Power and spot price monitoring projects & resources

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#1326084 16-Jun-2015 21:00

Power's stayed pretty expensive this evening. It usually peaks around 6pm to $140-200 / MWh but then drops to 40-60 for the rest of the evening. Tonight it's stayed right up there. I guess it's just demand on a cold night. Cold nights are when you want cheap power, I think we're paying slightly more than we would with a regular power company.

I note that power at the top of the south island is $70/Mwh then jumps to $150/MWh in Wellington. It's usually really close together. Has a cable failed or something? There's nothing on CAN.

Aredwood

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#1328928 22-Jun-2015 00:08

What is the best way to find out what node you are connected to? As there are 2 Grid exit points in Albany, Auckland. And there is a Wairau GXP that was only built a year or 2 ago. Which I might have been moved to.

timmmay

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#1328945 22-Jun-2015 07:07

You might have to ask your power company.

I looked this week's breakdown, I pay 50% more for transmission and distribution of power than for the power itself. That seems backwards.

k14

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#1333996 30-Jun-2015 11:06

timmmay: You might have to ask your power company.

I looked this week's breakdown, I pay 50% more for transmission and distribution of power than for the power itself. That seems backwards.

Why is that? Do you know how complex the transmission and distribution system is in this country? We have half the population living over 1000km away from the biggest source of power, plus it has to go under the sea to get there. That is massively expensive to install, maintain and operate. NZ has very unique geography (very long and skinny) which means long lines up and down the country with short spurs west and east to connect to the largely coastal population base. Not to mention our very low population density which doesn't help things at all. There is no other country in the world with a transmission infrastructure like us and people conveniently forget this when comparing us to other countries with populations 10 times or 100 times bigger than us. That is why it costs so much to get the power from the power station to your house :)

timmmay

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#1334009 30-Jun-2015 11:17

Fair enough then :)

timmmay

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#1342581 13-Jul-2015 21:14

Power hit $32,000 per Mhw this evening. That's around $30/unit! Hopefully there's some kind of market correction, otherwise that half hour period will cost me $40-$60!

jonathan18

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#1342602 13-Jul-2015 21:42

timmmay: Flick should notify customers if prices really spike, and I'm on an email notification service - which for example told me today power was $50,000/MHw, 1000x more than usual - hoping it's an anomaly! If it happens too badly too often I'll move providers.

Whereabouts did you find the option to subscribe to this notification service, if you don't mind me asking? I've not found it via Flick's website, but would be interested in trying this out. Many thanks!

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Aredwood

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#1342638 13-Jul-2015 22:35

timmmay: Power hit $32,000 per Mhw this evening. That's around $30/unit! Hopefully there's some kind of market correction, otherwise that half hour period will cost me $40-$60!

Look up the 5min prices for that time period. At 1750 the price is $96,519.99 and at 1755 the price is $92,137.83

timmmay

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#1342697 14-Jul-2015 07:19

Aredwood: Look up the 5min prices for that time period. At 1750 the price is $96,519.99 and at 1755 the price is $92,137.83

I know, I did. Flick has said they've seen this happen before, and the price rarely settles above $9000/MWh. That's $9 - $18 for us for that half hour period, 1/4 of our weekly bill. If it's rare, no problem, if it happens regularly it may be.

timmmay

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#1342698 14-Jul-2015 07:20

jonathan18:
timmmay: Flick should notify customers if prices really spike, and I'm on an email notification service - which for example told me today power was $50,000/MHw, 1000x more than usual - hoping it's an anomaly! If it happens too badly too often I'll move providers.

Whereabouts did you find the option to subscribe to this notification service, if you don't mind me asking? I've not found it via Flick's website, but would be interested in trying this out. Many thanks!

I use a third party service, nodewatch, that Flick recommends, it email me when prices go high. Flick are building tools but they're not there yet.

kiwitrc

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#1342724 14-Jul-2015 08:35

What actual time was that spike?

timmmay

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#1342734 14-Jul-2015 08:43

Day is in half hour blocks, so 48 of them. Block 36 is 18 hours from midnight, so 6pm. I know from looking at it that prices generally dip around 3pm and stay moderate until 5pm when they go up slightly, then the go up sharply at 5:30pm, but generally drop back down to normal around 7 or 7:30pm. On cold nights like last night it can stay high until 11pm. Morning you start to peak around 7am, but since we're out of the house before then I don't really follow it.

Last night I had the hot water turned off from 5:30pm, then turned it on again before we went to bed. That would've reduced our usage, and I'll be putting in a timer before long. I want our water mostly heated around 2-4am when power is cheap and we're paying off peak line charge. I'll have it do a quick top-up around 3pm if necessary, and I'll make sure there's a manual override in case of visitors.

timmmay

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#1343045 14-Jul-2015 14:30

The interim price came down from $30K to $300. Quite a difference.

luckiestmanalive

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#1351457 25-Jul-2015 08:28

If you see prices close to $100,000/MWh or higher then it is because the demand for electricity has peaked higher than generators expected and the tool that calculates the prices hasn't found enough generation to procure reserve (generation and interruptible load held in reserve to recover from an sudden loss of a single source of generation).

These prices are not real - the tool for calculating prices has to be able to calculate a price in all situations so prices close to or above $100,000/MWh are just a signal to traders the market is short. The actual prices for each half-hour are calculated separately each day for the previous day by the pricing manager.

Any prices like this that show up in that process are recalculated after reducing the reserve procured to a quantity that could be supplied. That is why prices drop to a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars per MWh.

The NZ system for calculating prices is unique in the world. Most other electricity markets calculate and settle on prices calculated and published in real time and all of them cap wholesale prices. The highest price cap is Australia's (about $15,000/MWh).

kiwitrc

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#1351459 25-Jul-2015 08:32

Interesting, thanks!

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