Gas back on “standby” in Tasmania, as rains allow industrials to power on

Tasmania’s major gas power generator – the 208MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine at the Tamar Valley Power Station – has been switched back to standby, with the state’s replenished dams now supplying more hydropower than is needed.

Tamar Valley Power Station
Tamar Valley Power Station

After a nearly five-month long electricity crisis caused by severely depleted hydro resources and the failure of the Basslink interconnector, Tasmania returned to 100 per cent renewable electricity just last week, operating without gas-fired or diesel generation for the first time since the beginning of the year.

That was broken a few days later, when gas was switched back on, but the energy supplier says there is now enough water in the dams to put the gas generator – which had been mothballed and partially dismantled last year – back on to standby.

HydroTasmania chief Steve Davy said that after the driest spring on record, which caused dam levels to fall to record lows,  May is now shaping up to be the wettest on record.

Because of this the Tamar Valley gas turbine could be moved to standby mode effective immediately, a setting from which it could be restarted within a fortnight if required.

The return to full hydropower capacity will also see two of the state’s biggest industrial power users – Bell Bay Aluminium and TEMCO – resume full production several weeks earlier than expected.

In February, Bell Bay Aluminium voluntarily reduced its electricity consumption in response to the state’s severely constrained power supply.  675383-3a35228e-2eb2-11e4-8424-141fab601c36

But HydroTas said the company, which along with TEMCO employs more than 700 Tasmanians, can now resume full output within five weeks – a full month earlier than expected. TEMCO will resume full production within four weeks.

“This month is on track to be the wettest May on record in terms of inflows into Hydro storages,” Davy said.

“As of 15 May, inflows were already 150 per cent of the long-term average for the whole month. After extremely dry weather from September to April, that’s very welcome news.

“It has allowed us to reach an agreement for Bell Bay Aluminium and TEMCO to resume full production several weeks ahead of schedule, which is very important for Tasmanian jobs and the local economy.



“The increased demand will be met by hydropower, and help reduce the likelihood of spilling and wasting precious water in our smaller storages.

“Achieving a storage level of 20 per cent and getting our major customers back to full production are important steps in recovering from the current energy challenge,” Davy said.

But he also warned that there was still “much work ahead” – some of which, presumably, will revolve around insuring the crisis isn’t repeated – and “no room for complacency.”

Comments

9 responses to “Gas back on “standby” in Tasmania, as rains allow industrials to power on”

  1. Geoff Avatar
    Geoff

    It ironic that Bob Brown and the Greens, assisted by a campaigning Bob Hawke joined forces to halt any further development of the renewable Hydro generation industry. Call were even made recently to drain Lake Pedder and return it to its “Pristine” pre dam state. Tasmania could be a massive provider if clean hydro energy to the mainland states instead of sending only intermittent oversupply.
    Compared to wind and solar Hydro can be the only true renewable energy supply of electricity. Ironic isn’t it?

    1. Peter F Avatar
      Peter F

      Geoff
      There are no year (or decade) long wind droughts and month long solar droughts. If Tasmania had matched its hydro with wind it would have survived the crisis very well and if had built Taswind with the associated duplication of Basslink the combined wind +hydro + redundant DC link would have made Tasmania a true energy powerhouse regardless of droughts. When the wind is blowing store water. When it is not run the hydro. If you have enough wind you may even add some pumped hydro to further improve system reliability and deliverable power capacity

      1. Glen S Avatar
        Glen S

        Spot on.

    2. MrMauricio Avatar
      MrMauricio

      No-not ironic at all.Common sense!!!

    3. riley222 Avatar
      riley222

      The problem is not a lack of dams, its the lack of utilisation. Hydro power needs to be supplemented by wind (mainly) in Tassie. Pumped hydro is the way to store any excess.
      Exports to the mainland of renewable energy will (hopefully, depending on politics) be integrated into the east coast grid.

      1. Ian Avatar
        Ian

        Any kind of secondary storage is more expensive than primary electricity production. Once through hydro is far cheaper than pumped storage. Pumped hydro is not to be ignored but managing the dispatch times of the existing hydro resource is probably more cost effective than trying to recycle water storage with pumped hydro. At this Time Tasmania has plenty of hydro, adding copious amounts of wind and solar at $60 to $100/MW would keep their overall wholesale price in that range with a large expansion in their overall electricity production. As some suggest they could even retire some of the hydro resource to rehabilitate some of the rivers.

        1. riley222 Avatar
          riley222

          No argument about once through hydro being more cost effective, but my thoughts are that Tasmania is according to some estimates, capable of boosting its hydro output by up to 1000MW utilising pumped hydro as an on demand source. Thats a lot of renewable energy available for export. The economic case is being looked at, seems to me a good way to boost renewables into the mainland grid and help Tasmanias economy at the same time.
          The idea is to keep Tasmanias dams at safe levels whilst still having the benefits of reliable on demand hydro power available for export. Basically treating part of the hydro system as a battery for excess wind , solar and other intermittent sources.

    4. Ian Avatar
      Ian

      Geoff, love your au contraire posts, hydro is very useful but it is expensive on the environment. It’s advantage in any electricity supply system is its storage value and its dispatchability . Using it as the only power source in this day and age is silly. Even in Tasmania the solar resource is not bad and wind is plentiful combining the three would make Tasmania a veritable powerhouse.

  2. Suburbable Avatar
    Suburbable

    The climate seems to have changed from the days when the rivers and lakes had enough water all of the time.
    Remember that the crisis also had economic roots, that the hydro was put in to take advantage of selling to the Victorian market. Large scale wind generation was still in its infancy and hydro appealed to a mindset that was all about big projects and centralized generation.
    The shift away from models of centralized power generation has lead us to many better options that can generate power locally.
    Hopefully the response of the government will not be ‘we need more water, so lets dam mote rivers’, but ‘lets move to models of regional generation where hydro is a supporting player’.
    Maybe we can let the rivers flow a little more freely and make power while the sun shines, the wind blows and the waves..er…wave.

Get up to 3 quotes from pre-vetted solar (and battery) installers.