Have you been in the electricity industry for a while but want to dive deeper into how the wholesale, hedging and retail markets work?  Are you wondering how portfolio management decisions are made in this sector?  If so, this is the course for you.

This Online Plus course is run over 5 weeks with a two-hour videoconference with Stephen and David each week.  You prepare for these chats by reviewing videos, case studies and simulations for between 2-3 hours per week.  At the weekly video chat, we talk over the current market events – wholesale and futures prices, hydrology, demand, and anything in the news, as well as talking through the review material.

Learning Objectives

Our key learning objective of this course is to guide participants into an understanding of market outcomes, the drivers of those, and the commercial tradeoffs made by market participants.

More specifically we will look at:

• Security and reliability, what the products are, and how this drives market volatility
• The basic mechanics of the wholesale market, and the value and risk this drives for market participants
• How participants use physical generation, hedging and consumption channels (e.g., retail) to manage value and risk

In addition to the primers and video tutorials we believe that the most powerful way to explore the many complex interconnections in the industry is through stories.  Case studies will be used to illustrate:

• The underlying concepts in security management which drive much of the volatility in wholesale markets.  Here we use case studies of the 1998 Auckland CBD Blackout and the 1992 hydro crisis.
• The tradeoffs inherent in managing a portfolio (whether generation or consumption dominated) in a nodally priced market.  We highlight these tradeoffs through the On Energy case study.

To arrange this course for your organisation, simply email Steve (steve@whiteboardenergy.co.nz) or David (david@whiteboardenergy.co.nz).