Outages and commissioning

Rule Change RC_2013_15 commenced on Saturday, 1 February 2020. A high-level summary of key change impacts on Participants as a result of this Rule Change can be accessed here.

Equipment List

In accordance with clause 3.18.2(a) of the Wholesale Electricity Market Rules (WEM Rules), AEMO must compile and maintain a list of all equipment (Equipment List) in the South West Interconnected system (SWIS) that is required to be subject to outage scheduling.

Planned Outages

Under chapter 3 of the WEM Rules, AEMO must assess outage requests for Facilities or items of equipment that are on the Equipment List and following this assessment, approve or reject those outages accordingly.

To lodge these outage requests, Participants must use System Management’s Market Participant Interface (MPI) which can be accessed here. The user guide for the MPI, and a fact sheet for two factor authentication can be accessed here:

For queries regarding the MPI, please contact System Management Operations on 1300 989 797, option 2.

To coordinate switching of the Western Power Network, information on access to the Western Power Network can be here.

AEMO is required to publish details of real-time and historical generator outages. These details can be accessed here.

For further information, refer to the Power System Operating Procedure: Facility Outages.

Forced Outages

Under section 3.21 of the WEM Rules, Participants must lodge Forced Outage information with AEMO as soon as practicable. When advising AEMO of any Forced Outage of a Registered Facility on the Equipment List:

1. Contact AEMO’s Control Room via the direct number indicated in the Operating Protocol; and
2. Provide full details via System Management’s MPI.

Participants may subsequently apply to AEMO to convert their Forced Outage to a Consequential Outage if the Participant believes that the

Forced Outage was because of either:

• A Forced Outage to another Rule Participant's Facility or item of equipment and would not have occurred if the other Rule Participant’s equipment did not suffer a Forced Outage.
• A Planned Outage to a Network Operator’s item of equipment and would not have occurred if the Network Operator’s equipment did not undertake the Planned Outage.

For further information, refer to the Power System Operating Procedure: Facility Outages.

Data Communication Facilities (DCFs)

Planned activities

Market Participants and Network Operators are required to notify AEMO of planned activities on communications and SCADA equipment in accordance with paragraph 6.4.2 of the WEM Procedure: Communications And Control Systems. 

If the communications and SCADA equipment is listed on the Equipment List or is a Self-scheduling Outage Facility, the Network Operator or Market Participant must advise AEMO via an Outage Plan or where otherwise agreed by AEMO in an Operating Protocol. 

Failures

As per Appendix B, paragraph B.3.3.1 of the WEM Procedure: Communications And Control Systems, in response to a failure of a High-Resolution Time Synchronised Data Recorder, a Network Operator or Market Participant must respond to the failure and rectify as soon as practicable which must be no more than 10 Business Days after the Network Operator or Market Participant becomes aware of the failure, unless another timeframe is agreed between the Rule Participant and AEMO. 

The Network Operator or Market Participant should advise AEMO when the failure is noticed and log a Forced Outage.

If the Network Operator or Market Participant is unable to rectify within 10 Business Days of the failure, they must notify AEMO and provide AEMO with a rectification plan within 5 Business Days.

If the communications and SCADA equipment is listed on the Equipment List or is a Self-scheduling Outage Facility, the Network Operator or Market Participant must also log a Forced Outage. 

Notification for communications and SCADA equipment not on the Equipment List

If the relevant communications and SCADA equipment is not on the Equipment List, notifications relating to planned maintenance and failures should be sent to wa.sm.operations@aemo.com.au. The notification should include:

• A description of the activities being undertaken/failure
• Time/date of commencement of the activities/failure
• Duration of the activities/failure (if known)
• The identification of any Facilities impacted by the activities
• Contact details for further information

Projected Assessment of System Adequacy (ST PASA and MT PASA)

The projected assessment of system adequacy (PASA) is a forecasting study undertaken by AEMO. It contains statistical load forecast information against projected available capacity figures (allowing for quantities of non-scheduled generation capacity based on historical figures).

AEMO publishes two versions of the PASA.

• Short term PASA (ST PASA) is published by AEMO every Thursday and is a three-week in advance forecast.
• Medium term PASA (MT PASA) is published by AEMO on the 15th day of every month and is a three year forecast.

Reports for both versions can be found in the here.

Commissioning Tests

A Participant can conduct a Commissioning Test when commissioning a new Facility, or following significant maintenance of a Facility or item of equipment. When submitting a request to AEMO to conduct a Commissioning Test, Participants must include in their request a Commissioning Test Plan. The template for this plan can be accessed here.

For Commissioning Test Plans that include testing for compliance with the Technical Rules, Participants must also submit Commissioning Test Plans to the Network Operator for approval. For further information, refer to the Technical Rules, which can be accessed here.

Commissioning Test Plans

These documents are published in accordance with clause 10.5.1(zH) of the WEM Rules.

Commissioning Test plans submitted after January 2014 can be accessed here.

Commissioning Test Plans

These documents are published in accordance with clause 10.5.1(zH) of the WEM Rules.

Please note that for Commissioning Test plans that occur beyond January 2014, refer to our Market Data site.