Almost two months without output at Hunter Power Station, and another tiny slip in the operational date

Picking up from Paul’s late-March note on continuing delays at Snowy Hydro’s under-construction Hunter Power Station (formerly known as Kurri Kurri), here’s a brief update on the commissioning of the station’s two units, as of today.

For a quick recap, a few things worth flagging:

• Testing operations first commenced at the HUNTER1 unit back on Sunday 27th July 2025 – meaning we’re about nine months on from first energisation.
• Neither of the two units has produced any output to the grid since the evening of Monday 2nd March 2026.
• On Wednesday March 25th 2026, Angela Macdonald-Smith from the AFR reported that the testing phase of the station had been paused and the operational date delayed, with a spokesperson from Snowy Hydro stating “We are considering when it is appropriate to complete diesel testing, given current circumstances and our expectation that the station will be only rarely required to operate on the diesel back-up fuel.”
• AEMO’s most recent MTPASA run (as of midday today) has full availability of the station projected to commence on Tuesday 26th May 2026 – a further day’s slippage from the 25th May 2026 date Paul flagged off the back of the 19th March MTPASA run.

The updated screenshot of our ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view captures the cumulative picture of delays to the operational date of the station – with the snapshot below taken from the 12:00 run earlier today:

Source: Forecast Convergence

The familiar staircase along the red-to-blue boundary continues to march further to the right with each fresh MTPASA publication – though the AFR’s reporting at least goes some way to addressing the ‘why?’ Paul flagged in his earlier piece.