2 The Operational Opportunity

2.1 The performance chain

Measure plant condition, resource, control settings, alarms, deratings and outages.

Determine technical capability and the evidence available to support that capability.

Translate capability into availability declarations, bids, rebids and dispatch instructions.

Monitor compliance, conformance and deviations against technical and market obligations.

Reconcile generation, losses, prices, contracts and settlements.

Optimise only within approved safety, technical, contractual and regulatory limits.

2.2 Typical interface gaps

Observed symptom	Possible interface gap	Diagnostic test
High technical availability but weak revenue	Bid position, constraints, negative prices or outage timing not captured in engineering reporting	Reconcile SCADA capability, bid availability, targets, prices and settlements
Repeated off-target events	Control response, forecast error, telemetry quality or escalation process is unresolved	Trend deviations by condition, controller state and recurrence
Frequent manual intervention	Rules, control limits or automated workflows are incomplete	Review event sequence, authority and evidence
Different loss numbers across teams	Definitions, time bases or source systems differ	Build a data lineage and loss taxonomy
Maintenance conflicts with market value	Operational planning and commercial forecasting are disconnected	Compare alternative windows under resource, access and price scenarios
Compliance evidence is difficult to retrieve	Obligations are not linked to owners, data and records	Sample obligations and trace evidence end to end

2.3 Operating philosophy

Compliance first. Optimisation second.

The service will not recommend a revenue action that conflicts with safety, the Generator Performance Standards, dispatch obligations, licence conditions, contractual instructions, registered participant arrangements or approved operating limits. Where obligations are unclear, the output will identify the question and the responsible legal, regulatory, technical or market specialist required to resolve it.

2.4 Collaboration philosophy

The onsite O and M contractor retains responsibility for work execution, site safety and the technical activities allocated under its contract. Our role is to help the owner and site team convert operational information into timely, traceable decisions across availability, compliance, dispatch, maintenance timing and commercial performance. Recommendations are developed with the people who operate and maintain the equipment, and material findings are validated with them before being escalated.

Use the site team's equipment knowledge as a primary input to analysis.

Give O and M personnel market and compliance context that helps them prioritise work.

Create common event, availability and loss definitions instead of imposing a parallel reporting system.

Escalate material disagreements transparently, with the relevant evidence and contract provisions.

Return lessons from dispatch, prices, constraints and compliance events to the site team.