SA power crisis: Torrens Island Power Station reaching ‘end of life’
THE owners of South Australia’s largest power station have likened it to an elderly person sitting in a retirement home, raising fear it’s not long until the vital asset “craps out”.
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THE owners of South Australia’s largest power station have likened it to an elderly person sitting in a retirement home, raising fear it’s not long until the vital asset “craps out”.
It comes amid a warning on further failures of gas-fired generators near Port Adelaide, which caught fire last week and led to calls for households to cut back on energy use.
AGL wholesale markets general manager Richard Wrightson has revealed the Torrens Island Power Station has not run at full capacity for more than a year and it never would again no matter how much money was thrown at it.
But whether or not the power station could run at full capacity was of lesser concern, as Mr Wrightson said the company was struggling to source enough gas to run it.
He predicted a gas shortfall this winter, which would threaten the state’s ability to keep the lights on.
The announcement comes as it is revealed that Premier Jay Weatherill’s top advisers have told him the SA Government should buy a power station, likely Pelican Point at Port Adelaide, to fix the state’s power crisis.
At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Mr Wrightson said it was “extremely unlikely” the 1280 megawatt gas-fired power station would ever run all of its eight units at once again.
“(It) is a very old station and its reliability is poor because it’s very much getting to the end of life,” he told the committee.
“The last time we ran eight units I think was in January 2016.
“We did try and get the eight units on for this summer period and we’ve had problems with that asset just because of age.
“That’s not going to change no matter how much money gets thrown at it because it is a 50-year-old plant.”
Senator Nick Xenophon asked, given this, how long it would be until the station “craps out”.
He compared the station to a person “either on life support or close to it”.
AGL group operations executive general manager Douglas Jackson corrected the Senator’s metaphor, saying it was more like a person “sitting in a retirement home”.
“We had mothballed it (Torrens Island) and we pulled it back from being mothballed this year with the Northern (power station at Port Augusta) decision,” Mr Jackson said.
“We are looking at it on a year-by-year basis making decisions but we are in the very real near term evaluating what work needs to be done to keep it running.”
Mr Wrightson said when the decision to close the Northern Power Station was announced, he attempted to source more gas to ensure Torrens could fill the generation gap.
“I was reasonably unsuccessful hence an ASX media release which is always embarrassing to have to put out,” he said.
“I sort of assume Engie (owner of Pelican Point) were in a similar boat.
“We are struggling to source molecules to run Torrens.
“We’re facing choices between suppling gas to a power station to keep the lights on in SA or supplying customers with gas for their industrial production.
“That’s a tightness that is here now and live, and will be felt very hard this winter.”