ez2view v9.5 released (several significant developments)

On Tuesday 4th October 2022 we released ez2view v9.5 as the new ‘Stable Release’ of the software, and are encouraging all clients running earlier versions to upgrade. In conjunction with this release, we have also ended support for v9.0, v9.1 and v9.2.

1) The long-form version number is v9.5.1.216 and can be downloaded from here.

2) These release notes have come a couple days later.

3) Note that we released v9.4 in April 2022, but a number of clients are still running v9.3 (released November 2021) – so these notes are written for those who are still using permutations of ez2view v9.3 (particularly v9.3.3.92, released Jan 2022).

The upgrade to v9.5 provides access for clients to a number of significant new widgets, and also enhancements to a broad number of existing widgets as follows:

(A) New widgets released with v9.5:

We’d like to particularly highlight these three new widgets released with v9.5 (and/or v9.4):

New Widget #1 = ‘Constraint Dashboard’ widget

A very early version of this widget was released with v9.4 (as a conceptual design), and it has been substantially enhanced with the v9.5 release.

This widget is being built so that it will eventually replace the older ‘Constraint Equation Details’ widget.

1) For now the widget operates in parallel with the older widget;

2) How to access this widget?

Access Method #1) If you search for a particular Constraint Equation (i.e. by the Constraint ID) in ez2view Explorer, the two different widget options will be shown as options … so select ‘Constraint Dashboard’;

– OR –

Access Method #2) If you click through on a hyperlinked constraint equation from another widget:

Step 1 = for now it’s the older ‘Constraint Details’ widget that will launch,

Step 2 = this ‘Constraint Details’ widget will contain a link at the top to the newer ‘Constraint Dashboard’ widget.

With this in mind, here’s a view of how this new widget looks:

In building this widget, it’s worth highlighting a few of the design principles:

1) The widget uses the split chart-table framework we first introduced in the ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget, which means:

(a) The Time-Travel clock sets the overall context to the widget,

(b) … But you can click on any time point in the chart to set the context of the table – where the table loads in relevant data for the time point chosen on the chart,

i. Actual Data, where ‘Next Day Public’ data is also available – in which case you have greatest detail;

ii. Actual Data, but within the Current Day, in which case some data points in the table are approximated (e.g. from unit InitialMW or FinalMW)

iii. Forecast Data (i.e. looking at P5 or P30 predispatch).

2) On the chart, and in the table, the widget shows the cumulative contributions to the Left Hand Side (LHS), being the sum product of the Targets and LHS Factors.

3) Where possible (i.e. ‘Next Day’), the table also shows relevant information from each relevant unit’s bid, such as:

(a) Spare/unutilised capacity available from that bid band in the bid;

(b) ‘Last MW @’ bid band, at the RRN, being the last megawatt dispatched from this unit

(d) The CPD price is included to help illustrate (for the DUID) why it might not have been fully dispatched

4) Hyperlinks are included for DUIDs to link to the relevant ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget (and Interconnector Details, as well).

For further information about the Constraint Dashboard widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for ‘Constraint Dashboard’ in v9.5; and also

2) On WattClarity we’ve tagged some examples of use here.

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Note that there are a number of enhancements we have still on the drawing board for this ‘Constraint Dashboard’ widget, but we’d like to have our client gaining value from what’s already in this widget for v9.5 whilst:
1) We work through these further enhancements;
2) But especially, we incorporate your feedback on your experience with this widget as it is with the v9.5 release.

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New Widget #2 = ‘Generator Outages’ widget

An earlier version of this widget was released with v9.4, but has been further refined (particularly following our experiences in using this widget through the extreme market conditions of the 2022 Energy Crisis.

With this in mind, here’s a view of how this widget looks:

In particular, enhancements included:

1) More visibility of the state of the unit for the current day:

(a) Maximum actual generation (i.e. from InitialMW) for the current day;

(b) Current actual generation (i.e. InitialMW) for the current Dispatch Interval; and

2) ‘Export to CSV’ button included

3) Hyperlinks added to units

4) Able to filter on MaxCap, as noted below

5) User selection of column sorting is retained when data is updated

For further information about the Generator Outages widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for ‘Generator Outages’ in v9.5; and also

2) On WattClarity we’ve tagged some examples of use here.

