Yesterday afternoon in this article I had picked up a 1-day delay in the return to service of Callide C3 unit.
Unfortunately I was a little early with the ‘publish’ button, as the subsequent data update AEMO published for 15:00 yesterday showed that the return to service date for Callide C4 was to be delayed by 6 months – now pencilled in to return to service on 1st December 2022:
Above is the ‘MT PASA DUID Availability’ widget in ez2view again.
Hint for clients – if you can’t find it in the categorised list, remember you can search for it!
A first look at how this late afternoon news might have impacted on trading in the hedge market (using this query – which those with a licence to NEMreview can open) shows a noticeable jump yesterday in Q3 PEAK:
Quick on the draw, I see that Mark Ludlow wrote how ‘Callide power unit won’t return until December 2022’ yesterday evening:
I’d noted in previous articles (like here and here) how the June 2022 guestimate for return to service probably had an element of ‘wet finger in air’. Mark’s note yesterday of the delay being due to long lead time on manufacture and supply of new turbine is not a surprise.
Given the extent of the damage even that is optimistic. Big question why did the unit’s many safety features not shut it down. The only explanation i can offer is that the high pressure inlet valve failed. Has anyone got more information or a better theory
Hard to comprehend why they’d bother fitting a new turbine when coal has to go. Unless of course transitioning gas is really setting power prices and they’re expected to keep on rising.