At the start of this week (Monday 29th April), Dan shared how there’s been ‘Almost two months without output at Hunter Power Station, and another tiny slip in the operational date’ (formerly known as the Kurri Kurri peaker).

1)  That article utilised the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view

2)  Focused on successive updates of the MT PASA DUID Availability data sets (i.e. date provided by the generator to AEMO and then released by AEMO on a staggered cadence, thanks to the ERM Rule Change).

3)  Readers will recall that the ‘Grid’ form of the widget allows one to ‘look up a vertical’ in order to ‘see that other dimension of time’.

Elsewhere through this week (not that we’ve only noticed them this week) there’s been plenty of coverage and discussion in mainstream media outlets and on social media with respect to:

•  delays and/or
•  cost overruns and/or
•  financial/operational performance issues

… with respect to a range of assets that are intended to support this energy transition.

That’s spurred on some further discussions internally, as a result of which we’ve been collating a list of projects we’re aware of where there might be stories in and of themselves.  In the coming weeks we might post more…

… but for today’s short article we’d just like to illustrate what appears to be some delays in the expected first operations at Kidston Pumped Hydro Project which:

1)  Was registered into the NEM in November 2025, as noted by Genex on 18th November 2025

… which was then reported in several media locations including

(a)  Giles Parkinson writing ‘Kidston becomes first pumped hydro project to be registered in Australia’s main grid in 40 years’ on the same day in RenewEconomy; and

(b)  Plus others we saw at the time

2)  Spurred by the registration (and because we could not do so beforehand, because it did not have a DUID(s)) we’d set a ‘Notification’ widget alert in ez2view to let us know when first output had been seen …

(a)  but we’d not seen any alerts yet,

(b)  and, vaguely recalling some earlier reporting that first output might be seen sometime in 2026:

i.  I could not remember exactly when, but had some vague notion it was second half of the year (i.e. too soon now);

ii.  so (not thinking about the possibility of delays, but just to re-familiarise myself with when we might see these alerts), I opened up another instance of the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view …

iii. … and was surprised when I saw the following:

Remember to click on the image to open a larger resolution copy in another tab.

As noted on the image:

1)  The original expectation was that the station would be available (at 250MW) in October 2026

2)  But that was pushed back the first time at the end of January 2026.

3)  With two more delays noted in the blue steps above, the expectation now sits of availability in late July 2027.

I’d not recalled any reporting in the media about this, so briefly looked ion the News & Media section of the Genex website, and did not find anything.  Remembering that the company was taken private (as noted here in July 2024) it’s understandable that the Investors section of the Genex website did not have any other details, either.

Having run out of times ourselves, I thought I’d post this and open up to comments from readers … if you know more about the reasons for the apparent delays?

PS1 Friday evening 1^st May 2026

After conversations with the helpful team at Genex Power, we’ve added the following additional context:

1) Following the privatisation of the company approximately 2 years ago, the need to provide regular updates (publicly) to investors was removed and, as such, the rate of company announcements and news updates diminished.

2) However there was a presentation made by the CEO (Craig Francis) at an Energy Conference in Brisbane in March 2026, and Craig has generously shared the slide pack with me. I found slide #8 particularly of interest:

3) The company has, however, continued to provide updates on project status to AEMO as required (via EnergyAustralia, the offtaker – and also the Registered Participant for the project, since registration was completed in 2025). This has included in the MT PASA DUID Availability data sets featured in the the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget  snapshot above.

4) With reference to the expected commissioning (late in CY2026) and commercial operations (CY2027) noted in the March presentation, this lines up with the last step change shown in the MT PASA DUID Availability data.

5) In a conversation with Craig, we discussed how these types of adjustments to Commercial Operations Date are natural, given the complexity of the project and its unique nature:

(a)  a pumped storage hydro project’s not been built in the NEM for decades

(b)  there’s only three other ones in the NEM (or at least, sizeable ones):

i.  The last (and only) one in QLD was Wivenhoe Pumped Hydro in the 1980’s by the Queensland Electricity Commission (or might actually have been the QEGB back then).

ii.  Shoalhaven Pumped Hydro in NSW was build in the 1970’s I believe

iii.  I think the Snowy Pumped Hydro units were added to the Snowy project roughly the same time?