Oshili Power

SAWEM Dispatch.

South Africa's wholesale electricity market, read closely and often: the rules as they are written, what older markets taught the people who lived through them, and the questions worth asking before the first contracts are signed. One dispatch most weekdays, sources attached.

Rules compared.

  • Rules compared, 1: when will you know tomorrow's price?

    One rule, two markets. South Africa's wholesale market design commits a price for every hour of tomorrow; Australia's sets one every five minutes as the day unfolds. Where the surprise lives decides what a large user has to manage.

Where buyers settle.

  • Where buyers settle, 1: most customers never bought at the wholesale price

    Nearly three decades into Australia's electricity market, the regulator's own description is that most customers are not directly exposed to the wholesale price. A market built to put the price in front of every buyer ended with an intermediary and a contract in front of almost every load.

Cyber Monday.

  • Cyber Monday, 1: nobody discounted these

    Twenty industrial control advisories reached the site in recent weeks and none of them reached this page. Here they are, sorted by where they would hurt a power user, with the link to each brief.

What trading means.

  • What trading means, 1: the day the big users could choose

    Trading is not a word for a procurement manager. It is five obligations an executive signs for. England and Wales opened its market to its 5,000 largest users first, in 1990, with a cushion contract underneath them. South Africa's draft rules open the same door, to the same kind of user, in the same order.

The Wire.