Amount of energy available from back-up diesel generators cut back

SOUTH Australia remains on high alert for summer blackouts, as authorities reveal they have slashed the amount of power that can be relied on from the emergency diesel generators.

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SOUTH Australia remains on high alert for summer blackouts, as authorities reveal they have slashed the amount of power that can be relied on from the emergency diesel generators.

An independent review of the national grid operator’s plan for summer warns the risk of rolling blackouts will be higher in the coming months than it has been in recent years. But it found the power outages would have been even more likely without the initiatives put in place, including the State Government’s energy plan.

The Australian Energy Market Operator will today release its summer readiness report, which outlines how the grid is prepared to cope with high demand.

AEMO chief executive Audrey Zibelman said she was “confident that we have taken all the necessary actions — and then some — to make sure we are ready”.

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The back-up diesel generators at the old Holden factory in Elizabeth. Picture: APR Energy

“We now have a range of dispatchable resources that can be used to strategically support the market as required, including battery storage, diesel generation and demand resources,” she said.

AEMO was working closely with the Bureau of Meteorology to improve forecasts and data in the report shows there was a higher likelihood of heatwaves during summer than in most years. It also showed Victoria and SA had the highest likelihood of a greater-than-normal number of hot days, and a risk of longer (at least five days) heatwaves.

Above-average maximum temperatures were also considered likely with the highest chances of warm days in Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Tesla's lithium-ion battery in Jamestown. Source: Supplied.

The report confirms there would be 444MW of extra capacity in addition to the Tesla battery.

But while the State Government claimed that the diesel generators would provide SA with an additional 276MW of electricity generation, AEMO was only banking on 170MW.

The report considers 170MW to be the firm minimum, allowing for one or two units to be unavailable with a likely maximum of around 225 MW if all units were operational on a heatwave day.

“All generation is ‘derated’ to some degree from its nameplate capacity, to allow for loss of generating capacity when it operates in very hot weather,” the report states.

The Advertiser revealed in August the temporary generators were not able to run at full power when the temperature was over 40C.

The AEMO’s summer readiness plan, released as part of the full report today, found the risk of not having enough power remained high in SA and Victoria.

“The supply/demand situation is finely balanced and failure of a single component will increase the risk that AEMO will need to shed load to maintain the power system within the requirements of the security standard,” the review found.

It stated that “even if all the summer ready initiatives were completed successfully and on time” — which was on track — AEMO would probably have insufficient resources to cover both demand and reserves if a single component of the system failed during peak demand.