Australia power market halted in dramatic move to avert blackouts | World News,The Indian Express

By taking over control of the market, the market operator would have clear visibility on which generators are available and when in a timely manner, so it can ensure reliable supply.

Australia’s energy market operator took the unprecedented step on Wednesday of suspending the electricity spot market across eastern Australia to ensure it can keep the lights on, amid a string of outages at coal-fired plants.

The dramatic move came after the operator capped wholesale prices on Monday as required when they exceeded a set threshold, which led some generators to withhold supply as they could not cover their costs at the capped price of A$300 per megawatt hour (MWh).

That forced the market operator to order generators to supply 5 gigawatts (GW) of power, which they had not offered into the market on Tuesday, to avert blackouts in two states – New South Wales and Queensland.

“The situation in recent days has posed challenges to the entire energy industry, and suspending the market would simplify operations during the significant outages across the energy supply chain,” Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) chief executive Daniel Westerman said in a statement.

He said it was understandable generators had held back supply in light of the price caps along with unplanned outages and supply challenges with coal and gas, but having to direct generators to provide supply had made it impossible to maintain normal market operations.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/australia-power-outage-energy-market-halted-7971102/

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