The earlier fire at Torrens Island switchyard (Mon 25th March 2024)

Yesterday we wrote briefly about ‘Electrical fire in switchyard at Torrens Island Power station’ following a tip on 7News.

In that news update, 7News mentioned that there was an earlier fire at the switchyard on Monday 25th March 2024.  With a quick search in the ‘Market Notices’ widget in ez2view, I found MN115794 as follows:

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Notice ID : 115794

Notice Type ID : Emergency events/conditions

Notice Type Description : MARKET

Issue Date : Monday, 25 March 2024

External Reference : Non-credible contingency event – SA region – Torrens Island 25/03/2024

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AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE.

Non-credible contingency event – SA region – Torrens Island 25/03/2024

At 1412 hrs there was an unplanned outage of the following elements:

Torrens Island BW3 275 kV CB

Torrens Island BC3 275 kV CB

Torrens Island – Lefevre 275 kV line

AEMO did not instruct load shedding.

AEMO has not been advised of any disconnection of bulk electrical load.

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

Manager NEM Real Time Operations

Following this note showing the impact of Wednesday’s fire on Torrens Battery, I had a quick look at Monday, as well (for both the battery and the legacy station) and could not see anything in a very quick scan.

Note that the equipment affected onsite on both occasions was different:

1)   on Monday via MN115794 (above) it was:

Torrens Island BW3 275 kV CB

Torrens Island BC3 275 kV CB

Torrens Island – Lefevre 275 kV line

2)  on Wednesday via MN115833 (noted yesterday) it was:

Torrens Island A 275 kV West Bus

Torrens Island AC3 275 kV CB

… hence affecting the battery