# NEM Explorer

> Ask questions of National Electricity Market in plain English. Get charts, tables and SQL. Every AEMO price, generation, FCAS, constraint and bid record since 2009, in the browser or from your agent.

- Web app: https://chat.scadaminer.com/
- Remote MCP server for AI agents: https://chat.scadaminer.com/mcp
- Publisher: SCADA Miner (https://www.scadaminer.com/)

## Pages

- [NEM Explorer: ask Australian electricity market data in plain English](https://chat.scadaminer.com/): Ask questions of National Electricity Market in plain English. Get charts, tables and SQL. Every AEMO price, generation, FCAS, constraint and bid record since 2009, in the browser or from your agent.
- [Pricing · NEM Explorer](https://chat.scadaminer.com/pricing): Start free, then top up with prepaid credit packs from A$10. No seats and no subscription; Enterprise covers whole teams.
- [Docs: connect Claude, Codex or Cursor to AEMO data · NEM Explorer](https://chat.scadaminer.com/docs): Connect any MCP client to a curated warehouse of AEMO market data: spot and FCAS prices, generation, interconnector flows, constraints, demand and bids. Setup steps for each agent and the full tool list.
- [FAQ · NEM Explorer](https://chat.scadaminer.com/faq): What NEM Explorer can answer, where the data comes from, how credits work, and when to use chat versus your own agent.
- [Privacy Policy · NEM Explorer](https://chat.scadaminer.com/privacy): What NEM Explorer collects when you use the chat, the MCP connector and chat.scadaminer.com, how it is used and kept, and the choices you have.
- [Terms of Service · NEM Explorer](https://chat.scadaminer.com/terms): The terms for using NEM Explorer by SCADA Miner: accounts, acceptable use, credits and billing, data accuracy and liability.
- [Sitemap](https://chat.scadaminer.com/sitemap.xml): every public page, including shared analyses and dashboards

## FAQ

### Getting started

**What is NEM Explorer?**
An AI interface to Australia’s National Electricity Market. Ask a question in plain English and get an answer built from real AEMO data, with the SQL, a chart and a table behind it. You don’t need to write SQL or code. There are two ways to use it:

- Web chat: a fast, low-cost model. Good for getting to know the data and for direct questions.
- MCP server: connect your own agent (Claude Code, Codex and others) for much deeper analysis.

Both get the same validated capabilities. Ask “how much money did Hornsdale BESS make on 1 April?” and the agent runs a pre-written, tested query that handles linear ramping between dispatch targets and counts FCAS income as well as energy.

**How do I ask a question?**
Type it into the chat box, or connect your agent to the MCP server. For example:

- What was the average spot price in Victoria last week?
- Compare wind and solar generation in South Australia over the past month.
- Show interconnector flows between New South Wales and Queensland for the last seven days.

**What kinds of NEM questions can I ask?**
Anything about the wholesale market and the data AEMO publishes on NEMweb, including:

- Spot prices, negative prices and price spikes by region
- Generation by fuel type, power station or DUID
- Interconnector flows and constraints
- FCAS prices, enablement and revenue
- Demand forecasts and pre-dispatch
- Bidding and rebidding behaviour
- Capacity factors and generation mix trends

### Chat vs. agents

**What does the web chat answer well?**
One-shot questions. You ask something concrete, it picks the right tables, runs the query and writes the answer. It is fast and consistent for:

- Lookups, such as the NSW1 spot price on a given date
- Rankings, such as the top batteries by revenue in a quarter
- Standard aggregations, such as QLD fuel mix over the last 30 days
- Questions about specific DUIDs, regions and intervals

**When should I connect an agent instead?**
When the question needs several steps: inspecting tables, refining queries and following a trail. Connect an agent for:

- Open-ended exploration, like working out what is interesting about battery profitability
- Multi-step research, like finding every binding constraint and estimating lost revenue for affected DUIDs
- Finding patterns and anomalies, such as when a unit departs from its usual behaviour
- Counterfactuals, such as what might have happened without a constraint or a unit
- Compound questions with several parts

When the chat spots a question like this, it suggests the agent route rather than giving a shallow answer.

**What does “Connect an agent” do?**
It gives you the NEM Explorer MCP server URL and step-by-step setup for Claude, ChatGPT/Codex and Gemini Spark. Any other agent that supports remote MCP servers works too. Sign-in uses your existing NEM Explorer account. See the setup guide.

