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

A communication cock-up between the Territory’s electricity bodies in the lead up to the recent blackout in the Top End resulted in both back-up diesel generators at the NT’s largest power station being offline at the same time.

A COMMUNICATION cock-up between the Territory’s electricity bodies in the lead up to the recent blackout in the Top End resulted in both back-up diesel generators at the NT’s largest power station being offline at the same time.

Up to 40,000 Top End homes and businesses were plunged into two hours of darkness on November 18 after a “one-off” maintenance blunder by APA Group cut the gas supply to Channel Island Power Station.

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Channel Island Power Station has diesel fuel back up capabilities that were not activated during the incident, with Territory Generation saying at the time that they had decided the “fastest and most efficient method of restoration” was gas.

Channel Island Power Station suffered a gas supply interruption which cut the power across the Darwin and Katherine network. Picture: Che Chorley

But T-Gen chairman Dennis Bree, during budget estimates on Friday, revealed both diesel generators had been offline due to planned maintenance- something that would not have happened if Power and Water Corporation had told them APA Group would be doing gas pipeline maintenance work that day.

One of the diesel generators had been shut off to undergo planned maintenance and the other generator was offline in order to fix a meter malfunction that had happened the previous week.

“I mean, it’s obvious, but I’ll say it is that we wouldn’t have had diesel machines down, if we knew someone was operating on the gas,” Mr Bree said.

Power and Water Corporation has an agreement with APA Group for the supply and transport of the gas, via pipelines owned by APA Group, to Channel Island Power Station.

Officials from T-Gen, which operates Channel Island, said they were “not party” to those agreements but believed there was a “requirement” for them to be notified if “high risk work” or work that could interrupt gas supply was being undertaken.

“We didn’t receive any formal notification before the work (on the day of the blackout),” general manager Eddie Malan said.

Mr Bree said he didn’t know if the gas pipeline work was classed as urgent as he hadn’t received the final report into the incident.

The report is expected to be made public early next year.

Power and Water Corporation officials, including chairman John Langoulant, appeared at estimates on Friday morning but were not asked about the power outage.

Mr Langoulant did note criticism about the “lack of communication updates” from Power and Water to the public during the event and said they had learnt from that and would “make sure we do better”.