Wholesale power prices are returning to levels which would trigger a price cap in Queensland, the state where households are being hardest hit by rising bills.
Brisbane’s coldest July day for 30 years, a plant outage and cloudy weather that cut generation from solar panels have combined to once again drive extreme spikes in wholesale prices in Queensland that could lead to the renewed suspension of the National Electricity Market.
sparked a series of events that led to an unprecedented nine-day suspension of the National Electricity Market.The Australian Energy Market Operator seized control of the dispatch of power from plants to avoid blackouts as companies withdrew their generators – which might otherwise have been forced to run unprofitably – from the market.
But market sources pointed to between 1 gigawatt and 1.3 gigawatts of forecast capacity that was withdrawn from the market over about a 12-hour period on Tuesday morning, which they suggested could be for economic reasons or to conserve water at dams. Some smaller retailers have announced bigger increases, or told customers outright to switch to another supplier to avoid tariffs that would roughly double.to federal and state energy ministers and regulators calling for urgent support to prevent more companies going under.
“What we’re seeing is they are waiting to reprice to see what the big incumbents have done. It’s a bit of a cat and mouse game at the moment,” he said. But one of the other Yallourn units currently online is expected to come offline for maintenance in the coming days, Mr Brownfield said.
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