Back-to-front valve labels during botched maintenance sparked major Top End blackout: Power and Water report

THE ‘one-off’ blunder that triggered a widespread blackout in the Top End can be linked back to botched maintenance where a pipeline worker once labelled valves back-to-front, a report has found

Krishna Bhupathi, chef at Fannie Bay Cool Spot, cools down while awaiting the power to come back on in November 2020. Picture: Che Chorley

THE “one-off” blunder that triggered a widespread blackout in the Top End can be linked back to botched maintenance where a pipeline worker once labelled valves back-to-front, a report has found.

Power and Water Corporation on Thursday released its final report into the November blackout that plunged 49,089 Territorian homes and businesses — nearly 10,000 more than initially reported — into darkness for nearly 4 hours.

MORE ON THIS BLACKOUT:

‘One-off’ routine maintenance blunder by APA Group sparked mass NT power outage

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Communication bungle between T-Gen and Power and Water meant back up generators down during Top End blackout

Channel Island Power Station suffered a gas interruption in November 2020 because some valves were mislabelled once. True story. Picture: Che Chorley

In a catalogue of stuff-ups, the once upon a time mislabelling of valves by a worker on gas pipelines owned by APA Group sparked the initial blunder, catching maintenance personnel on November 18 unawares.

The “open” end of the valve being, indeed, closed, shut off the gas supply to Channel Island Power Station at 3.52pm that day.

Territory Generation was aware APA had been doing work on the pipeline but a lack of communication meant the NT’s power generator had not prepared a plan B should something go wrong.

As revealed in budget estimates, both diesel generators at Channel Island Power Station had been offline that day for routine maintenance — something that wouldn’t have happened if T-Gen knew of potential risks involved in APA’s work.

Power and Water Corp, in an investigation labelled “comprehensive” by the Utilities Commission, has now called for a Ministerial review into the rules that govern how much gas behemoth APA needs to communicate to the Territory’s electricity trifecta.

Hello darkness my old friend. Krishna Bhupathi, chef at Fannie Bay Cool Spot, cools down while awaiting the power to come back on during the Top End blackout of November 2020. Picture: Che Chorley

By 4.10pm, when the system had stabilised, Power and Water Corp had called Defence and the Top End’s hospitals to get them to start their generators.

Overall, more than 200 vulnerable customers and those on life support were notified.

By 4.40pm gas had begun flowing back into the pipeline and T-Gen workers began systematically bringing the generators online before facing more hurdles, including one generator that carked it.

That generator, C8, has since been maintained and brought back online.

Most customers had power back by 6.45pm and by 8.10pm everyone’s lights were on again.

Power and Water Corporation also found communication of the incident to the media was “delayed” as there was no clear co-ordination of which of the three organisations — them, T-Gen or Jacana — should lead the messaging.

It has been decided that Power and Water will take the lead should an incident of this nature occur again.

Traffic lights across the city and suburbs were out during peak hour when the power went out in November 2020. Picture: Che Chorley

According to the report, traffic to Power and Water’s website surged during the blackout with 35,000 hits during the event- an equivalent of six months worth of site traffic.

Media personnel also fielded 27 phone calls from news outlets in the first 2.5 hours of the blackout, with the help desk fielding 3552 calls from Territorians, and managing to respond to a third of the 667 emails they received, and half of the 865 Facebook messages they were sent.

Power and Water Corporation has made a total of 36 recommendations, most of them highly technical, five of those for APA Group, one for Minister Nicole Manison, and 30 for the NT’s trio of electricity companies.

All recommendations are expected to be complete by August 2021.

The Utilities Commission, wholly satisfied with Power and Water’s investigation, did not make additional recommendations.

Essential Services Minister Eva Lawler, who has had to deal with the fallout of the blackout.

Mining and Industry Minister Nicole Manison, who is the one that actually has the power to review the framework between APA Group and Territory Generation. Photograph: Che Chorley

Utilities Commissioner Lyndon Rowe noted that the recommendations for APA “may not be enforceable” and completion is “reliant” on the company’s “willingness to co-operate”.

Mr Rowe then noted that the department of infrastructure was in “close communication” with the company and they were satisfied that APA Group was responding to the incident appropriately and in accordance with the legally-binding pipeline management plan.

APA Group did not confirm which recommendations the company had accepted but a spokesman said it had “strengthened” internal procedures and “added additional requirements” to maintenance processes to minimise the risk of another stuff up.

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Essential Services Minister Eva Lawler said the power outage was “unacceptable” and that issues had been identified and processes put in place to ensure the incident did not happen again.

“Hardworking Territorians, families and businesses deserve stable, reliable and affordable power,” she said.

“I want to thank the dedicated and hardworking staff of Territory Generation and Power and Water Corporation for their efforts to restore power after the outage.”