With the end of summer, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has just released the price it paid to procure energy demand-side management resources over the summer.
For business customers, demand side management is where a business agrees to reduce its demand on electricity and is compensated based on the size of the reduction and the price AEMO has agreed to pay.
In 2024-25 AEMO contracted 217.70MW of supplementary capacity.
Demand Side Management is broken into two components:
1. Availability, and
2. Activation
The biggest providers of DSM included well known organisations Water Corporation 65MW, Synergy 17.6MW and Alinta Energy 52.1MW.
Availability prices were up to $1,600/MW per day, with Activation prices up to $1,500/MWh if called.
The three organisations mentioned all successfully bid prices at the high-end.
How does this effect Change Energy business customers – the total cost paid by AEMO filters back into the fees paid by business customers for their electricity.
In separate news the ABC reported that towards the end of 2024, the then Minister for Energy Reece Whitby sought almost $1billion in additional
operating subsidies.
The reason for the need for additional operating subsidies – costs associated with WA’s energy transition.
It understood the government knocked back the request from Synergy and directed them to seek funding from the market.
As the only supplier of electricity to residential customers in WA and having to manage its business with government-imposed caps for residential electricity prices, medium and big business (Change Energy’s customers) are likely to face further increases to their energy bils