The agent gets tools to search entities, inspect tables, run validated capabilities and execute SQL. Large results come back as a 100-row preview plus a handle the agent can page through, so a big query never floods its context. The full list is in the docs.

In Claude you can also add it as a plugin from the brensch/scadaminer-ai-toolkit marketplace: in Claude Code, run /plugin install scadaminer --marketplace brensch/scadaminer-ai-toolkit. The plugin installs the same connector, so the tools stay current with the server.

### Data & coverage

**Where does the data come from?**
AEMO’s NEMweb, the official public portal for National Electricity Market data: dispatch, SCADA, trading intervals, bids and offers, constraints, interconnector flows, FCAS, demand forecasts and more.

**Which regions are covered?**
All five NEM regions: New South Wales (NSW1), Victoria (VIC1), Queensland (QLD1), South Australia (SA1) and Tasmania (TAS1).

**What time resolution is available?**
It depends on the dataset. The finest is 4-second: frequency and per-unit MW measurements from AEMO’s frequency performance payments data (December 2024 onward), plus the discontinued causer pays archive (2011 to March 2017). Dispatch prices, generation and SCADA are 5-minute, pre-dispatch forecasts are 30-minute, and settlement, registration and PASA data run from daily up to longer horizons.

**Is a “day” a calendar day or a trading day?**
A calendar day in NEM time, which is fixed at UTC+10 all year with no daylight saving. So “yesterday” or “last Tuesday” means the NEM calendar date, not UTC or your local time zone.

**How far back does the data go?**
It depends on the dataset. Core dispatch and pricing goes back to 2009. Coverage is tracked for every table, and you’ll be told when a question falls outside it.

### Accuracy & limits

**How accurate are the answers?**
The underlying data is as accurate as AEMO’s own publications. The layer that turns a question into SQL is tested against references such as the Open Electricity API and AER published figures.

As with any AI system, a question can still be misread, so check the query, filters and time range match what you meant. More on how answers are validated.

**Is rooftop solar included?**
Not as direct generation data by default. Rooftop and other behind-the-meter generation isn’t centrally metered by AEMO, so generation figures cover utility-scale units in the wholesale market. Where it could matter, the answer notes how rooftop solar was treated.

**Why might generation totals differ from other sources?**
Energy is estimated from dispatch data (TOTALCLEARED and INITIALMW) with a trapezoidal approximation across 5-minute intervals. Sources that use metered data, which is published later, can differ slightly.

Some smaller solar and wind farms report SCADA only intermittently or not at all, so for aggregate generation, dispatch data usually gives more complete coverage.

**Is distribution network (DNSP) data included?**
No. NEM Explorer covers wholesale market data only, not local usage, demand charges or DNSP tariffs. Get in touch if you need it.

**Is retail pricing included?**
No. Retail tariffs and demand charges aren’t available; the focus is the wholesale spot market and related AEMO data. Get in touch if retail pricing matters to you.

### Pricing & credits

**How much does it cost?**
NEM Explorer runs on credits. Current packs and prices are on the Usage page under Buy credits.

**How many credits does a question use?**
It depends on the work involved. A simple price lookup might use around 50 credits; an analysis joining several datasets can use 200 or more. The cost is shown after each question.

**Are credits shared between chat and agents?**
Yes. One balance covers chat answers and the data queries your connected agent runs, so there’s nothing separate to top up for agent access.

**Is there a free allowance?**
Plans can include a free monthly allowance that refreshes at the start of each month. It doesn’t roll over: unused free credits expire at month-end. Your allowance is on the Usage page.

**Do credits expire?**
Free monthly credits expire at the end of the month they were granted. Purchased credits last until their own expiry, which depends on your plan. Check the Usage page for your balance and expiry dates.

### Exports & requests

**Can I export data or get API access?**
Yes, through a connected agent:

- CSV exports. The agent can save any query result as a private, expiring download.
- Live data links. Any query can become a link that re-runs it and serves the latest rows as JSON or CSV, ready to drop into your own code or spreadsheet.
- Dashboards. Saved dashboards refresh against live data and can be shared publicly.

For bulk extraction beyond that, contact SCADA Miner.

