On Monday 9th October 2023 there are two changes to the market going live that have necessitated both:

1) The AEMO to release EMMS v5.2 (which has been required for ez2view v9.7.1.25 and up from June 2023); and

2) We have released ez2view v9.8 to facilitate these two big market changes (discussed below).

(a) As at Thursday 5th October 2023 (the date of this note) the most recent iteration this release is v9.8.1.11

(b) … but there will be many more iterations to come because of the methodology we use.

In this Release Note we will provide some context to what’s been included in this upgrade (i.e. which bundles together everything since the v9.7.2.0 release on 5th July 2023). This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but just hit some of the highlights.

(A) The two market changes going live on Monday 9th October 2023

The upgrade to EMMS v5.2 has already facilitated the enablement of MaxAvail in the bid for Semi-Scheduled units:

(a) Which went live on 7th August 2023 (after a brief delay), and

(b) For which we developed an enhanced ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget in ez2view v9.7.1.25 in June 2023, and upgraded more since.

In addition to that earlier Market Change, the two imminent market changes requiring the upgrade to ez2view v9.8.* were as follows:

Market Change #1 *The implementation of Fast Frequency Response* (FFR)**	Market Change #2 Enhanced transparency of (Scheduled unit) outage States and Recall Times
On 15th July 2023 the AEMC published a Final Rule Determination to require the commencement of two new FCAS markets: 1) To augment the pre-existing 8 x FCAS markets); 2) Because of the faster ROCOF that would otherwise ensue as levels of inertia in the grid decline with the closure of coal (discussed on WattClarity in July 2023); and 3) Which is required to commence from 13:00 (NEM Time) on Monday 9th October 2023. On WattClarity: 1) On 12th May 2021 we wrote about the Draft Rule Determination; and 2) On 15th July 2021 we wrote about the Final Rule Determination. There is further information about this particular rule change on the AEMC website at this location.	On 18th August 2022 the AEMC made a Final Rule Determination to require additional data to be supplied by Market Participants, and published by AEMO on its pre-existing MT PASA DUID Availability publication frequency. This change: 1) followed from the earlier ‘ERM Rule Change’ published in February 2020 and required the commencement of publication of unit-level … which led to the development of specific widgets in ez2view like: (a) The ‘MT PASA DUID Availability’ widget; and (b) More recently the ‘Generator Outages’ widget from ez2view v9.4. 2) This latest rule change provides for further transparency … but alas is still focused only on fully Scheduled plant and not the Semi-Scheduled plant, which is something we’ve written about previously (including on 21st June 2021). You can find more about the AEMC ERC0338 project on its website.
In understanding the specifics of this change, the AEMO has put together some useful documentation on its ‘Fast Frequency Response’ Major Programs sub-site.	In understanding the specifics of this change, there are useful details in the latest version of AEMO’s Reliability Standards Implementation Guide (RSIG, published 24th April 2023).

Market Change #1

The implementation of Fast Frequency Response (FFR)

Market Change #2

Enhanced transparency of (Scheduled unit) outage States and Recall Times

On 15th July 2023 the AEMC published a Final Rule Determination to require the commencement of two new FCAS markets:

1) To augment the pre-existing 8 x FCAS markets);

2) Because of the faster ROCOF that would otherwise ensue as levels of inertia in the grid decline with the closure of coal (discussed on WattClarity in July 2023); and

3) Which is required to commence from 13:00 (NEM Time) on Monday 9th October 2023.

On WattClarity:

1) On 12th May 2021 we wrote about the Draft Rule Determination; and

2) On 15th July 2021 we wrote about the Final Rule Determination.

There is further information about this particular rule change on the AEMC website at this location.

On 18th August 2022 the AEMC made a Final Rule Determination to require additional data to be supplied by Market Participants, and published by AEMO on its pre-existing MT PASA DUID Availability publication frequency.

This change:

1) followed from the earlier ‘ERM Rule Change’ published in February 2020 and required the commencement of publication of unit-level

… which led to the development of specific widgets in ez2view like:

(a) The ‘MT PASA DUID Availability’ widget; and

(b) More recently the ‘Generator Outages’ widget from ez2view v9.4.

2) This latest rule change provides for further transparency

… but alas is still focused only on fully Scheduled plant and not the Semi-Scheduled plant, which is something we’ve written about previously (including on 21st June 2021).

You can find more about the AEMC ERC0338 project on its website.

In understanding the specifics of this change, the AEMO has put together some useful documentation on its ‘Fast Frequency Response’ Major Programs sub-site.

In understanding the specifics of this change, there are useful details in the latest version of AEMO’s Reliability Standards Implementation Guide (RSIG, published 24th April 2023).

(B) Related enhancements inside of ez2view v9.8

With this context, let’s look at enhancements that have been implemented for these two Market Changes…

(B1) Enhancements to cater for Fast Frequency Response

The addition of two more FCAS commodities (bringing the total from 8 commodities to 10 commodities) will touch many of the widgets included in ez2view, with the following being just a sample that we have highlighted:

B1a) ‘NEM Prices’ widget

The ‘NEM Prices’ widget has been enhanced to also show the newly created prices for both

i. the 1-second Contingency Raise; and

ii. the 1-second Contingency Lower.

