AEMO Ageing Coal-Fired Generation Reliability NEM

AEP Elical recently supported AEMO, Australia’s Energy Market Operator, with a Report on the Assessment of Ageing Coal Fired Generation Reliability in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

This work contributed to AEMO’s statutory responsibility to forecast electricity supply reliability in the NEM over a 10-year outlook. The report, prepared by AEP Elical and published by AEMO is cited as a supporting consultant report for AEMO’s 2024 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO), alongside the 2023 Inputs, Assumptions and Scenarios Report (IASR) and the 2024 Forecasting Assumptions Update.

Generation from coal fired power stations is currently a fundamental part of the NEM’s firm generation capacity. However, there are a number of these stations that are approaching the end of their design life. These can pose a challenge to the operation of a modern power system, particularly one with increasing penetration of intermittent solar and wind generation. In recent times there have been several short notice and simultaneous forced outages of thermal generation in the NEM that provides base load generation capacity.

In this complex assessment, the AEP Elical team used a forward-looking methodology based on theoretical probability to establish reliability parameters and models used for assessing the reliability of the stations through to end of life. We were supported in this study through discussions with the power generation companies, who provided their invaluable insights of both technical and market challenges.

The full report, as published by AEMO, is included below for reference.