AER announces $9M fine for Callide Power Trading (with respect to 25th May 2021 explosion/incident)

Since the major explosion/incident with the Callide C4 catastrophe on Wednesday 25th May 2021 there have been plenty of articles written and collated here (and elsewhere).

… but that dried up late last year as Callide C4 processed through return to service.

Adding one more to the mix today, the AER announced yesterday that ‘Callide Power Trading penalised $9 million for not meeting performance standards’:

In the Media Release above, the AER notes:

‘With a maximum penalty of $10 million, today’s $9 million penalty is the highest ever imposed for a failure to comply with performance standards under the NER.’

… and also:

‘“This significant penalty reinforces the importance of generators and Registered Participants, who are responsible for generators, complying with performance standards to ensure the security and safety of the power system.

“Those responsible for generators must have appropriate systems, processes and protocols in place to ensure they and their operators can comply with their regulatory obligations,” said Ms Savage.’

… which reminds me that James Tetlow wrote about ‘10 million reasons why we need to talk about NEM generator operations’ back on 1st June 2021 (i.e. 6 days after the incident, coincidentally).

On social media, there was a bit more:

1)  This update on LinkedIn; and

2)  Plus elsewhere.

In response, we noticed on the CS Energy news site that they had posted this brief ‘Statement from Callide Power Trading’.