How to pronounce AEMO
An exclusive investigation
Here at Currently Speaking we spend a lot of time deep diving into the important, under-explored issues in the nooks and crannies of the energy industry. We’ve solved the energy crisis with Hollywood movie plots. We’ve written extensively about buildings which no longer exist. There really is no thread too inconsequential for us to grasp at for a pointlessly deep dive.
This week we're stepping things down a notch with possibly our deepest and most inconsequential investigation — how to pronounce “AEMO” - an exclusive investigation.1
What is (the?) AEMO
The Australian Energy Market Operator is the organisation tasked with running the day to day energy markets in Australia. Unlike the Australian Energy Regulator (pronounced “ay-ee-ar”) and Australian Energy Market Commission (pronounced “ay-ee-em-cee” or less commonly “ay-em-cee), AEMO is not a government body; instead AEMO is a not-for-profit, public company limited by guarantee. It has a CEO (currently Daniel Westerman), a board of directors and a constitution and various other official documents associated with being a company.
This really is pointless, why are you talking about this, it's all just semantics right? Well, sure. But this is a exclusive investigation, there has to be extensive backgrounding to pad out the story. Plus, understanding more about AEMO is pretty important.
Being a public company instead of a government body, gives AEMO a critical moniker of independence. Which is important, because it is literally the independent system operator of both major electricity systems in Australia.
The public company limited by guarantee has a distinct meaning which feeds into the not-for-profit bit. AEMO does not issue shares and does not pay dividends. Because there are no shares, no single person can gain a controlling interest. This governance model is in contrast to the government-owned corporations operating in the energy market like Snowy Hydro, CS Energy, Stanwell and others which are for-profit companies who issue shares and pay dividends to state or federal governments.2
Because AEMO is a not-for-profit company it uses a system of fees to recover its operating costs. Much like taxes, everything is eventually paid for by us, but it has the effect of more fairly distributing some costs through the energy ecosystem.
It's easy to assume that the energy system is managed by the government (given that governments are meant to govern, instead of whatever this is), so it might be something of a surprise that not only is the energy system not directly managed by the government, but it's not even managed by the Commonwealth.
The birth of A.E.M.O.
When the Australian Constitution was written some 123 years ago, they forgot to include energy.3 Given the nascent state of the power industry at the time, this is forgivable. But the consequence is that like health and education, energy lives with the states.
Fast forward to the early 1990s when Victoria pursued privatisation of the electricity sector and South Australia and New South Wales began looking on with interest. The initial designs of a market in Victoria eventually evolved into a “National” energy market utilising the existing linkages with those other states.4 South Australia agreed to codify the laws of this newly established market (and there the National Energy Law still lives, 'templated' by the other states) and the Council of Australian Governments (pronounced “co-ag”) established the absolute monster of a mouthful National Electricity Market Management Company Limited or NEMMCO (pronounced “nem-co”) as the independent system operator of this new market.
Queensland joined the NEM in 2000 and Tasmania in 2005 when the Queensland-New South Wales Interconnector (q.n.i) and Basslink, respectively were built.
In 2009 NEMMCO was replaced with AEMO. AEMO assumed NEMMCO's responsibilities for the electricity market on the east coast, with the additional responsibility of managing the gas market (and some transmission planning responsibilities).
In 2015 AEMO took over the management of the Wholesale Energy Market in Western Australia5 from the Independent Market Operator. Most of the staff and operations from the IMO were simply absorbed into AEMO, hence its colloquial name “WAEMO” (pronounced “way-mo”).
Whatever, this is all pretty dry and boring, you promised an exclusive investigation.
How is AEMO pronounced?
Other than a laziness in the Australian drawl which tends to slur the E of AEMC into an extra long /ɑː/ sound (ayye-em-cee), there's no confusion or differentiation in how other market bodies are pronounced. They're generally pronounced by spelling out each letter of the acronym like the simpletons we are.
AEMO on the other seems to have an array of pronunciations.
There's spelling it out letter by letter for people who have an apparent abundance of time on their hands: a-e-m-o.
