The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) reminds market participants of the importance of being ready for summer by preparing against its National Electricity Market (NEM) Summer Readiness compliance bulletin and checklist which were released with minor updates today.
These documents outline the AER’s expectations for complying with a number of critical obligations under the National Electricity Rules (NER), while the checklist sets out tasks that may assist participants to achieve compliance.
The AER requests market participants to review contact details for their nominated person(s) to receive operational instructions from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), and provide updated contacts to AEMO if they are not current. It is essential that the nominated person(s) is capable of acting on any instruction issued by AEMO, which – as outlined in the Compliance Bulletin – could be any action that AEMO considers necessary to maintain power system security or for reasons of public safety.
Other actions market participants should focus on over the summer period include:
- providing accurate and timely information to AEMO and updating this when submitted information changes
- maintaining situational awareness at all times to proactively identify potential risks ahead of time and to detect unexpected issues when they occur
- monitoring the external environment as well as interrogating internal operations to maintain awareness of factors such as plant settings.
Where participants become aware of any issues that may impact on plant performance or operations, these should be promptly communicated both within the business and to AEMO.
The AER expects participants to understand their obligations under the NER and implement robust systems and processes to achieve compliance. Participants should use the NEM Summer Readiness compliance bulletin to assist in this process.