**How do I request a feature?**
Use the contact page, or email support@scadaminer.com.

## Published analyses and dashboards

- [Index of everything published](https://chat.scadaminer.com/analyses)
- [NEM transmission line loading map: where the grid has room](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/transmission-line-loading): How heavily each NEM transmission line is loaded against its real-time rating, which way power flows, by season and hour. From AEMO NEMDE data. (live dashboard, 4 November 2026)
- [NEM intraday price spread for battery arbitrage](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-intraday-price-spread-for-battery-arbitrage): A grid battery earns its energy margin by charging in the cheapest part of the day and discharging in the dearest. (live dashboard, 2 November 2026)
- [NEM wind and solar curtailment by region](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-wind-and-solar-curtailment-by-region): Curtailment is wind and solar energy that was available but not dispatched. Every 5 minutes AEMO forecasts what each semi-scheduled wind and solar farm… (live dashboard, 2 November 2026)
- [NEM spot price vs demand: how prices rise near peak demand](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/price-vs-demand): How NEM spot prices change with demand, NEM-wide and by state: typical prices, negative and $300+ intervals at each level of demand. Live AEMO data. (live dashboard, 1 November 2026)
- [Most constrained solar farms in the NEM, ranked](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/most-constrained-solar-farms): NEM solar farms ranked by the share of their available energy spilled to network curtailment, economic offloading or both. Live AEMO data. (live dashboard, 31 October 2026)
- [Most constrained wind farms in the NEM, ranked](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/most-constrained-wind-farms): NEM wind farms ranked by the share of their available energy spilled to network curtailment, economic offloading or both. Live AEMO data. (live dashboard, 31 October 2026)
- [PEC interconnector flow and negative residue tracker](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/pec-energy-flow-dashboard): How often net flow around the Project EnergyConnect loop (Heywood, VNI, PEC) runs low to high price, and the dollars of negative settlement residue. (live dashboard, 25 October 2026)
- [NEM FCAS market value by service and region](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-fcas-market-value-by-service-and-region): Frequency control ancillary services (FCAS) pay generators, batteries and loads to hold capacity ready to correct system frequency. (live dashboard, 21 October 2026)
- [NEM negative prices vs the wind, solar and battery fleet](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-negative-prices-vs-the-wind-solar-and-battery-fleet): When more energy is offered below zero than the region can use or export, the spot price goes negative. (live dashboard, 18 October 2026)
- [NEM market conduct monitor](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-market-conduct-monitor): Price events where bidding may warrant a closer look. A flag is a prompt for review, not a finding that a rule was broken. Three kinds of indicator: 1. (live dashboard, 16 October 2026)
- [Daily average spot price](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/daily-average-spot-price): Mean of 5-minute regional reference price (RRP), intervention pricing excluded, for the selected region over the chosen window. (live dashboard, 5 October 2026)
- [NEM Market Structure and FCAS](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-market-structure-and-fcas): Market power is a precondition for most of the conduct on the conduct monitor page. (live dashboard, 2 October 2026)
- [NEM Latest Spot Prices](https://chat.scadaminer.com/nem/nem-latest-spot-prices): Live 5-minute dispatch Regional Reference Price (RRP) for each NEM region. All times are NEM market time (Australia/Brisbane, UTC+10, no DST). (live dashboard, 22 August 2026)
- [Wind and solar restarts, not shutdowns, are what raise regulation pays for](https://chat.scadaminer.com/share/171ebebff9694eee89798b73836f0e92): Mainland wind and solar were switched off and back on 79,361 times in the twelve months to June 2026. (analysis, 21 August 2026)
- [AC interconnectors carry a published operating margin of 25 to 50 MW. Regulation FCAS could shrink it without a new market](https://chat.scadaminer.com/share/0d223f276601430a8ebce891073ac9b3): AEMO holds every interconnector below its limit by an Operating Margin: Modelling Approximation + Dispatch Error + Measurement Error. (analysis, 11 August 2026)
- [Does P5MIN beat persistence for regulation FCAS prices?](https://chat.scadaminer.com/share/a4c2f7a5d54c415da8121e41121563ce): The price of regulation FCAS changes every five minutes. AEMO publishes a forecast for it — P5MIN — but is it actually worth using, or does it perform the… (analysis, 28 July 2026)
- [The NEM burns twice as much raise regulation as lower — and ~100 MW of the answer is missing from the data](https://chat.scadaminer.com/share/b18a6283cf1e4f3caa1da0da0226b95b): AEMO procures raise and lower regulation in near-identical volumes: 223.6 MW and 220.1 MW respectively, averaged across the mainland over the twelve… (analysis, 13 July 2026)