A rule change request snuck in over Christmas could radically alter how the main grid functions

A proposed change to energy market rules quietly put to policy makers in December wants to radically alter how the National Energy Market works – by throwing open the data door to almost everyone. 

The request to the Australian Energy Market Commission is to loosen the market operator’s grip on data by making data open rather than confidential by default, and giving access to that to more than just registered market participants. 

The proposal could help to solve some grid congestion issues and allow developers to put projects in smarter places. 

But even the proponents, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and German modelling company DigSilent, admit it’s not a small task. 

“The package of initiatives proposed is not trivial and will require careful design of transition arrangements,” they said in the rule change request. 

“We consider that these changes are both achievable and necessary.”

Under the current system, basic information is treated as confidential by default, “leaving critical information gaps that interfere with efficient investment and connection of generation and loads”.

The kind of data the duo want to be thrown open includes geographic information – transmission lines after all can be seen from Google Earth – the location and size of  synchronous condensers, and the size of loads on the grid.

But they also want to see the data on transmission limits and constraint equations, details of protection systems and clearance times on network elements, transmission system load forecasts, and load forecast information used for the ISP scenarios.

Years of complaints about inadequate information about network capacity and a lack of transparency around connection data are yet to be resolved. 

It’s caused problems and sometimes years of delays for developers wanting to connect a project to the grid, as there is no visibility over who else might be connecting in the same area, or just how congested a line is, all until it’s too late.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has long tried to fix these issues with ideas such as locational marginal pricing that reflect the real time cost of power, marginal loss factors which curtail exports in congested parts of the grid, and dynamic operating envelopes which use local factors to raise or lower export limits. 

But without success. 

The new rule change request wants to approach the problem from a different direction – instead of changing how the grid is managed, open up the AEMO databases to everyone to look at the issues. 

ARENA and DigSilent are asking for a new, simplified system for checking whether data is actually confidential, and then make that available to anyone registered on an Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)-administered online portal.

That would open up critical National Energy Market (NEM) data to the likes of academics and other researchers who can come up with better modelling and new ideas about how to run Australia’s energy system. 

Requiring AEMO to look closely at the information being sent in by network operators and others, as well as making it semi-public, would also lift the quality of that data. 

“The online forum would improve data quality by helping to identify and solve modelling information issues, provide online access to experts and helping to prioritise areas for further development,” ARENA and DigSilent say in their request. 

“The proposal also seeks to advance interoperability of models between power modelling simulation tools by requiring models to be available and provided in a non-vendor specific format.” 

The rule change would see AEMO go from being a custodian to a curator of data, which may be a big ask of an agency that is notoriously understaffed and over worked. 

But it may also spread the workload slightly wider, across a range of new modellers and researchers.

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