Friday, 30 December: Top prices of
$2800.09-$4187.69/MWh in multiple spike intervals in NSW, Vic, SA, Qld
and Snowy as heatwave hits Adelaide and Melbourne
Top prices of between $2800.09-$4187.69/MWh were recorded in multiple
spike intervals in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Snowy
on Friday, 30 December.
SA has 23 spike intervals: South Australia had spikes in 23 of
the 48 30-minute trading intervals. NSW, Victoria and Snowy had spikes
in 11 trading intervals and Queensland in seven.
Heatwave causes demand surge: The spikes occurred on a day when
system-wide maximum demand surged by 1650MW (5.9 per cent) to 29,780MW,
largely due to big increases resulting from the heatwave in South
Australia and Victoria. Adelaide had a top temperature of 41 degrees
and Melbourne 39 degrees.
Another direction to Directlink: There were also continuing
problems with NSW supply and NEMMCO directed the Queensland-NSW
Directlink interconnector to be available for dispatch, as well as
offloading the 132kV feeder 9W2 to maintain power system security.
NEMMCO also forecast a lack of reserve level one (LOR1) for three hours
30 minutes in South Australia and for one hour in NSW.
How prices moved in the regions: The following table shows how prices moved during the spike intervals in the five regions:
| Trading interval | NSW | Vic | SA | Qld | Snowy |
| 1000EST | – | – | $135.79/MWh | – | – |
| 1030EST | – | – | $125.16/MWh | – | – |
| 1100EST | – | – | $274.00/MWh | – | – |
| 1130EST | – | – | $299.00/MWh | – | – |
| 1200EST | – | – | $276.83/MWh | – | – |
| 1230EST | $164.05/Mwh | $155.49/MWh | $315.09/MWh | – | $149.49/MWh |
| 1300EST | $302.83/MWh | $280.97/MWh | $397.88/MWh | – | $273.73/MWh |
| 1330EST | $442.77/MWh | $399.97/MWh | $513.65/MWh | $114.92/MWh | $385.76/MWh |
| 1400EST | $822.18/MWh | $749.77/MWh | $932.35/MWh | – | $715.35/MWh |
| 1430EST | $1658.22/MWh | $1475.92/MWh | $1764.45/MWh | $153.47/MWh | $1422.17/MWh |
| 1500EST | $3936.04/MWh | $3448.66/Mwh | $4187.19/MWh | $299.64/MW | $3351.57/MWh |
| 1530EST | $3216.99/MWh | $2608.44/MWh | $3220.62/MWh | – | $2624.65/MWh |
| 1600EST | $591.88/MWh | $517.11/MWh | $677.11/MWh | $563.16/MWh | $509.38/MWh |
| 1630EST | $3487.60/MWh | $3154.97/MWh | $3755.37/MWh | $2800.09/MWh | $3049.60/MWh |
| 1700EST | $317.00/MWh | $287.71/MWh | $369.20/MWh | $302.90/MWh | $279.01/MWh |
| 1730EST | $137.70/MWh | $124.67/MWh | $172.73/Mwh | $133.52/MWh | $122.38/MWh |
| 1800EST | – | – | $119.18/MWh | – | – |
| 1900EST | – | – | $129.49/MWh | – | – |
| 1930EST | – | – | $149.00/MWh | – | – |
| 2000EST | – | – | $149.00/MWh | – | – |
| 2030EST | – | – | $149.00/MWh | – | – |
| 2100EST | – | – | $152.51/MWh | – | – |
| 2130EST | – | – | $169.33/MWh | – | – |
Reference: National Price for NSW, Victoria, South Australia,
Queensland and Snowy for one day, Friday 30 December, in Price/Demand
section of Erisk Net – Realtime NEM Data.