3. The Focus

Things OzEA is currently focused on / 2do lists.

[Thursday 11th August, 2011]

OzEA continues in a 'tools-down' mode (see Tea Room).

The focus for now is the developing discussion here.

When the dust settles and I get back to doing modelling, analysis and data work, the following beckons:

The Third Story (TTS) follow up:

- comment on TTS and 50% model pages to reset the scene and explain where things are going now
- examine thinning out the simulated wind generators (50% model page)
- examine, at TTS level, sensitivity to the levels of solar thermal and pumped hydro storage

Generator dispatch model and market operation

- initial work follows from this discussion, but also want:
- a simple 'model' of ramping for major generator types
- a quick background stocktake of existing infrastructure

[more to say here, but need to get it straight in own head first]

Transmission flows

- transmission analysis page - intro, background, framing etc

Data issues

- need more solar data
- need to resolve understanding of what demand data represents
- need to decide on some basic infrastructure and fuel costings
- some data update work needed

Jobs for Ron

Tasks I would like to tackle, but are not currently a priority:

- limited by the wind speed and solar irradiance data, most work here is at the hour level. We do however have 5 minute wind farm output data, and an analysis examining how the frequency and duration of low and high output events changes as the time base is down-sampled is overdue.

- We now have sufficient data, including simulated wind farms and CST plant across the continent, to start looking for useful patterns. That is, i) pairs, or groups, of renewable generators that cover each others low output periods; ii) renewable generators that follow demand (a simple, obvious, example is solar against summer demand peaks). By finding these patterns in the data, we can go on to seek causal and meteorological explanations and understanding.

- Understand why the satellite solar data is systematically lower than the ground based BoM measurements. Plus, for solar data in general, comparing costal to more inland locations, and quantifying the relationship between the global and direct measurement values.

- Establish a first-pass power curve for photovoltaic panels.

Ongoing thinking

1. The nature of a market that depends on extreme prices during occasional (high load) events to provide most of the financial return.