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This widget has been built and enhanced with the assistance of a number of clients – we’d appreciate your own feedback on your experience with this widget.

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New Widget #3 = ‘Bid Explorer’ widget

This widget was released with v9.4, and included several improvements for the v9.5 release.

The widget is designed to help you view the evolution of a bid for a particular DUID over a given Market Day (i.e. through successive changes in bid). Here’s a view of how this widget looks:

For further information about the Bid Explorer widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for ‘Bid Explorer’ for v9.5; and also

2) It has not yet been featured in any articles on WattClarity.

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This widget has been built and enhanced with the assistance of a number of clients – we’d appreciate your own feedback on your experience with this widget.

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(B) Upgrades to pre-existing widgets

There were a significant number of other widgets enhanced in various ways for through the v9.4 and v9.5 releases, including the following:

(B1) Filtering ability of Bid Table

With respect to the new ‘Bid Explorer’ widget (above) and the earlier ‘Bids & Offers’ widget, which had been the focus of substantial enhancements for the v9.1 release of ez2view, we have improved the ability to filter bids according to their materiality:

This filtering ability is becoming increasingly necessary due to the rapidly increasing volume rebids with ‘The Rise of the Machines’ … which, in the case of some DUIDs:

(a) that contain no material changes in property;

(b) but operate merely as a ‘heartbeat’ from the participant’s bid submission system; and

(B2) Upgrades to ‘NEM Prices’ widget to visualise extreme events

This web widget has been included in ez2view for many years.

It was upgraded for v9.4, and has been further upgraded for the v9.5 release as a result of our learnings in the 2022 Energy Crisis. This image of four copies of the widget, time-travelled back to two points of time in June 2022 highlights some of the market states now catered for in the widget:

The two different time points selected are:

1) On 12th June 2022 at 20:55 with the QLD region under Administered Price Cap, and prices in neighbouring regions having Inter-regional Price Scaling (IRLF) applied

2) Then on 17th June 2022 at 17:10, with the NEM-wide Market Suspension underway.

For further information about the NEM Prices widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for v9.5; and also

2) On WattClarity we’ve tagged some examples of use here.

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Are there other market states not provided for in this widget? Please let us know.

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(B3) Addition of current level of Inertia into ‘NEM Map’ widget

For the v9.5 release, we added in AEMO’s newly published data for the current level of Inertia in each region of the NEM:

With respect to the level of intertia in the grid, it’s worth reflecting on the article ‘Calculated level of inertia in the South Australian grid, supplied by synchronous generation plant’ from August 2019 that discussed some of the analysis included in the Generator Report Card 2018 (GRC2018).

1) Back at that time, these metrics had to be calculated offline by GVSC;

2) Now having them published by AEMO in real time, we can include them into the ez2view dashboard.

For further information about the NEM Map widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for v9.5; and also

2) It has not yet been featured in any articles on WattClarity.

(B4) Enhanced filtering of ‘Constraint Sets’ reaching into Constraint Equations

After receiving several suggestions from customers, you can now filter Constraint Sets with any Constraint Equation filter… which can then be used in a number of different ways, such as:

Enhancement #1) Usefulness within the Constraint Sets widget

For instance, you can filter Constraint Sets on containing Constraint Equations with specific DUIDs on the LHS, as shown here:

In this mocked example we use the ‘Constraint Sets’ widget and filter the list shown for any of the Snowtown units.

Enhancement #2) You could then use the same filter to trigger alerts within the Notification widget:

Using the same filter, we could set up the following:

… so we would invite you to explore.

(B5) Inclusion of ‘PASA Avail’ into several widgets

Spurred by the 2022 Energy Crisis, we added in the ability to view ‘PASA Avail’ component of the bid – hence is visible in several different widgets, including:

1) The Bids & Offers widget;

2) The Bid Explorer widget (a new one introduced in v9.4 as noted above); and

3) The Unit Dashboard widget.

