530MW loss of electrical load in Tasmania on Friday 14th October 2022

The people of Tasmania are not having the best of times at present…

1)  Not only is the weather situation looking pretty dicey, with evacuation orders in place as rivers levels continuing to rise;

… for instance, the Mercury reports ‘Tasmania weather: Rescues, evacuations as flooding continues in Tassie’s north’ today.

2)  But also there’s been challenges in the electricity grid as well today …

A couple of SMS alerts interrupted other plans this morning, letting us know of some volatility in the Tasmanian region, so I had quick look.   Here’s a snapshot from NEMwatch at 11:05 dispatch interval (NEM time) with a couple of things highlighted

2022-10-14-at-11-05-NEMwatch-TAS-1805bucks

With respect to the annotations:

1)  at this dispatch interval, the TAS price is up at $1,805.87/MWh … whereas the prices in the other regions are low and negative.

2)  We see a substantial loss of load occurring a little while ago, some of which has since been reconnected.

3)  The price volatility began with a spike to $1,835.31/MWh in the 10:10 dispatch interval, as first spike above $1,000 this morning – and continues as I type this.

4)  We see the Basslink interconnector not operating, with both import and export limits set to 0MW … meaning that TAS is ‘electrically islanded’ from the rest of the NEM at this point in time.

5)  I’ve highlighted the Market Notice Window to flag two particular Market Notices that will be of interest in this context:

(a)  At 09:42 the Market Notice 102213 was published as follows:

——————————————————————-
MARKET NOTICE
——————————————————————-

Notice ID            102213
Notice Type ID        Emergency events/conditions
Notice Type Description    MARKET
Issue Date            Friday, 14 October 2022
External Reference        Non-credible contingency event – Tas region – 14/10/2022
——————————————————————-

AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE

Non-credible contingency event – Tas region – 14/10/2022

At 0919 hrs the following plant tripped.

(a)  Liapoota – Palmerston tee Waddamana No. 1 and No. 2 220 kV Lines

(b)  Basslink

 AEMO did not instruct load shedding.

 Approximately 530 MW of electrical load lost.

 The cause of this non credible contingency event is not known at this stage.

Manager NEM Real Time Operations

——————————————————————-
END OF REPORT
——————————————————————-

(b)  At 10:27 the Market Notice 102234 was published as follows:

——————————————————————-
MARKET NOTICE
——————————————————————-

From :              AEMO
To   :              NEMITWEB1
Creation Date :     14/10/2022     10:27:48

 ——————————————————————-

 Notice ID               :         102234
Notice Type ID          :         INTER-REGIONAL TRANSFER
Notice Type Description :         Inter-Regional Transfer limit variation
Issue Date              :         14/10/2022
External Reference      :         Inter-Regional Transfer limit variation – Basslink – 14/10/2022

 ——————————————————————-

 Reason :

 AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE

 Inter-Regional Transfer limit variation – Basslink – 14/10/2022

 The following constraint set was invoked from 0930 hrs to 1015 hrs 14/10/2022

 I-BL_ZERO

 The constraint set contains the following interconnector on the left hand side.

 T-V-MNSP1

 Manager NEM Real Time Operations

 ——————————————————————-
END OF REPORT
——————————————————————-

It’s worth flagging with this snapshot from ez2view at the 11:30 dispatch interval (via Time-Travel) two other things:

2022-10-14-at-11-30-ez2view-TAS

6)  That the ‘Raise’ FCAS prices in the TAS region have also been very high; and

7)  That there was loss of available generation, as well as loss of consumption, that occurred earlier this morning.

 

PS1 around 14:38 on Friday 14th October 2022

One of our readers (thanks RP!) has pointed me to this rolling update on the multi-state dramas from the ABC which contains this snippet of information:

2022-10-14-ABC-Landslide

With respect to this news update:

1)  Only 10,000 customers … not sure if this included big ones to add up to the 530MW in total, or if there was also other problems?

2)  First time I can remember in NEM history that a landslide has taken out a major transmission line

3)  With TasNetworks saying ‘as soon as possible’ for repairs, I can’t imagine that this is going to be super-quick, given the conditions on the ground and so on.

 

PS2 around 16:22 on Friday 14th October 2022

Worth also flagging this site that helps illustrate the scope of the broader issues in Tasmania this afternoon:

2022-10-14-at-16-21-TASalerts

Stay safe, everyone.

 

 

 

 

… more to come later?


About the Author

Paul McArdle
One of three founders of Global-Roam back in 2000, Paul has been CEO of the company since that time. As an author on WattClarity, Paul's focus has been to help make the electricity market more understandable.

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