There's the time saving slurring of the first two syllables into one hot mess (infectiously tempting to do when time is money and all that): aye-moe
There's the self conscious attempt to spell it out before bailing out halfway through, with the pitch of the middle syllable rising above the rest in a vaguely neurotic fashion: aye-ee-moe
And the positively deranged: eh-moe
Ok, yes, yes. But surely there's an official way to say this.
Let's investigate.
How does AEMO say it?
In this professionally produced video summarising the history of AEMO the professional voice actor clearly says aye-ee-moe in the video at 1:29.
But! In this other official video from AEMO we have the more elusive and time saving aye-moe pronounciation at 2:27 and again at 2:48.
How does Daniel say it?
Some weight should be given to the pronunciation used by the current CEO; after all he presumably had to complete a two day intensive course on the history and pronunciation of the Australian independent system operator.
Honestly it’s hard to say — Daniel seems to tread a diplomatic line between the more formal aye-ee-moe and the time saving aye-moe. His pronunciation of the e is a subtle blend. Fence sitting.
How does Audrey say it?
What about former CEO Audrey Zibelman? After all, Audrey is an American and presumably came to the pronunciation safe from our lazy language habits.
In this archival evidence we can clearly hear her say aye-ee-moe at 0:25. As an American she has a clear twang to her pronunciation, which is interesting but doesn’t give us anything conclusive.
How does Giles say it?
Renew Economy, after Currently Speaking, is probably the top resource for industry news, analysis and gossip. So it seems fair that we consider how the site’s founder and editor Giles Parkinson pronounces AEMO.
In this Energy Insiders podcast at 1:22 he clearly says aye-ee-moe, missing some of Audrey’s twang but with decidedly more commitment to the second vowel than Daniel.
How do the West Australians say it?
In getting rid of the IMO (pronouced “eye-em-oh” - no one was saying “imo” like some kind of hyperactive marmot), West Australians now have to deal with the pronunciation dilemma the east coast had been facing for years prior.
Annoyingly, this promotional video for Project Symphony refuses to say “AEMO” and instead insists on saying the entire, mouthful of a name. Is it possible this is an early indicator of secession planning from our western cousins? Hard to say but let’s not rule it out.
Currently Speaking adjudicates
If the evidence is inconclusive, the best we can do is weigh the evidence and make the call.
We stand firmly in the aye-ee-mo camp. There you have it.
Anyway, we've probably juiced this lemon about as much as you all can handle.6 Hopefully you enjoyed this deep and utterly pointless exploration of the Australian energy system as much as we did. Next week we'll be tackling an even bigger issue — DER or CER: a deep dive.7
Things Happen
This article in The Conversation discussing the mess of comparing retail offers. The author has more faith in the CDR reforms than we do.
Four coal-fired units shit the bed in a 24 hour period. Sure, Yallourn is old and flogged, but Kogan Creek is the second newest station in the country. Twelve months after the entire NEM shit the bed, your nervous tick could be forgiven.
The phenomenon known as the ‘duck curve’ has been around for many years, but in the last few months we’ve seen concerted efforts to visualise it and in novel ways. Currently Speaking predicts this trend to extend to the next iteration of the AEMO logo.
The Master Plumbers Association is on the anti-electrification bandwagon warning of job losses and blackouts and other scary things, and preparing a publicity campaign. Presumably the campaign will cost 200% more than other quotes, won’t return your calls and arrive late.
Shout out to field researcher Aidan for the quite probably sarcastic suggestion. Jokes on you because we took it and ran with it!
and have done pretty well for those governments… but that's a story for another day
They did however include “postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services” which means the Commonwealth can legislate your Twitter shitposting, but not your lightbulbs.
Trading arrangements between Vic and SA, and Vic and NSW existed well before the development of the NEM, but in a very different manner to the modern design of the market.
Zing! the W doesn't stand for west.
I could probably keep juicing this for a while, FYI.
Jokes, we know what minefields look like and we're staying the hell out of this one.
aye-ee-mo for the win. Very amusing read as always Alex thanks for bringing some humour mate.
Hell yeah team aye-ee-mo.