AEMO moves to lift Market Suspension

Seven days since the market operator (AEMO) took the decision to suspend the NEM, it has seen a clear improvement in market conditions.

This includes 4,000 MW of generation returning from outages.

In making the announcement, AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman said the operator would take a staged approach to lifting the market suspension.

"The first step is that at 4am tomorrow, we will allow the market to set the price again," Mr Westerman said.

"The second step will be to completely lift the suspension," he said.

Mr Westerman said that after the first step was taken, AEMO would expect to see:

• the dispatch engine, that is the system used to schedule generation into the grid, operating with very few constraints;
• a low volume of directions from AEMO to generators – instead they would respond to market signals; and
• a reduction in forecast shortfalls of energy, or low reserves, as generators respond to those market signals.

He said that AEMO would monitor these conditions for a further period of at least 24 hours before making a decision to lift the market suspension.

"By removing these conditions, we hope that the market will return to a normal bidding and dispatch situation – allowing the market to operate without major AEMO interventions and manual management of generation," he said.

Mr Westerman praised collaboration across federal, state and territory governments, alongside the industry, saying the actions taken had allowed the market operator to make this move.

"Last week when AEMO suspended the market, we put the security of the grid, and keeping the lights on above everything else," he said.

"We asked generators to bid their plant back into the system – and that is happening more – giving us greater visibility of generation in real time."

Conditions remain dynamic and AEMO will continue to monitor reserve conditions across all regions.