‘Poke a finger through it’: Transgrid accused of maintenance neglect as logs leaked

Leaked Transgrid logs show the back-up generators have been off and on for more than a year, as workers accuse the company of spending money on connecting renewables at the expense of maintaining existing assets.

Transgrid workers have accused the company of “running the gauntlet”, with a leaked maintenance log revealing several outages of back-up generators in Broken Hill, including a “forced” outage lasting seven months.

The document – obtained by The Saturday Telegraph – comes as Transgrid workers also accuse the company of spending money on transmission lines to connect renewables at the expense of maintaining its existing assets.

The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) claims a contractor hired by Transgrid two years ago spoke of being able to “push a finger through” one of the rusted transmission towers, which last week fell over in a storm.

Energy Minister Penny Sharpe on Friday scrambled to the far west of the state on Premier Chris Minns’ orders to appease angry locals grappling with repeated blackouts.

“I don’t have a return date yet, the plan is to be here as long as possible,” she said.

Transgrid faces a fine of up to $250,000 if it is found to have breached ‘reliability standards’ resulting in the ongoing power issues in Broken Hill. Picture: Christian Gilles

Ms Sharpe said generators had been progressively deployed to Broken Hill, including by the government-run Essential Energy, starting a day after last week’s storm destroyed transmission lines.

Transgrid now faces a fine of up to $250,000 if it is found to have breached “reliability standards” in its licence, with the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal investigating safety and reliability of the power grid around Broken Hill after mass blackouts.

ETU secretary Allen Hicks said it was clear from workers that Transgrid had been taking a gamble with its electricity supply to Broken Hill.

An internal maintenance log detailing the planned and forced outages for the two back-up generators shows the gas turbines being turned off and on since July last year.

No.1 gas turbine was off as part of a “planned outage” from July 20 to October 12 last year, only to be off again as part of a “forced outage” from November 5 last year to June 10 this year. The logs show it has been off as part of a “planned outage” since August 27 this year.

No. 2 gas turbine was off for a few days in October as part of a “planned outage” and again from June 26 to August 22 this year.

Electrical Workers Union national secretary Allen Hicks.

Energy Minister Penny Sharpe. Picture: Damian Shaw

Mr Hicks said Transgrid had known about the poor state of their generators and the transmission towers for over a year.

“What Transgrid have been saying is that one of their turbines has only been out since September this year, but we know factually that it has been off since last year,” Mr Hicks said.

“And while they are repairing No. 2 turbine, No. 1 turbine is still about three to four months away from operation, so they have just gambled on the transmission supply line not failing, and when it did – catastrophically – they did not have the back up supply. It was a gamble.”

Transgrid refused to address the concerns raised by the ETU. However, in a statement, a spokesman said the company was working with AGL to commission a “transmission microgrid” to stabilise supply.

Nationals leader Dugald Saunders said communities in the far west had been let down by the Minns government.

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