The AER has released guidance for electricity market participants outlining expectations regarding compliance with critical Projected Assessment of System Adequacy (PASA) obligations under the National Electricity Rules (NER).
PASA is used to indicate to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and market participants the forecast of overall balance of supply and demand for electricity in the National Electricity Market (NEM). It is crucial to ensuring that participants can make informed decisions about supply, demand and outages of transmission networks.
The new PASA Compliance Bulletin refreshes the AER’s expectations around PASA compliance that were previously included as part of the AER’s NEM Readiness Guide. The new standalone Bulletin focuses on PASA obligations and relevant updates for participants to be aware of, while the checklist sets out tasks that may assist participants to achieve compliance.
We encourage market participants to:
- have a clear understanding of crucial PASA obligations following the latest changes to the NER, including:
- new obligations to submit unit state and recall times in Medium Term (MT) PASA;
- changes to the definitions of PASA availability and energy constraint under the NER; and
- a new requirement to submit a recall period in Short Term (ST) PASA.
- familiarise themselves with AEMO’s new ST PASA Procedure and ensure they are up to date with any changes to the ST PASA Procedure and MT PASA Process Description; and
- ensure PASA submissions reflect current intentions and best estimates and promptly update submissions as changes to those intentions and estimates occur.
Market participants should regularly review their systems and processes to ensure they remain compliant.
PASA obligations fall within the AER’s Compliance and Enforcement Priority #3 which is to support power system security and an efficient wholesale electricity market by focusing on compliance with network outage obligations, generator performance standards and availability obligations. The AER is continuing to act on this priority through ongoing compliance and enforcement activities regarding PASA obligations.