The Reliability Panel today released its Annual Market Performance Review, assessing the reliability, security, and safety of the National Electricity Market (NEM) during the 2022-23 financial year. 

The AEMC sets the rules for the National Electricity Market and provides independent expert energy advice to Australia’s governments. The AEMC’s Reliability Panel monitors and reports on the reliability, security, and safety of the electricity system and performs a range of other functions.

Despite the challenges faced by the energy sector, Reliability Panel chair Tim Jordan says the review found the NEM's performance was acceptable. 

''The NEM has performed acceptably in terms of reliability, security, and safety, but more investment is crucial to address the risks to the outlook and continue to deliver reliably for consumers,'' Mr Jordan said.

The review showed there were no breaches of the reliability standard or interim reliability measure in FY2023. However, the latest 10 year reliability forecast from the Electricity Statement of Opportunities indicated risks to maintaining reliability in the medium term. 

Security performance in the NEM was also acceptable during the reporting period. The number of system incidents remained steady compared to FY2022, with fewer activations of the reliability emergency reserve trader, and stable procurement costs for network support and control ancillary services and system restart ancillary services.

''The Panel notes increased climate variability could lead to more market events and pose a growing risk to system security in the future.

''The recently updated transitional security frameworks should help address security risks as we move to a renewables-dominated system,'' Mr Jordan explained.

Key events mentioned in the report included two major Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) outages in March and April 2023, severe weather events in South Australia in November 2022, and the introduction of the very fast raise and very fast lower frequency control ancillary service markets in October 2023. 

No safety issues were identified as a result of the management of the power system.

The Annual Market Performance Review is conducted by the Reliability Panel in line with the National Electricity Rules and the terms of reference issued by the AEMC. 

The review draws upon data from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Regulator, jurisdictional regulators, market participants, and other sources.

Please visit the project page for more information and contact details.

Media: Jessica Rich, 0459 918 964, media@aemc.gov.au.