Loy Yang A power plant repairs on track for December
AGL Energy expects to complete repairs on its coal-fired Loy Yang A coal plant by a December deadline.
AGL Energy expects to complete repairs on its Victorian Loy Yang A coal plant by a December deadline amid warnings the state faces a significant risk of power outages this summer.
The electricity giant said repairs on a 550 megawatt unit at the state’s largest coal generator were “well underway” and should be completed by mid-December in line with a previously announced schedule. Loy Yang A supplies 30 per cent of Victoria’s power needs.
“AGL understands the concern this outage has caused many households and businesses, but we want to reassure the community that we are doing all we can to return the unit back to service as soon as possible,” AGL’s coal operations manager Steve Rieniets said. “We are also working closely with the market operator AEMO to facilitate a reconnection to the grid once the critical repairs are completed.”
Faults at Loy Yang and a halving in capacity from Origin Energy’s Mortlake gas generator have stripped 759MW of capacity out of the market until late December with the Australian Energy Market Operator stating any slippage from that timeline would boost the risk of blackouts this summer on hot days.
AGL said the unit’s core generator was in good condition following the installation of replacement parts while internal pressure piping would also be inspected and potentially repaired.
AEMO had been forced into increasingly frequent and expensive market interventions, including leasing diesel back-up generators and ordering expensive gas-fired plants into the market, to guard against the risk of a thermal generator like Loy Yang failing or a change in the weather knocking out renewable generation.