Return to service for Callide C3 delayed by 17 days (now to 24th January 2024)

I’ve been intermittently keeping an eye on the expected return-to-service for Callide C3 and C4 units, and noticed earlier (when speaking with someone about our ‘Generator Outages’ widget in ez2view) the return to service date for unit C3 was now Wednesday 24th January 2024:

1)  Which would be a 17 days slippage on what had been forecast as far ago as 30th May 2023 (as noted at the time).

2)  So much closer to when the (more likely) stressful parts of summer 2023-24 might arise.

(A)  Brief history

Frequent readers will recall the coverage here of the Callide C4 Catastrophe, which commenced 25th May 2021 such that that unit has been offline since that time (i.e. eta 3 years offline by the time of its expected return).

… I’d written before about how that might be ‘longest outage in the history of the NEM’, though I have still not had time to definitively check.

Readers might also recall Callide C3 came offline on 31st October 2022 due to cooling tower failure … which would have affected C4 as well, though it was already offline.

(B)  Current status

Here’s a view of the RTS expectations for both Callide C3 and Callide C4

In the image below, I’ve zoomed into the area shown in the image above:

{remember that the purpose of this ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view is to enable the user to ‘look up a vertical’ to see ‘that other dimension of time’}

We can see the 17 day slippage to later in January 2024 and that the return to service capacity will be slightly lower than had been envisaged earlier.

(B1)  From CS Energy

I note that yesterday, CS Energy had shared this news update here:

… which notes:

‘the shift in Unit C3’s partial return to service reflected the impact of recent rain and hot weather, resourcing challenges, including illness and COVID-19 at site, and global supply chain issues. This includes some of the assigned freight carriers being diverted to assist with humanitarian efforts in the Gaza War and domestic issues in India which have impacted the scheduling and delivery of materials.’

There’s information in the update that’s worth reading.

(B2)  From RenewEconomy

This release from CS Energy has already been covered by RenewEconomy today here:

(C)  Any update on the Administration?

Seeing as I am looking, I quickly scanned and could not see any further updates on the Administration process for the two units (which had been placed in the hands of Voluntary Administrators – as CS Energy noted in this update on 24th March 2023).

I could not find any recent updates on that process.

Perhaps our readers could point us to some later information?

(D)  Any update on the cause of Callide C4 failure?

Readers here will recall that Dr Sean Brady was commissioned to investigate the original cause of the failure of the Callide C4 unit.

Seeing as I was here I had a quick scan – but can’t see anything more recent about this investigation and the final report after this update here on 25th May 2023.

Perhaps our readers could point us to some later information?