B1b) Trends data

Related to the establishment, a number of additional data sets have been included in the ‘Trend Editor’ web-based widget, such as:

i. Prices for 1-second Contingency Raise & Contingency Lower:

1. Actual dispatch/trading prices; and
2. P5 predispatch prices; and
3. P30 predispatch prices; and
4. 7 day predispatch prices.

ii. Local Requirement; and

iii. Enablement levels for DUIDs that receive dispatch instructions

B1c) ‘Bids & Offers’ widget

More detailed data is now accessible through the two new FCAS layers added into the ‘Bids & Offers’ widget

B1d) ‘Current Bids’ widget

More detailed data is now accessible through the two new FCAS layers added into the ‘Current Bids’ widget

B1e) ‘Price Setter’ widget

More detailed data is now accessible through the two new FCAS layers added into the ‘Price Setter’ widget

B1f) ‘Bid Explorer’ widget

More detailed data is now accessible through the two new FCAS layers added into the ‘Bid Explorer’ widget

B1g) ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget, and ‘Station Details’ widget

More detailed data is now accessible:

i. For a selected DUID in the ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget

ii. For a selected STATION in the ‘Station Details’ widget

B1h) Alerts now possible with FFR Prices

The FCAS price alerts alerts configurable:

i. in the ‘Notifications’ widget (installed with ez2view and evaluated locally) are also now possible with respect to the FFR prices.

i. in the ‘SMS Alarms’ widget (installed with ez2view and evaluated locally) are also now possible with respect to the FFR prices.

B1i) FFR data in ‘Forecast Convergence’

Remember that we developed the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget to help clients to ‘look up a vertical’ to see ‘that other dimension of time’.

With the introduction of these 2 new FCAS commodities, the FFR prices have been added into the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget.

(B2) Enhancements for the new Scheduled unit outage data

The new data that’s required to be submitted by participants and published by AEMO promises to be a useful enhancement on the market processes.

Alas, this data is still not (yet) required to be made available for Semi-Scheduled units (something we have written about a number of times on WattClarity, including here in June 2021) … though surely that is a matter of time until this (what seems to us to be a) shortcoming is addressed with a subsequent rule change?

B2a) Two columns added into ‘Generator Outages’ widget

The ‘Generator Outages’ widget that was installed with version 9.4 in April 2022 as a significant enhancement (and enhanced further with v9.5) and has met with considerable acclaim.

With this new data now available, we have added two new columns into the left-hand side of the table – representing:

i. the Unit State (see AEMO’s RSIG linked above) and

ii. if currently on outage (and the outage was known in the ‘stale’ MT PASA run from the latest run on the most recent Saturday), the declared Recall Time (in days).

B2b) Multi-colour classification of outages in the ‘Generator Outages’ widget

In earlier incarnations of Generator Outages widget (i.e. v9.4 and v9.5 and v9.6 and v9.7) the widget used two colours – with RED being an outage and GREEN being available at any level for the day.

… this was in comparison with historical reporting in Appendix 5 of GenInsights Quarterly Updates, where three colours were used (RED, GREY and GREEN) to provide more detail.

The inclusion of additional data means that a richer colour scale can be implemented, following this broad logic:

This has been implemented as follows:

i. For v9.8.1.11 (available from Thursday 5th October 2023) the colours used are just GREEN and ORANGE. The other colours are still to come…

ii. Subsequent versions (currently under development and coming soon) will expand the number of unit states identified by colour.

B2c) Enhanced tool tips in ‘Generator Outages’ widget

We are also in the process of expanding the amount of data visible through the mouse-over tool tip for each of the DUID-DAY cells shown in the widget.

B2d) Others Enhancements to come…

Other enhancements of other widgets (and new widgets entirely) have been scoped to provide other visibility of this data for different purposes.

(C) Other enhancements inside of ez2view v9.8

In addition to the above, there have been a number of other enhancements made since the v9.7.2.0 release on 5th July 2023. Some of these are listed below:

(C1) Several enhancements with respect to constraints

Unrelated to the two new market developments, we have continued to make enhancements in the ez2view application with respect to constraint equation data.

C1a) Enhanced constraint filtering in ‘Notifications’ widget

There were some significant enhancements made to the ability to filter constraints within the the ‘Notifications’ widget that is installed with ez2view and evaluated locally in your copy (including with respect to any Private Data you have accessible in real time that you have pointed to).

In particular, these filters can now access any combination of both:

i. The Operator of the Constraint (e.g. <= or >=); and also

ii. The Factor relating to the DUID(s) selected in the filter.

This is illustrated here:

This was requested by clients (e.g. Case 6303) and provides enhanced ability to focus in on constraints that have particular impacts on a subset of DUIDs.

C1b) Enhancements to the ‘Constraint Dashboard’ widget

The ‘Constraint Dashboard’ widget that was installed with version 9.5 in October 2022 and a significant enhancement has met with considerable acclaim.

