Evoenergy’s electricity network is part of the National Electricity Market (NEM). The NEM has a reserve of electricity which is readily available to meet electricity demand in challenging conditions.
A Lack of Reserve (LOR) event occurs when this reserve becomes low. It can be caused by extreme weather, high demand, or outages and maintenance on major generator facilities. If an LOR event is forecast or happening – the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) will notify NEM members, including Evoenergy.
Depending on the level of the LOR, AEMO will direct Evoenergy to take actions to reduce the constraints on the NEM. These include asking our industrial customers to reduce their use, and sometimes Canberra residents to limit electricity usage.
If these efforts aren’t successful, as a last resort AEMO will ask us to begin controlled load shedding. This includes turning off electricity to groups of suburbs at a time until reserve levels in the NEM reach a stable state.
The below categories of LORs are from AEMO’s LOR notices factsheet.