Having recent experience of how bushfires in the area of Stockyard Hill Wind Farm can lead to a cut of production, we’ve been wary of what’s been happening in the VIC region today (Thu 22nd February 2024), with bushfires again affecting a number of locations.
In particular this ‘Leave Now’ notice from CFA Updates at 19:14 (NEM time) was of interest, because it mentions the Waubra area … home of Acciona’s Waubra Wind Farm:
Given that it’s a current warning, the link works and leads to this message:
The message overlay is over the top of the map – and neatly covers up the area of the state that’s home to the Waubra Wind Farm.
Using the NEMreview v7 software, here’s a view of how the WAUBRAWF DUID has performed over the past couple of days:
As highlighted, the unit dropped from 44MW to 0MW in the 18:00 dispatch interval, and we wonder if (and hope not!) related to the nearby bushfire?
Of course, there are various reasons why a Wind Farm might reduce its output to 0MW – so let’s tick some of them off the list:
1) It might be due to the dropping of the wind resource?
(a) With reference to the recently released GSD2023 we see that the closest BOM weather measurement station is the Ballaratt Aerodrome.
(b) On the chart I have added in BOM observations for both Wind Speed and Wind Gust for that measurement point.
(c) There is some correlation over the past 3 days between the other lulls in wind and the drops in output of the Wind Farm (output drops tend to lead BOM readings)
(d) The wind has dropped today, as has wind speed
(e) But at the time of the snapshot above it’s not conclusive…
(f) So I’m thinking it’s possible it might be low wind related, but does not seem certain.
2) It might be related to negative prices (if the generator is exposed to them) … but that’s not happening at present.
3) It might be related to transmission constraints … but the unit is Non-Scheduled so would only be constrained in very exceptional circumstances.
4) Other reasons (e.g. maintenance and so on) … but I have no way of knowing that?
So let’s leave it here for now … whether the unit’s off because of bushfires or not, I do hope everyone is safe!
PS1 at 07:20 on Friday 23rd February 2024
Have not seen any news directly about Waubra Wind Farm, but it has been offline (no output) through the night – from 18:00 Thu 22nd February until now (~13.5 hours).
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