OzEA -- What's New

This page is depreciated,
although I'll add things here from time to time, so the list below is worth examining.
To keep up with what's very new, please:
a. Look at Recent Comments, which reports most incrimental developments;
b. Keep an eye on the Focus Page;
c. Sign up (above) for the what's new email / newsletter (about once a month at the moment);
d. If you are familiar with the site, please visit the Tea Room every week or three.

[Tuesday 9th Nov] Current activity is working to establish a Wind Power Curve Model for transforming BoM Wind Speed data into estimated output in the case that a Wind Farm was built nearby.

Alex and Manzurs' contracts finished in early October. A job well done. Many thanks to both of them for their work and enthusiasm, without which we'd never have gotten the site up and the work started in this way.

[Wednesday 21st July] Apologies for dropping the ball here; it's been a mad couple of weeks. Both the modelling and the Broome to Cooktown have been developed in recent days -- more specific comments here in coming days. For now (for those at least somewhat familiar with the OzEA project) there are some serious questions being asked in the Tea Room.

[Friday 9th July] The comment feed is now in place (version 1), giving an overview of recent comments site wide.

[Thursday 16th June] The modelling work is coming along - for those up with the various strands, there is more preview in The Tea Room.

[Tuesday 15th June] Over the long weekend we revamped the front page, including four 'portal views'. You are especially encouraged to read 3. Focus - State of Play (and comment on the forum).

[Wednesday 9th June] The Broome to Cooktown Challenge. An Open Science, group project proposal; it will fly if you make it fly.

[Monday 7th June] Another batch of development brewing. For now I am using the forum as a stop-gap measure to announce activity and otherwise provide a focus for return visitors.

[Wednesday 2nd June] We're official! Last night (after a big day of tidying) Barry announced us to the world on his BNC blog. Also picked up here. Thanks to all concerned.

[Monday 31st May] Some new analysis on wind power penetration, forshadowing the start of the modelling work, and 'beta-2' on Wednesday.

[Tuesday 25th May] As most pages on OzEA are narrowly focused, here is a General Forum for comments and discussion that don't obviously fit in elsewhere.

[Monday 24th May] Now have a longer draft for "Open Science". Still a little wordy and abstract, but coming along. Will appreciate a few comments (and feel free to talk with us offline, especially if you want to pick up on editing level issues). We're working towards 'beta-2' in about a weeks time.

[Thursday 20th May] Consolidation time. Working in the background for a couple of days.

[Wednesday 19th May] A wrinkle with the data viewer has been resolved. It's really worth spending a few minutes looking at this because there will be follow up work to understand and explain the features of this data.

[Tuesday 18th May] We've been getting some comments, and a good amount of feedback offline (use the about page to mail us directly). Many thanks to all. Two related things are coming through loud and clear: (i) there are too many incomplete / messy pages, and (ii) we have not yet worked out how to pitch the Open Science (many people have no idea what we mean). Working on both these - stay tuned.

[Monday 17th May] Some teething issues with the commenting, but we are getting them up. In a few of days the posting will be instant (and moderated afterwards); then we'll move onto formatting; then the ability for you to edit your comments.

Timeline

Status: [Wed 1st June 2011] Just added this - will tidy and refine in coming days.

May 2010, Beta Release of project website, and The First Story: After some months of getting started, the OzEA project kicked off in May 2010 with the website and The First Story. With the assistance of a programmer, Dr Manzur Ahsraf, we developed the commenting system, an interactive map showing generators and a data viewer. With the assistance of a research assistant, Alex Swanson, we established round one of various base data, and sought to understand what in the literature might be of value to us.

Three points deserve particular mention. i) The idea of rounds is to recognise that most sub-tasks need (or can) only be completed to a certain level before it is best to move on to the next task. It is then often the case that later in is appropriate (or possible) to update data and/or refine a previous analysis in a new round. ii) Also, OzEA has a strong commitment to looking at data critically before using it to arrive at any particular claims or conclusions -- there is already too much GIGO in the world without us adding to the pile. iii) Finally, initial work was focused on SA and on wind power, however, the project overall only makes senses in the context of the NEM (National Electricity Market), and with the inclusion of solar -- aspects that develop in time.

June 2010, Early analysis of wind power generation issues (in SA context): Initial analyses were very simplified exercises in looking at the data and establishing some basic understanding of dynamics. After an initial look at the seasonal scale deficits and excesses of (some) wind farms, based around 100% (average) power from wind, went on to analyse the penetration achieved (and the power 'spilt') at increasing levels of wind power.

July 2010: first modelling efforts (a demonstration of skills): The above analyses just examined the wind power, taking no particular account of how supply would meet demand at every time point. Here we built a simplified model of supply meeting demand, incorporating wind, storage and gas. The gas supply simply did what was required of it, with the focus being on the storage dynamics. Again, this was an exercise (and a demonstration of skills) more than an analysis of reality.

August 2010: Selection of wind speed data sites for the 'The Broome to Cooktown Challenge': The wind farm output data is limited; what we need is the ability to use wind speed data (as measured by BoM at many sites) to estimate the output, and in-particular the variability in output, of virtual wind farms. This work has various aspects, and at this point we put some focus into selecting BoM measurement sites. An overview of goals is given in the story of The Broome to Cooktown Challenge, and the selection process itself took place on the Wind Speed and Direction Data page.

September-October 2010, backgrounding discussions, including on how the NEM works: In addition to data and analysis, it has been important to develop understanding into How the NEM works, and also other areas such as electricity storage, and Demand Management.

With some understanding of these aspects, and after an initial look at some of the issues with wind power, it was possible to present: The Second Story - Understanding the Problem.

November 2010, Establishment of a Wind Power Curve Method: Developing machinery for simulating wind farms was built around comparison of actual wind farm output data with wind speed data from proximal BoM stations, with the resultant methodology described as a Wind Power Curve (page previously known as "Reconcile Wind Farm output with BoM wind data"). There remains further work to do here; however, after substantial energies expended we concluded the round and moved on. As a test-bed, this machinery was first applied to the simulation of wind farms on the Eyre Peninsula, which was of particular interest to various parties at the time.

December 2010, Spatial smoothing on a continental scale; Simulated Wind Farms from Broome to Cooktown: Pulling together the wind data and the Wind Power Curve Method allows us to construct Simulated Wind Farms from Broome to Cooktown. Around this time we also started taking more of an interest in the monetary aspects of the NEM: Electricity Market Analysis: Price, Demand and Value.

January-February 2011, Work on solar data, CST power curve, and Simulated Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) Farms: With simulated wind farms in place, we now brought together the equivalent components for solar (albeit hamstrung by the limited solar data): Solar Irradiance Data, the Solar Power Curve, and Simulated Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) Farms.

WHAT'S NEW

Timeline