resolution=5 updates twice per 5 minutes.

[rob0101]

Thanks Myles for getting the issues fixed with missing spot prices.

I can see that with this call, the spot price is updated twice per 5 minute interval.

There's an initial value (marked * below) that lasts for around 40s (variable) and is then replaced by what I can see at AEMO + 10%.

How is the first value calculated ?. I'm guessing it's an estimate, or does AEMO produce a temporary price ?

14:45:02 6.74834 *
14:45:45 6.80628
14:50:03 6.99539 *
14:50:45 8.3677
14:55:02 8.4084 *
14:55:56 6.96247
15:00:03 8.63872 *
15:00:46 6.7762
15:05:02 6.70438 *
15:05:45 8.78613

I believe I've seen on more volatile days the first value being very different to the 2nd, so I'd like to understand how much faith I should put in the first price.

[madpilot]

TL;DR We use the forecasted price as a stand in until the real price arrives.

Longer: We made a conscious decision to sync the prices you see in the app with the price that you see in the API. We also made the conscious decision for the app to always show SOMETHING, rather than just throwing an error because a price is late. As such we have rules for how old we let data get before we start showing errors.

Currently, the current 5-minute price is available around 5–15 seconds into the interval, with the 30 minute forecasts coming in later around 40–45 seconds. Because everything we do in real-time at the moment is based around 30 minute prices, and because we can't calculate the synthetic 30-minute price without forecasts, we don't bother updating the current price 5-minute price until all the forecasts are ready.

Back to the "always show something" rule: While we are waiting for the forecasts to be ready, we need to show a current price. We could have persisted the current price from last interval, or use the forecasted price for this interval. We chose the latter.

As you can see unravelling this is a little complicated – we are in the throes of designing the next generation pricer at the moment, but we are unlikely to show the current 5-minute price any quicker in the short term.

What I can do, is mark the interval as an estimate until the final price comes through, so at least you'll know when the price gets locked in.

[madpilot]

It's the 5-minute forecast for the current interval from five minutes ago.

eg. if the current interval is 11:35, the forecast was made at 11:30

[rob0101]

Myles, did the "estimate" marker get implemented ?. I can see it in the results, but it always shows as false for the CurrentInterval

[madpilot]

If you use resolution=5 it'll always be false though - 5 minute prices are never estimates

[rob0101]

Didn’t you tell me it was an estimate for the first minute or so due to the delayed AEMO actual price

[madpilot]

Oh, that. No, we haven't implemented that yet - we'll be reworking the pricer shortly, which should make flagging that a bit easier.