The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has forecast there will be sufficient energy supply this summer.
For the summer of 2021-22, AEMO has not found any gas availability deficiencies in Australia’s eastern and south-eastern gas markets.
However, as in recent years, AEMO will continue to examine and mitigate any scheduled gas maintenance conflicts to guarantee that gas supply is retained for eastern and south-eastern Australian gas customers.
Over the summer, AEMO will continue to monitor the refilling of Iona underground gas storage reservoirs in preparation for winter 2022.
AEMO’s chief operations officer, Michael Gatt said that although operational projections are favourable as the country prepares for the first back-to-back La Nia summer conditions in a decade, extreme weather events pose a security concern.
“Similar to last summer, we’re expecting less intense heatwave and bushfire conditions,” Gatt said.
“However, these risks remain, along with likely tropical cyclones and flooding due to anticipated La Niña weather patterns.”
In response to the risks, Gatt said AEMO was prepared.
“An additional 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of small-scale solar generation and 2 GW of new grid-scale generation capacity have strengthened the reliability outlook, offsetting a number of generation units unavailable this summer,” he said.
Indeed, from November 2021 to March 2022, AEMO will provide weekly briefings with governments and TNSPs on expected weather, electricity and gas system status, for the following week.
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