Here’s one view of how it looks:

You can find other examples of how this new functionality has been used by searching for ‘PASA Avail’ on the WattClarity site.

(B6) Inclusion of filtering of ‘Max Capacity’ in Generator Filters

Based on a customer request, in the v9.5 release we included the ability to filter a list of Generators by ‘Maximum Capacity’ in their registration details.

Here’s an image to illustrate one example of how you might use this:

This functionality is therefore available in many widgets that use this ‘filter units’ component, such as:

1) The Bids & Offers widget; and

2) The Generator Outages widget (a new widget introduced in v9.4 and upgraded in v9.5 as noted above).

3) The Forecast Convergence widget.

Whilst on the topic of Installed Capacity of units:

1) It’s worth flagging the recent WattClarity article ‘Analytical Challenge – choosing what measure to use, for Installed Capacity’;

2) And noting that, at least at this point, this filter can only reference MaxCap (and not also RegCap).

(B7) Upgrades to ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget

This widget was introduced into ez2view a number of years ago – and, for the v9.5 release, was upgraded to provide several enhancements:

Enhancement #1) Visibility of LOR condition forecasts for a selected region was added into the software, triggered by the 2022 Energy Crisis.

In particular it’s worth flagging that this enhancement was flagged in the WattClarity article ‘Increased Visibility of LOR3 Forecasts’ on 20th June 2022, and this image was provided there:

Enhancement #2) Visibility of (unbundled) UIGF forecasts for a selected region was added into the software.

The widget has long contained the view of aggregate UIGF (i.e. Unconstrained Intermittent Generation Forecasts) for Wind + Large Solar together. With this upgrade we have included the unbundled options as well, so the user can also select either UIGF for Wind or UIGF for Large Solar for a given region.

For further information about the Forecast Convergence widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for ‘Forecast Convergence’ in v9.5 ; and also

2) It has been utilised in a number of analytical articles on WattClarity ;

… and in particular you might like to note the recent article ‘Analytical Challenge – remembering to consider that *Other* Dimension of Time’, which pertains to this widget.

(B8) Upgrades to ‘Unit Dashboard’ to show the CPD Price uncapped

This was another bug that was uncovered by a client during the 2022 Energy Crisis, and which we corrected in a hotfix for the client at that time.

The Connection Point Dispatch Price (CPD Price) is uncapped, meaning that:

1) It can be above the Market Price Cap, which means (for supply-side DUIDs) no dispatch is possible; and also

2) Alternatively, it can be below the Market Price Floor.

For further information about the Unit Dashboard widget:

1) See the Widget Guide for ‘Unit Dashboard’ in v9.5 ; and also

2) Some examples of this widget are tagged on WattClarity.

(B9) New units added to ‘Regional Schematics’ widgets

No matter which earlier version you’re using, you should upgrade ez2view to ensure you have the latest Regional Schematics, complete with:

1) All units currently operational; and

2) Also all units in the AEMO’s ‘pre-prod’ system awaiting the next steps to enable them to be operational.

(B10) Transpose grid view in ‘Swim Lanes’ widget

This enhancement was added early in 2022, but it’s worth flagging that the ‘Swim Lanes‘ widget was enhanced to enable the user to transpose the layout of the data, to have the times selected running top-to-bottom down the screen, rather than the default option of left-to-right.

Here’s an example:

(B11) Enhancements to Trends Engine

We’ve made a number enhancements to the ‘Trends Engine‘ since late 2021, including the following:

B11a) Addition of P5 sensitivity price forecasts

Following client requests, we added in the P5 sensitivities for the data AEMO began publishing with the start of Five Minute Settlement, meaning that ‘Trends Engine’ includes:

1) The 43 discrete sensitivities in P30 predispatch; and

2) The 15 discrete sensitivities in P5 predispatch.

