under development) available at DemandResponse.com.au

We have been a keen supporter of different aspects of Demand Response in Australia’s national electricity market.  We have been, for instance, facilitating demand response for a number of large industrial energy users for more than a decade .

Over more than a decade, we have seen a steadily increasing awareness of the capacity of Demand Response to deliver significant value to the industry as a whole – whilst also providing a benefit to the particular energy user supplying the flexible consumption.

Years ago when we started this process, we found that the initial awareness was almost zero (and a reasonable amount of negativity in some quarters).  Hence we accepted, as part of our role, some responsibility for providing education about demand response – what it is, how it might work in the context of the NEM, and what the benefits would be.

We’ve not been the only ones involved in actively promoting the potential of demand response – there are a number of others that have made key contributions (which are referenced in the “Stakeholders” section of the site ** please let us know if we have missed others **).

The development of the site www.DemandResponse.com.au as another free service provided to electricity sector stakeholders, with the aim of making this particular aspect of complexity more understandable, was a logical extension of the time we have invested in education about Demand Response over the past decade and more….

We posted this article on the site on 1st July 2015 and have contacted many market stakeholders and observers, keenly seeking their input into making the site as effective as it can be in helping to make different methods of Demand Response as understandable by, and accessible to, a broad range of electricity users.

NEM-Watch v10 released

We were very proud to announce that an early release of NEM-Watch version 10 is now available to existing clients. The new release features a refocused NEM-Watch portal, enhanced clarity in the display, easier communication, new data delivery mechanisms, the ability to program operations for newer versions of windows, the ability to program overseas operations along with other miscellaneous bug-fixes and tweaks.

This release is in line with our commitment to never give up striving to improve and our commitment that our customers will always come first.

Asked to write an article for the Financial Review on Generation Oversupply

As someone seen as a source of insight about the National Electricity Market by a number of journalists, including many who follow the articles posted on our WattClarity® industry commentary site, it is logical that our CEO (Paul McArdle) would be asked to write the article “Generation wallows in oversupply” for the Financial Review to provide some context to one aspect of the ongoing RET Review.

It is also understandable that Paul would follow up that article in the AFR with this article on WattClarity that included a clear picture of how the decline in electricity demand is presenting challenges for the successful implementation of the Renewable Energy Target.

Following further on this theme, a second article was also posted on WattClarity® with a graphical illustration of the size of the main electricity generators supplying the NEM.

Explaining solar power’s contribution to power supply to a wider audience

Our CEO, Paul McArdle has been quoted by Angela Macdonald-Smith from The Australian Financial Review in regards to solar power’s place within the NEM. Paul’s comments provided an insight to a wide audience about solar’s “small but rapidly growing contribution” to power supply.

He was quoted as saying:

“About 3 gigawatts of solar power is installed across the national electricity market. In the absence of solar demand would have been higher this week byt now much is difficult to say. Only those household that had oversized their solar systems thanks to earlier, more generous feed-in tariffs would probably be able to meet their own air conditioning demand during the summer peak. Others who installed systems would still be relying on the grid to supplement their own solar generation.

This animation was prepared using our ez2view detailed market dashboard for the NEM and helps to identify some of the variety of factors that can generally be seen to interact to produce spot price volatility.

Following on from the significant piece of analysis we performed about the nature of volatility in the energy market (separately noted on WattClarity® in articles such as this one) we were tasked with speaking at All Energy in October 2013 to help our audience understand how renewable energy might integrate into the broader energy market in future years.

As part of this presentation, we provided this animated walk-through of one particular day in the Queensland region of the National Electricity Market (20th December 2012) which saw instances of price volatility:

This animation was prepared using our ez2view detailed market dashboard for the NEM and helps to identify some of the variety of factors that can generally be seen to interact to produce spot price volatility.