Less than 2 weeks has passed since ‘Federal Court rules about Callide C – independent investigation authorised’, and the underlying troubles that manifest in the explosion at Callide C4 on 25th May 2021, and has continued since that time is back in Federal Court … but this time at the behest of the Australian Energy Regulator.
One of our team members found this afternoon’s article from the ABC:
In addition to the article above, following a quick scan I see the following pieces of additional information:
(A) Key points of background
Repeated from preceding article for ease of readability …
There’s probably five points that sum up the situation, at a very high level:
Headline 1) The Callide C4 unit has been offline since 25th May 2021 following a major explosion in the turbine hall:
… In other articles I have wondered if this would be the ‘longest outage in the history of the NEM’, but have not had time to definitively check
Headline 2) The root cause of the explosion is still not publicly known.
(a) Many months ago Dr Sean Brady was commissioned by CS Energy (50% owner of the Callide C station) to conduct an investigation and report back
(b) But this report has not been publicly released – and, as far as I have seen, there’s been nothing formally announced as to the status of the report
Headline 3) The sister unit, Callide C3, has been offline since 31st October 2022 when the cooling tower structure (which also supports Callide C4) collapsed. This has since been rebuilt.
Headline 4) The coincident calamity affecting both units forced the other 50% owner (IG Power Callide (IGPC)) into voluntary administration on 24th March 2023.
Headline 5) The partial shareholder in IGPC, Sev.en Global Investments (7GI) initiated the Federal Court action in December 2023, as noted by Nick Evans at the time (and hence via WattClarity 30th Dec 2023).
(B) Information from the Federal Court
At the Federal Court, the relevant reference Number appears to be QUD61/2024 … but (understandably) there’s not much information there, as it’s only just started:
(C) Anything from key stakeholders?
As I hit ‘publish’ on this article (17:00 on Fri 9th Feb 2024) the following is what I have seen from various stakeholders.
(C1) At the AER
On the AER website under the news section, there is the‘AER takes court action against Callide Power Trading for alleged breaches of National Electricity Rules’ news release:
… which links through to ‘Callide Power Trading Pty Ltd: alleged breaches of the National Electricity Rules’:
(C2) At Callide Power Trading
The Callide C station is owned in a 50:50 joint venture between two parties:
(C2a) CS Energy
I did not see anything under ‘News’ on the CS Energy website (though it is early days, obviously).
(C2b) IG Power Callide (IGPC)
As noted above, this entity has been under voluntary administration since 24th March 2023 (i.e. approaching 2 years after the explosion). This entity has various stakeholders involved, including:
1. Sev.en Global Investments
7GI is a partial owner of IGPC (and was the one who initiated the other case in the Federal Court).
I also did not see anything under ‘Press Releases’ or ‘News Highlights’ on the 7GI website.
2. Chinese investors
Other partial owners of IGPC are power sector investors from China (including CHNG).
(D) Information elsewhere
In terms of other media outlets…
(D1) At AFR
Nothing yet at the AFR?
(D2) At the Australian
A quick scan finds the article ‘Australian Energy Regulator hauls Callide Power Trading to court over May 2021 incident’ by Valerina Changarathil:
(D3) At RenewEconomy
I also found the article ‘Coal generator to face court over blackouts caused by “catastrophic” explosion’ by Michael Mazengarb:
(D4) Elsewhere?
I have not yet seen anything else…
(E) Latest information on return-to-service expectations
On 15th January 2024 we wrote about how ‘Hot & Wet Weather pushes back expected return to service dates for Callide C3 and Callide C4’
. Checking again in the ‘Generator Outages’ widget in ez2view (at 16:40 on Friday 9th Feb 2024), we see that there’s been no further change, since then, of expected return to service:
With respect to the image:
As follows:
(E1) Callide C3
This unit has been offline since 31st October 2022 (cooling tower), and the expectations for Unit 3 are as follows:
(a) On 29 Feb 2024 (back to 200 MW)
(b) On 31 March 2024 (back to 466 MW)
(E2) Callide C4
This unit has been offline since 25th May 2021 (explosion), and the expectations for Unit 3 are as follows:
(a) On 30 June 2024 (up to 210 MW)
(b) On 31 July 2024 (back to 420 MW)
CS Energy’s Ltd Callide C4 Management allowed maintenance staff to isolate the critical 220V DC Battery supply with the C4 unit in Service without informing the unit C4 operator who was in control. He was left with his control panel switched off.
Process Safety proceedure had been removed by CS Energy’s management’s lack of knowledge or understanding
A critical insurance payment has been lost as it is impossible to insure against a lack of knowledge or understanding and behaviour that shows a lack of good sense of judgement.
Technical Writer gobbledygook has been used to try and hide what happened