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Just an update on what's going on in the power industry:
The SA government's diesel-fired gas turbine power stations are now ready to operate when required. Capacity is 276 MW (nominal) split between two sites in the Adelaide urban area.
Also the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big Tesla battery) is now registered with AEMO for both generation and load (charging) so that's another 100MW of peak supply.
So things are looking better in SA although it's not enough to say that the supply is secure. Less at risk than it would be without these new sources of supply but the risk of a supply shortfall isn't zero by any means.
Meanwhile in Victoria I hear that there's about to be some rather strong encouragement to simply switch things off. So you can use your air-conditioner sure, but they'd like you to turn if off when it's hot outside to keep system load down since there's insufficient supply to meet the peaks. The details are a bit uncertain but in short it's a case of offering $ to not use electricity during the nominated times with metering data used to confirm that individual consumers did in fact turn things off.
Here in Tas we've got quite a bit of generating plant out of service at the moment. Nothing to panic about, it's just planned maintenance to make sure it all keeps working reliably and that Basslink (the Tas - Vic power cable) can be fully loaded supplying into Vic when demand spikes in that state.
At Cluny PS (Tas) a complete major overhaul has been done over the past few months and the power station will soon return to operation. It wasn't broken, it was fully operational the day it was shut down, but it was time to thoroughly check and as needed replace things to return it to "as new" condition to ensure it remains reliable.
As part of the work at Cluny a new turbine runner is being installed which is an improvement on the original design by using a hub that isn't filled with lubricating oil as Kaplan turbines normally are. That sort of technology wasn't around when it was originally built and whilst there has never been a major incident, the surest way to make sure you don't have an oil spill is to not have oil in the first place (noting that 60% of Hobart's water supply is pumped from the river downstream so an oil spill wouldn't be good). This follows the same approach being applied successfully at Paloona and Meadowbank power stations in recent years (not without some initial problems but that's all sorted now).
Also major maintenance works (complete overhauls not just regular maintenance) in Tas are about to happen at Devils Gate, Wilmot, Liapootah*, Wayatinah* and Repulse power stations over the next year. In NSW Snowy Hydro is doing some similar major works at Tumut 1 PS.
*Liapootah and Wayatinah each have 3 generators and work on some units has already been done. Do one then do the next etc so that the power station can remain partly operational during the work - this is desirable in order to move water through them for use by other stations both upstream and downstream.
Bottom line - things are a bit better in SA but still not great. Vic has lots of problems just waiting for the inevitable. NSW / ACT is borderline. Nothing to worry about elsewhere unless there's a truly major incident.
The SA government's diesel-fired gas turbine power stations are now ready to operate when required. Capacity is 276 MW (nominal) split between two sites in the Adelaide urban area.
Also the Hornsdale Power Reserve (aka the big Tesla battery) is now registered with AEMO for both generation and load (charging) so that's another 100MW of peak supply.
So things are looking better in SA although it's not enough to say that the supply is secure. Less at risk than it would be without these new sources of supply but the risk of a supply shortfall isn't zero by any means.
Meanwhile in Victoria I hear that there's about to be some rather strong encouragement to simply switch things off. So you can use your air-conditioner sure, but they'd like you to turn if off when it's hot outside to keep system load down since there's insufficient supply to meet the peaks. The details are a bit uncertain but in short it's a case of offering $ to not use electricity during the nominated times with metering data used to confirm that individual consumers did in fact turn things off.
Here in Tas we've got quite a bit of generating plant out of service at the moment. Nothing to panic about, it's just planned maintenance to make sure it all keeps working reliably and that Basslink (the Tas - Vic power cable) can be fully loaded supplying into Vic when demand spikes in that state.
At Cluny PS (Tas) a complete major overhaul has been done over the past few months and the power station will soon return to operation. It wasn't broken, it was fully operational the day it was shut down, but it was time to thoroughly check and as needed replace things to return it to "as new" condition to ensure it remains reliable.
As part of the work at Cluny a new turbine runner is being installed which is an improvement on the original design by using a hub that isn't filled with lubricating oil as Kaplan turbines normally are. That sort of technology wasn't around when it was originally built and whilst there has never been a major incident, the surest way to make sure you don't have an oil spill is to not have oil in the first place (noting that 60% of Hobart's water supply is pumped from the river downstream so an oil spill wouldn't be good). This follows the same approach being applied successfully at Paloona and Meadowbank power stations in recent years (not without some initial problems but that's all sorted now).
Also major maintenance works (complete overhauls not just regular maintenance) in Tas are about to happen at Devils Gate, Wilmot, Liapootah*, Wayatinah* and Repulse power stations over the next year. In NSW Snowy Hydro is doing some similar major works at Tumut 1 PS.
*Liapootah and Wayatinah each have 3 generators and work on some units has already been done. Do one then do the next etc so that the power station can remain partly operational during the work - this is desirable in order to move water through them for use by other stations both upstream and downstream.
Bottom line - things are a bit better in SA but still not great. Vic has lots of problems just waiting for the inevitable. NSW / ACT is borderline. Nothing to worry about elsewhere unless there's a truly major incident.
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