Electricity trading suspended as energy supply crisis deepens across Australia’s east coast

theguardian.com:

Australia’s main wholesale electricity market has been suspended by regulators in the latest sign that the crisis threatening the stability of energy supplies is deepening.

The Australian Energy Market Operator said on Wednesday it had halted trading in the spot market serving New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania with effect from 2.05pm AEST. A spokesperson said it was the first time the entire national electricity market (Nem) had been suspended.

“Aemo has determined that it is necessary to suspend the spot market in all regions [of the Nem] because it has become impossible to operate” the market within the rules, the regulator said.

In the hours prior to the suspension, Aemo had issued a flurry of so-called lack of reserve alerts at the level 3 warning for all the mainland states within the market.

“Prior to suspending the market today, Aemo had issued over 5000Mw of directions and that is roughly 20% of demand,” Daniel Westerman, Aemo’s chief executive, told a media conference in Adelaide.

For NSW, the forecast supply gap reached as much as 4,000 megawatts for a period on Thursday afternoon, among five such warnings. By contrast, NSW’s total demand during Wednesday afternoon was about 6,100Mw.

Westerman said consumers in NSW should reduce power consumption this evening “if it safe to do so”.