gridIQ tracks 90 days of wholesale electricity prices across all six NEM and WEM regions, aggregated from 5-minute dispatch intervals into daily and monthly summaries.
In the National Electricity Market (NEM), wholesale electricity prices are set every five minutes through AEMO's central dispatch engine. There are 288 dispatch intervals per day, each producing a spot price for every NEM region — NSW1, VIC1, SA1, QLD1, and TAS1. Prices can range from the market floor of −$1,000/MWh to the market price cap of $17,500/MWh.
Western Australia's Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) operates on a different cycle. Prices are set every 30 minutes, producing 48 trading intervals per day for the WA1 region. The WEM has its own pricing structure, capacity market, and price thresholds that differ from the NEM.
Raw 5-minute dispatch prices are high-resolution but impractical for trend analysis. gridIQ aggregates dispatch data into daily summaries using four key metrics:
Daily aggregates are stored indefinitely, allowing long-term trend analysis even after the 90-day rolling window of raw dispatch data expires. Monthly summaries are derived from these daily records.
gridIQ uses colour-coded price tiers to help users quickly assess market conditions. The thresholds differ between the NEM and WEM to reflect the structural differences in each market:
WEM thresholds are lower because Western Australia's market structure, including its capacity market and smaller interconnected system, produces a narrower price distribution than the NEM.
Australian wholesale electricity prices are among the most volatile commodity markets in the world. Prices can swing from negative to thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour within a single day. The key drivers include:
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