The Australian Energy Market Operator manages the grid. Before anyone can do anything that have to make submissions and get permission via a long process.
................. AEMO was established by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on 1 July 2009 to manage the National Electricity Market (NEM) in the eastern and south-eastern states and Australian gas markets. In the years following our establishment, AEMO’s responsibilities have progressively grown. This has included adding various gas market functions, and becoming the market and independent power system operator for Western Australia from 2015. Our ownership was – and still is – shared between government and industry, with members representing federal and state governments, as well as generation and production, distribution, retail and resources businesses across Australia. We have always operated on a user-pays cost-recovery basis, and we recover all operating costs through fees paid by industry participants.
A blackout hits, the lights go out and everything screeches to a halt: How does the city recover?In a bunker hidden away in a non-descript western Sydney suburb, a group of workers spring into action redirecting power to where it is needed most. The lights come back on.This room is the nerve centre for Australia's electricity, and powers every aspect of your life. From this room, 24 hours a day seven days a week, five people decide how to power the east coast and where Australia’s energy goes, operating a “5000 kilometre long stringy network that runs from Port Douglas in the north to South Australia in the east and Tasmania in the south,” explains AEMO’s executive general manager for operations, Damien Sanford.
A bank of screens displays the constantly shifting power demand and output from power stations as the five workers in the centre of the room try to keep the system balanced, supported by artificial intelligence.Mr Sanford said this AI is a smart analysis program that constantly runs in the background, analysing minute changes to the network and thousands of potential different outcomes and recommending the course of action to keep the country’s largest power network running.The operators then decide how to follow these recommendations to ensure the lights stay on.
