Summer is coming
Europe has sweated through a very hot summer … one that impacted on various types of generation technology. Nuclear, gas … and wind. The North remembers – the NEM should too.
The signs are increasingly pointing towards a potentially extreme Australian summer.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) have both confirmed that El Niño is firmly established and continuing to strengthen, with the event forecast to intensify through spring and likely peak in late spring or summer as a very strong El Niño, and with near 100% likelihood that it will persist through February and is expected into autumn 2027.
At the same time, BOM's latest long-range outlook shows a high likelihood of unusually warm conditions across much of Australia. Across large parts of southern Australia - including Victoria and New South Wales - the likelihood of unusually high temperatures exceeds 80% in the lead-up to summer.
While it remains too early for BOM to provide a definitive forecast for summer itself, El Niño is associated with an increased risk of hotter days and heatwaves in Australia.
For Australia's renewable energy sector, the warning signs are difficult to ignore.
Heat, bushfires, smoke, network disturbances and rapidly changing operating conditions can all create challenges for NEM system operations - and for forecasting available generation from wind farms.
Last summer provided a very real demonstration of those risks, with extreme heat and significant bushfires impacting renewable energy assets across parts of Australia, and contributing to extreme spot market volatility. A helpful link to a WattClarity article explaining Extreme temperature effects on generation supply technology.
Tuesday 27th January 2026 was a case in point. Coincidentally, at the end of summer, WattClarity published an article ‘To what extent did high-temperature de-rating contribute to large under-performance across Semi-Scheduled Wind fleet on Tuesday 27th January 2026?’ that spoke to one particular instance.
At ETSI we have done our own analysis in parallel and identified a number of other instances on different days which proved quite expensive for a variety of wind farm operators:
Some of whom we’ve spoken to one-on-one.
It costs you nothing to give us a call, to see what we found for your particular assets?
For ETSI, that reinforces why forecast accuracy and resilience matter most when operating conditions are most challenging.
ETSI's self-forecasting capability uses real-time operational data from the wind farm to respond to changing asset conditions - helping provide accurate and resilient forecasts when the weather, the power system and the asset are under pressure.
Summer is coming. Is your generator ready?
Reach out to ETSI – enquiries@etsi.energy