The Buck stops here … Energy Minister Matthew Groom. Pic: From HERE
TUESDAY April 26 …
• Examiner: Budgetary fallout of Tasmania’s big dry becoming clearer
• Read for yourself … the 12.8% Hydro storage levels
• Tasmania Talks with Brian Carlton: Investigating Tasmania’s power crisis, includes the comparative Widget (and it’s a great site) … • HERE is the REneweconomy site where there is a fascinating comparison with power use in other states …
• Luigi in Comments: And the latest water energy in storage figure has been released: 12.8% and falling, down from 13.4% last week. There will be a fair bit of breast-beating about this. It’s a biggish drop and reflects an increase in energy use with the onset of colder weather, the very late start-up of the rent-a-diesels, continued poor rainfalls (no surprise!), and unforeseen maintenance needs at Tamar Valley Power Station.
WEDNESDAY April 20 …
• Nick Clark, Mercury: Basslink risks raised by Hydro Tasmania committee before failure
ONLY days before Basslink crashed, Hydro Tasmania’s risk management committee questioned whether the organisation had appropriately assessed the “catastrophic” risk of an extended outage, right-to-information documents show. The committee, led by prominent economist Saul Eslake, met on December 15 — five days before the December 20 Basslink outage. “The committee questioned whether the risk relating to an unplanned outage of Basslink for 60 days or longer was appropriately assessed in light of Tasmania’s increased reliance on importing electricity from Victoria,” the committee’s minutes show. “[Redacted name] advised that Hydro Tasmania was adequately positioned to respond to Basslink being unavailable past 60 days … ” More HERE
TUESDAY April 19 …
• ABC: Diesel spilled next to Hydro emergency generators …
Hydro Tasmania has blamed human error for a 500-litre diesel spill at its Meadowbank hydro-electric power station in the Central Highlands.
The spill happened while diesel tanks were being filled, and Hydro said the diesel was confined to a five-square-metre area of crushed rock, and did not spread to Lake Meadowbank 150 metres away.
The diesel is powering 24 generators at the site, being used during the state’s energy crisis which was sparked by a fault in the Basslink power cable to Victoria, and low levels in Hydro’s dams.
Hydro would not reveal what happened to cause the spill, but said it was working with contractors to improve refuelling procedures.
EARLIER on Tasmanian Times …
• BASSLINK: A Wrap … includes a wrap of earlier articles
• Luigi in Comments HERE: An update on gas and diesel generators: * The rent-a-diesels are now producing 80% of the 100MW which was promised by 30th March. But I’m sure 100% of it is “installed”, which is Matthew’s favoured weasel-word. 20% of it is just not producing anything. * The three Pratt & Whitney open cycle gas turbines at Tamar Valley Power Station – which should produce 105MW – also merit mention. They have been running at about 50% capacity for over a month, but are now down to 33%. I wonder if we’ll be told why. And I also wonder if the costs of operation of the entire Tamar Valley Power Station, which had been decommissioned in readiness for sale, will be added to Peter Gutwein’s “cost disclosure” agenda along with the rent-a-diesels. Or must we be content with partial disclosure?
• Get with the Widget HERE or HERE on REneweconomy where there is a fascinating comparison to other states. REneweconomy has fascinating stories on the next industrial revolution … majoring this week on battery storage …
• ABC: Tasmanian welfare group warns any power price rise will hit household budgets
• Saul Eslake in Comments: “Luigi” appears to be insinuating that I, or someone else on the Hydro Board, encouraged Nick Clark to make a ‘Right to Information’ request for the minutes of the December meeting of Hydro’s Board Risk Management Committee. To the best of my knowledge, that insinuation is utterly false. The first I heard that Mr Clark had a copy of this document was when he rang me, on Tuesday afternoon, asking for my comments on it. That’s the only reason I said anything about the matter at all – since it’s not part of my job description as a member of the Hydro Board to act as a spokesperson for Hydro Tasmania. Nor, as “Peter” suggests, am I “trying to wriggle out” of my responsibilities as a member of the Hydro Board. As Hydro’s CEO has said previously, Hydro Tasmania accepts that as a government owned enterprise, it is perfectly legitimate for its activities and performance to be subject to public scrutiny. The Board will respond appropriately to the two inquires into the circumstances leading up to the current energy supply situation, when it is called upon to do so. There is nothing in the law relating to the responsibilities of directors which obliges individual directors to respond to media queries, or to anonymous or pseudonymous internet posts.
• Greg James in Comments HERE: Do you wonder, ever wonder about the lack of change with the Hodgman government. Same old same old, they could reform but are just hamstrung by inertia and entropy. The bureaucracy will beat them Everytime. Imagine a reactionary Police force having to deal with this or policy changes, the work needed, the imagination and just exposing themselves to explaining themselves. Hodgman had 8 years as opposition leader, preparing himself for leading this state into change; instead we have impending water and electrical chaos, a severely damaged health system and institutional private monopolies creating havoc in poor communities with poker machines. It’s just so spineless.
