News

Here at ROAM Consulting we are continually growing and changing, expanding our team and developing our knowledge and skill base to remain at the forefront of the energy industry and meet the demands of our expanding client base.

Watch this space for updates on major market developments and ROAM's ever increasing capabilities.

January 2012

ROAMer awarded full scholarship for Masters in Energy Studies

Dr Jenny Riesz has been awarded a full scholarship to undertake the Masters in Energy Studies program being jointly offered by the University of Queensland, University of Western Australia and University of Newcastle. The scholarship is funded through the International Energy Centre by Xstrata Coal, and targets future energy leaders.

 

ROAM Insight Issue #15 on sale now

ROAM Consulting’s comprehensive market report ROAM Insight (Issue #15) combines state-of-the-art modelling with expert electricity market knowledge to provide a forecast of future electricity prices in the NEM out to 2016-2017.

This issue focuses on the carbon pricing mechanism included in the recently passed Clean Energy Legislative Package. Other big ticket issues examined include the impact of sharply rising gas prices across the NEM, and the Enhanced 20% by 2020 Renewable Energy Target including its effect on transmission and congestion. Impacts on electricity prices and generation mix throughout the NEM are studied with ROAM’s usual scrupulous attention to modelling detail.

Order your copy today!

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to All! Here at ROAM the doors are open, the computers are whirring, and the team are hard at work. You can keep up with our news and what we’re getting up to in 2012 on our facebook page – we look forward to some new friends!

 

December 2011

ROAM's AEMC Report

ROAM's report to the AEMC on the impact of the LRET on the costs of FCAS, NCAS and transmission augmentation has now been released. You can view ROAM's report on the AEMC's website. The other documents relating to the review are also available here. ROAM's report provides estimates of the impact of large quantities of wind and other renewable generation on the NEM and the SWIS, particularly focusing on ancillary services such as frequency control and voltage stability, and the transmission augmentations that might be required by 2020 to facilitate the 20% Large-scale Renewable Energy Target.

 

ROAMer in Texas

Dr Nicholas Cutler will travel to Austin, Texas this week to give a seminar entitled: "Wind Insight – an innovative tool for predicting wind power ramps". He will present at the University of Texas on Thursday 8 December and at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Friday 9 December. The electricity market design in Texas is similar to the NEM in many ways, and currently has close to 10 GW of wind power installed in a system with a summer peak load of about 65 GW.

 

Australian Power Institute Summer School

Dr Jenny Riesz, ROAM's Principal of Renewable Energy and Climate Policy, has been invited to return to present at the Australian Power Institute Summer School in February 2012. This high quality two week event is aimed at power engineering professionals across all industry sectors including generation, transmission, distribution, consulting, manufacturing and markets. Jenny will be speaking about the impacts of carbon pricing on the NEM.

 

November 2011

ROAM at the Brisbane Institute

The Brisbane Institute recently conducted a forum for the public titled 'Seriously Renewable'. Dr Ian Rose, Chairman of ROAM Consulting, was one of the invited panel. The podcast and transcript are available here.

 

A hit for a cause

ROAM Consulting was proud to support the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation annual charity golf fundraising day on Friday 18th November. The day was well attended and while the ROAM team didn’t manage to threaten the leader board, it was a fun day for a worthwhile cause.

 

ROAM Insight

ROAM Consulting is pleased to announce that this year’s ROAM Insight report (Issue #15) will be released shortly. ROAM Insight will begin shipping in early December 2011.

This issue of ROAM Insight will focus on the carbon pricing legislation, which has just been passed by the Senate. Impacts on electricity prices and generation mix throughout the NEM are studied with ROAM’s usual scrupulous attention to modelling detail.

Other big ticket issues examined in the report are the impact of sharply rising gas prices across the NEM, and the expanded RET including its effect on transmission and congestion.

All the usual meticulous detail will be included in this new issue of ROAM Insight of course, as its readers have come to expect!

Order ROAM Insight Issue #15 now.

 

October 2011

ROAM in the news

ElectraNet commissioned ROAM Consulting to study the commerciality of wind power in South Australia. The final report has been published on ElectraNet’s website, accompanied by a media release. The story was also summarised on the Energy Career news website.

 

Welcome back Nick!

ROAM welcomes back Nick Culpitt, who has spent the past few months participating in an international aid project in South America. Nick rejoins the ROAM ranks as a full time Market Modelling Analyst.

 

ROAMer on the roam...

Our Principal – Renewable Energy & Climate Policy, Dr Jenny Riesz, is currently roaming the northern hemisphere learning about the latest international developments in renewable energy technology and presenting on the future of renewable integration in Australia. She has just attended the UWIG Fall Technical Workshop in Maui, Hawaii, and is now participating in the International Workshops on the Integration of Solar and Wind Power in Aarhus, Denmark, where she will be presenting two papers. (Links to these events and abstracts in our July news, below.)

 

International Conference Energy & Meteorology Presentations

Dr Nicholas Cutler has been accepted to present a paper on forecasting large rapid changes in wind power in Australia at the 1st International Conference Energy & Meteorology held at the Gold Coast, Queensland from 8th-11th November, 2011. The paper is titled "Forecasting large rapid changes in wind power: A power system security decision-support tool".

Dr Joel Gilmore has also been accepted to present two papers on the integration of renewable energy into the Australian electricity market at the Conference. The first presentation is “Network congestion and wind generation in the Australian grid”, and the second “Impacts of electricity markets on solar development and siting”.

 

Public Forum on Renewable Energy

ROAM’s Executive Chairman, Dr Ian Rose, will be a panel member at this public forum examining the development of renewable energy in Queensland. Hosted by The Brisbane Institute, the forum will be held at the State Library on the 18th of October. Visit the Brisbane Institute website for more information and to register.

 

September 2011

ROAM Continues to Grow

ROAM’s newest staff member, Jonathan Ben-Tovim, joins us this week in the role of Analyst Programmer. He will be working with our Software Engineering and IT team to further develop and improve ROAM’s cutting edge modelling software. ROAM extends a warm welcome to Jonathan, who completed his qualifications in Electrical and Computer Engineering in Israel.

 

Update to Treasury's Carbon Price Report

In July this year the Australian Treasury released a report “Strong growth low pollution: modelling a carbon price” (SGLP), to which ROAM contributed significantly with detailed modelling. ROAM has since continued to provide modelling support in relation to some revised policy parameters. On 21 September an update to the SGLP report was released and has been published on the Treasury website.

 

Seminar at CIGRE International Colloquium

ROAM will be presenting at the CIGRE International Colloquium on Reliability and Security of Supply, to be held in Sydney on 9-11 November 2011. ROAM will be speaking on Australian challenges in meeting reliability and security of supply in 2020, considering the impact of a significant increase in intermittent wind generation. The way in which wind generation is handled in reliability and security standards and the interaction between the two will be a key focus.

 

ROAM in the news

ROAM Consulting has received a few mentions in the news of late, stemming from our modelling work for the Federal Treasury on the Government’s proposed carbon pricing policy. These articles appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, discussing the potential impact of carbon pricing on the electricity generation sector, and the growth of geothermal as a renewable technology. The University of Queensland has also commented saying the Treasury modelling favours geothermal energy as the future baseload alternative.