Two suggestions we have worked on, in response to customer requests, were as follows:

i. We have implemented a 2-day look-forward option to ensure that the entire range of P30 predispatch is provided for in the look-ahead window (re Case nnnn).

ii. We have also taken to speed up the loading of the widget by virtue of approaches to loading of the constraint data required for this widget (re Case nnnn).

… and there’s more still to come on this widget.

C1c) Added details in the ‘MITC Analysis’ widget

The ‘MITC Analysis’ widget is one that was added into ez2view many years ago to address specific needs of TNSPs that utilise the software.

This widget loads data from a table created in the EMMS (i.e. MCCCONSTRAINTSOLUTION) to contain constraint data produced from an MCC constraint re-run of the standard dispatch process. Based on requests from clients (e.g. Case 6179) we have also added in the Marginal Value from the ‘normal’ table (i.e. DISPATCHCONSTRAINT) to allow for quick comparison of both Marginal Values (which are sometimes different as a result of the different dispatch processes used to run and re-run NEMDE).

C1d) Commenced development of a ‘Dispatch Explorer’ widget

We’re a while away from being ready to release (so stay tuned), but worth noting we’ve commenced development a new ‘Dispatch Explorer’ widget, which will have an initial focus on constraint data.

(C2) Upgrades to the Regional Schematics

With this release (compared to the v9.7.2.0 release on 5th July 2023) we have updated some of the Regional Schematics as follows:

1) For the QLD region:

(a) We have included the pair of DUIDs for the Bouldercombe BESS in the Central-West zone.

(b) Anything else?

2) For the NSW region:

(a) We have included the Capital BESS (in the Canberra zone)

(b) We are still to include the Broken Hill BESS (in the West zone)

(d) We are still to include the Flyers Creek Wind Farm (in the NCEN zone)

(e) We are contemplating when to remove the place-holder for the Liddell units (which will appear if time-travelled back before their closure in April 2023).

3) For the VIC Region, there are no new additions or changes.

4) For the SA region:

(a) We have included the Goyder South Wind Farm (in the Northern zone)

(b) Anything else?

5) For the TAS Region there are no new additions or changes.

(C3) Additional Data in Trends

Beyond the inclusion of data for FFR into the ‘Trend Editor’ web-based widget (that’s accessible inside of the installed ez2view and also in ez2view online), we have also added in a number of other data sets, including the following:

1) From the 7-day predispatch run, we have added in both:

(a) Forecast gas usage by Gas Power Generation (requested by one client under Case 6287)

(b) Forecast Interconnector Flows (requested by another client under Case 6310)

2) Onto the ‘Generators’ tab we have added in a number of other data sets:

(a) We have added ‘FinalMW’ as a discrete data series, so to enable direct calculations with that data inside the Trends Editor; and

(b) Based on a customer request (Case 6339) we have added in the Energy Constrained Availability from AEMO … this is labelled ‘AEMO dispatch UIGF POE50’

i. to understand which data set this, is, you might want to refer to the WattClarity article from 11th August 2023 ‘What inputs and processes determine a semi-scheduled unit’s availability’, and note that it is the highlighted data point in this modified image:

ii. the reason for this inclusion is that the ‘Availability’ figure in the EMMS:

1. Now (from 7th Aug 2023) contains the effect of any lowering of ‘MaxAvail’ to reflect physical limitations on semi-scheduled plant;

2. But also, increasingly, the potential for ‘optimised*’ use of self-forecasts for some DUIDs prioritised to achieve low Causer Pays Factor rather than the delivery of an objective measure of Energy-Constrained Availability.

re (*) some view this as ‘optimising’ and some view this as ‘gaming the market’

(C4) Clarification of data options

Following queries from a number of clients and prospects, we invested time to prepare the update ‘Options for AEMO data delivery to ez2view (as at August 2023)’ here:

We hope this is useful for clarifying why ez2view:

1) will work with your own Private EMMS if it is in one of AEMO’s fully supported database platforms (i.e. Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle),

2) but will not work if its in one of a number of platforms that we’ve seen others are experimenting with (e.g. PostgreSQL or My SQL).

Let us know if you still have questions, after reading this?

(C5) Enhanced ‘Help’ functionality

To make ez2view easier to use, we have further enhanced a number of functions within ez2view, including:

1) Under the ‘Help’ Windows menu, we have added a ‘Health Check’ function that can be used for quick diagnosis of problems.

2) Under the ‘Help’ Windows menu, we have added a link to the new ‘Service Status’ page that you might find useful

3) We have also made other information more easily accessible, such as:

(a) The ‘feedback’ buttons (top right of each widget) in ez2view will email directly to our dedicated support line; and

(b) Sometimes (e.g. in web widgets) the links to the Widget Guides did not work under some circumstances … we have rectified this.

i. The link is filtered down to Release Notes, such as these

ii. Just keep in mind there are other updates on this site which might also be useful.

… and we’ll continue to expand this functionality as we continue into the future.

(C6) Plus more…

The list above is not an exhaustive list of everything done

ez2view v9.8 released