Basslink has revealed it cut the fibre-optic and interconnector cable in the wrong place on March 11, and won’t be able to restart repair work on the recent cut until at least March 17
The cable cut has restricted Internet connections for thousands of Tasmanians since March 11, and there is no firm date for its repair.
A spokesperson for Basslink said rough weather is restricting its ability to repair the recent cut, and he also said the company is “within a couple of hundred meters” of discovering where the original electrical fault lay in the “northern section” of the cable.
The Basslink cable is 290km long.
The recent cut in Basslink was made about 89km from the Tasmanian coastline.
• Mercury: Call for Senate inquiry into Basslink failure …
• Jack Gilding, executive officer of the Tasmanian Renewable Energy Alliance, February 12 RenewEconomy: Tasmania solar report an epic fail – minister should tell regulator to start again The Tasmanian Economic Regulator’s draft report on the solar feed-in tariff demonstrates a remarkable ability to ignore the challenge of energy security in Tasmania, the changes facing the electricity industry nationally, and the global climate emergency. State Energy Minister Matthew Groom has vowed to “consider all options to reduce the chances of an energy crisis” including “greater incentives for solar”, but the message doesn’t seem to have got through to the regulator. The 59-page draft report ends up proposing exactly the same formula for calculating the feed-in tariff (FiT) rate as it did three years ago. As a result it suggests that the (ex GST) FiT rate is likely to increase slightly from 5.5c to 6.5c purely as a result of higher wholesale energy prices. The Tasmania Renewable Energy Association provided a submission to the regulator outlining nine additional benefits of solar PV which should be taken into account in setting the FiT, however the regulator has dismissed or ignored all of these. … The regulator should be finding a mechanism to share the benefit of cheaper, locally generated power between customers and the solar owners who provide this energy. Instead they are propping up the old centralised model even if it means all customers are paying for a service that was not in fact used. Comment on the draft report is due by 15 March. • The Regulator’s website is HERE
• Luigi in Comments: No Media Releases from government Ministers today. Three months vacation, a week back at work, then on hols again for Labour Day. Life’s tough. I guess The Crisis isn’t so important as to trump a day off in the Holiday Isle. The disengaged and irrelevant MR bombardment will start again tomorrow.