Note that the constitution of scenarios 1 to 15 are different for P30 and P5. It’s probably best to refer to the AEMO document ‘Pre-Dispatch Sensitivities’ in interpreting the constitution and meaning of each of the sensitivities:

B11b) Responsiveness

It’s also worth reiterating here that we invested considerable effort over the past 12 months to improve the responsiveness of the ‘Trends Engine’ to frequently run queries, and accessed data, via approaches to caching of data.

We’d appreciate your feedback on how you find this?

(B12) Provision of a various pre-configured trends within Trends Engine

Some time ago we developed a number of trends that have proven useful in viewing – and, on occasions, these widgets have been used in articles on WattClarity.

More recently we’ve fielded a number of questions from clients that have made us aware that some clients might appreciate our sharing of these with by this method:

Step 1 = Licensed users of ez2view can open their own copy of each Trend Widget by clicking on the relevant link(s) below for the Trends of interest;

Step 2 = the trend(s) you have chosen will open in ‘Trends Engine’ inside your browser … but thereafter will also be available in your list of available trends within ‘Trend Editor’ in your installed copy of ez2view.

Step 3 = if you open the trend within ‘Trend Editor’ within the Installed ez2view, you can then ‘Publish’ the widget – and hence have it available as a free-standing widget within installed ez2view itself (obeying Time Travel, and so on).

Here are some of the pre-configured trends that might be useful:

B12a) Cumulative Price

Licensed users of ez2view can open their own copy of this Trend Widget by clicking on this link:

https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/74bec07c-5d14-413f-b99c-64815561b34b

… here’s a static image to show how it appears:

You can see examples of this tend widget in use in some of these WattClarity articles, including on 12th June 2022 when ‘QLD volatility Sunday evening explodes past the Cumulative Price Threshold (CPT)’.

B12b) Region-based, 14-day Supply/Demand balance for a region

There are several of these widgets – please select which ones you want to use:

(i) On a NEM-wide basis = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/2864d3b8-4394-43cb-8908-c90ed5e735fd

Here’s an illustration of how this one looks:

The others below are all similar, though not identical

(ii) For the QLD region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/63941f90-0d33-47b7-bd9a-c9dcb93e4a94

(iii) For the NSW region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/f504f638-419c-4f35-a403-bdfaf5ddd753

(iv) For the VIC region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/21e2d7fd-e4f6-492b-90ee-7d6bf1028342

(v) For the SA region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/ca892d6f-1ccf-4035-b22b-25a002e9a5c9

(vi) With apologies to our friends in Tasmania, we’ve not yet developed a similar trend for the TAS region … but clients can use the models for the regions above to create their own 14-day overview for the TAS Region.

You will also find examples of use for these widgets in various WattClarity articles.

B12c) Region-based, LOR Condition for a region

There are several of these widgets – please select which ones you want to use:

(i) For the QLD region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/e14db2a4-7cac-45d8-a649-12740b406560

(ii) For the NSW region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/23ca16e7-d8ba-4633-bdf4-bdb65a52de34

Here’s an example of what this one looks like for the NSW Region

The others are identical format.

(iii) For the VIC region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/8fc083cb-b479-4255-b7a0-e9f3602f724b

(iv) For the SA region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/82eb9033-d412-47a1-a02d-1dd2c991a86b

(v) For the TAS region = https://trends.global-roam.com/#/templates/038825d8-c1a3-4e0b-8734-6102eb7c763c

You will also find examples of use for these widgets in various WattClarity articles.

Other trend widgets will be made available from time to time.

(C) Extensive Manual Testing

It’s also worth noting, in conclusion, that this release of ez2view followed an extensive round of Manual Testing on top of the Automated Tests that operate

(C1) Fixed a Memory Leak

It’s worth particularly noting that we’ve recently fixed a particular memory leak introduced when we upgraded one of the software components used in the software.

It’s a memory leak you might have come across in operating the software a certain way that would have slowed its operations considerably – hence you should upgrade to v9.5 even just for this benefit!

(C2) Other bug fixes etc

The testing above highlighted a number of other bugs that were resolved along the way.