Infigen is a generator and retailer of electricity in Australia. Within this market, our strategy is to provide Australian businesses with firm supplies of competitively priced clean energy.

We achieve this by combining our portfolio of Owned and Contracted Renewable Energy Assets with our three fast start firming assets, the Smithfield Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT), the South Australia Battery and, starting mid 2020, the South Australia Gas Turbines. These fast start assets allow us to manage the intermittency risks related to our renewable energy production.

Our strategic focus is the National Electricity Market (“NEM”), an electricity market which includes New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. The NEM was formed in 1998 and, with over 40,000km of transmission lines, is one of the largest electricity grids in the world. The network serves approximately 8.9 million residential customers and 1.1 million business customers. Total grid load is approximately 200TWh per year, served from approximately 55GW of installed generation. 

Infigen is an active participant in the spot and forward markets.

Our 24/7 Operation and Control Centre (OCC) manages the offers of our assets into the spot electricity market.

Our Energy Markets business manages customer contracting and energy portfolio risk, via a combination of risk modelling, insurance products and derivative products.

The risks and opportunities are overseen by the Board and the Audit Risk and Compliance Committee (a sub-committee of the Board) along with numerous management risk management procedures.

The National Electricity Market is a liberalised energy only market. Electricity prices are set via market auction, with 5 minute dispatch intervals, settled every 30 minutes. There is also an active forward market for wholesale contracts, with the most commonly referenced instrument being the “baseload swap” – an instrument that measures the price of a flat electricity load during a particular period (month, quarter or year). These forward markets have approximately three times the volume of the physical market, with liquidity focused in the first eighteen months of the forward curves.

Within the NEM, there is a distinction between physical and forward (i.e. financial) electricity markets. 

Physically, all generators sell into the NEM, a gross pool spot market that is centrally cleared and operated by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

The financial market comprising exchange-traded futures contracts and over‑the‑counter derivative contracts is, however, where the customer pricing is determined. Customers enter into contracts with retailers (such as Infigen) to purchase electricity at set prices, in set volumes and at set times.

It is therefore possible for a retailer to not have any owned generation, just as it is also possible for a generator not to have any retail customers. Within this market, Infigen has positioned itself as a renewables backed generator, selling firm supplies of clean energy directly to commercial and industrial customers