The Queensland grid is in crisis — the forecast price for nearly the entire next 24 hours is 15,000 per megawatt hour.

I have never seen a graph like this one. It’s a “white knuckle ride” as Paul McArdle describes it. The IRPM (or Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin) is just 8%. “This shows total Available Generation of 31,679MW ready to supply aggregate ‘Market Demand’ of  of 29,201MW at this point … so a surplus of only 2,478MW NEM-wide.” But only last week there was a record day where the grid demand was 32,000MW.

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Reserves are incredibly thin, not just in Queensland, but also in NSW.  Market Notices on the Australian market are flowing like confetti. There is an Actual Lack of Reserve Level 2 (LOR2) in Queensland as of 6pm to 8pm. There is an LOR2 for NSW as well, and an LOR1 for Victoria. If things shift up to LOR3 that means blackouts are here.

There is almost no unreliable intermittent renewable energy available to use during this peak time.

This graph shows how much the entire renewable revolution is helping at this moment in Australia. The graph also shows “Battery storage” so people can see how much it is contributing. To notice the microscopic sliver of red battery power flicker on and off, go to Anero.id and tick-untick the battery box.

There is almost no solar, wind power or battery power available.  |  Anero.id 

Coal power is obviously the mainstay of the grid

Those sources from the bottom are black coal, brown coal and natural gas. The light blue is hydro power. Everything else is trivia.

Coal is keeping the grid running.   | Anero.id 

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Australian Financial Review