This Release Note talks to a number of different developments related to ez2view:
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(A) Today we have released ez2view version 9.3
On Sunday 24th October 2021 the Wholesale Demand Response Mechanism (WDRM) commenced, and introduced the principle of (some) Negawatts being centrally dispatched via NEMDE within the AEMO.
To facilitate visibility of Negawatts when they emerge in the market, we’ve released ez2view v9.3 on Tuesday 16th November 2021 – making this now the ‘Stable Release’, as shown here:
The image above is a sample of this ‘Download the latest installer for ez2view’ page today, onto which I have added a number of highlights to discuss in this note below – but keep in mind that this page will always contain links to the latest release of the installed ez2view software.
With respect to this version, please note the following:
(A1) Required version of MMS
In order to support the WDRM in the market, the AEMO released a non-trivial upgrade to the MMS hot on the heels of the Five Minute Settlement release:
The 5MS release of the MMS (i.e. MMS v5.0) has already been superseded by the WDRM release (i.e. MMS v5.1).
However we reasoned that it would be impossible to assume that all of our clients will have upgraded to MMS v5.1 successfully in the short space of time allowed before the commencement of the WDRM.
Hence we have extended the ‘cloud based data’ functionality such that ez2view v9.3 will access the necessary WDRM data (public data only) from the cloud, regardless of the version of the MMS you are using.
As a result of this, the minimum required version of the MMS ez2view v9.3 requires remains at MMS v5.0 … at least at this point.
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(A2) Remember Tripwire #3
With the release of v9.3 (specifically to provide visibility of Negawatts in dispatch, and bids, and so on) it’s worth a reminder about Tripwire #3 – which we have been very conscious of, in addressing Negawatts within v9.3. Some examples of this are below.
This tripwire arose from a pragmatic choice made in the interests of making commencing with WDRM simpler … though there are unintended consequences in terms of what’s in the tripwire.
(A2) About WDR in the application
There are a number of enhancements made to ez2view to provide visibility of Negawatts – including:
1) WDR information (units registered for WDR, plus region-aggregate availability/target/estimated initialmw) is made available
2) The ‘NEM Map’ widget is updated with an additional WDR “fuel type”.
Doing this spurred us to reconfigure the widget so that the ‘Generation’ total is really a generation total – and that the load side components (pumping for Hydro, charging for Batteries, and the Negawatts) are all independently highlighted.
3) In doing this we made the change to ensure that the ‘NEM Map’ widget now makes best use of available data:
(a) In RealTime mode it uses InitialMW, as that’s the only data available … though technically offset 5 minutes to data like Target Demand and so on;
(b) In TimeTravel it flips to use FinalMW for all generation types in time travel … which is now similar to what was implemented for Schematics, Notifications and GenChange widgets some time ago.
4) The ‘Regional Trends’ widgets now have added WDR availability into AvailableGeneration in order to make it an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison with what is shown for ‘Market Demand’ (i.e. AEMO’s TOTALDEMAND field).
5) In the ‘Swim Lanes’ widget we have added in the WDR region-aggregate values.
6) The ‘Summary Stats’ widgets include the WDR availability
7) ‘Bids & Offers’ widget, and related widgets, now show a WDR category in the filters to single out this supply side offering.
8) The fuel type that was called ‘electricity’ (for all DR) has been changed to a clearer ‘Demand Side’ naming.
9) WDR dispatch type is identified in Station Standing Details.
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(A4) You can now subscribe for updates
Readers with a keen eye will have recognised now that there are two different, but related, URLs now used to provide Help with respect:
1) There’s the site that existed previously (https://help.ez2viewaustralia.info/) for the install files, the widget-specific help pages, higher-level help, and more;
2) But we have also shifted these release notes to this blog site (https://timeline.ez2viewaustralia.info/) to enable more blog-style functionality to enable us to share more here about the ongoing development of the software.
Amongst other things you should be able to subscribe for email updates (at the top-right of this page) on any way we post an update to this site.
(a) For years our pace of development has been high –
(b) In 2021 we also tried to communicate more via Release Notes –
(c) But the lack of a subscription list was not ideal, as it was time consuming and a constant battle to maintain a current list of interested parties who wanted to know these types of things.
(d) Now you can subscribe yourself (or the relevant people in your organisation), if you are interested in staying abreast of developments with respect to ez2view!
Our job then simplifies to:
Task #1 = continuing the rapid pace of development; and
Task #2 = communicating about this via updates on this site.
As always, if you require direct assistance, the first port of call would be to email the support line.
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(A5) Other enhancements
There are a number of other enhancements we’ve added in the process above – with a couple worth highlighting:
1) We’ve added a simple ‘Mute’ button at the top right of every window that will disable the audible alerts (until you ‘un mute’) without stopping the evaluation process in Notifications.
2) Following requests from multiple clients over the years, we have added in the ability for the user to add on a price trace overlay for selected regions (for the relevant commodity) in the ‘Bid Stack’ chart in the ‘Bids & Offers’ widget … which means it will also be accessible to you in ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget and ‘Station Details/Dashboard’ widget.
… plus others…
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(A6) Bug fixes
Mixed in with everything else are a number of bug fixes to resolve issues identified by clients, or by our team during internal testing. These include::
1) ‘MITC Analysis’ widget would fail to load data when filter included certain constraints with outages associated that had start/end dates well into the future (~> 25 years)
2) Bid details view for FCAS bids did not show the bidstack chart.
3) Candidate first interval for bids could show confusingly in bid table sometimes
4) It’s now possible to remove your last (local) AEMO database connection string, especially relevant if the local database is not longer valid version and you have flipped to using just the cloud Data Store.
… plus others as well.
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(A7) ‘Minimum Supported Version’
You’ll see on the image above that this downloads page now has a ‘Minimum Supported Version’ listed…. and that this is currently showing v9.0 as the minimum supported version.
As also noted earlier today in this earlier update, we will be switching off all copies of ez2view v8 in the week prior to Christmas 2021.
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(B) What’s next for ez2view
Following the transition into Five Minute Settlement and the release of ez2view version 9.1, we were able to restart the compilation process for the upcoming GenInsights21 release.
The release is slated for Monday 6th December 2021 – and you’re invited to submit your pre-order prior to that time to save on the release price.
What we’re analysing across GenInsights21 is very relevant to what we have in store for ez2view for future releases – in the same way as what we explored with the Generator Report Card 2018 some years ago provided the impetus for us to develop out the ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget with a reverse-engineered ‘Conformance Status’ logic, as just one example.
So flowing from GenInsights21 I’d expect to see a number of enhancements appear in ez2view at various points through the 2022 calendar year.
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Separate to (though somewhat related to some of the lines of analysis), we are starting to compile ideas about how to draw together, and massively enhance, the Capability to Configure and Receive Alerts through the ez2view software – with a starting point being:
1) What is in the ‘Notifications’ widget
2) What is in the ‘SMS Alarms’ widget – though separately at this point in time.
… so if you have particular requests and requirements about this, please do contact us directly to let us know!
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(C) In other news
About a month ago, Daniel Lee posted this broader company update for some of what we were involved with for Q3 2021. You might be like to keep an eye out on the Global-Roam site there for periodic updates, more broadly across our company.
Our update for Q4 2021 (which I’d expect we’ll post in January 2022) will talk about GenInsights21, but also a number of other things currently on the go…