Whilst we’re speaking about events on Saturday 15th August 2026, worth also noting that today marks over one month of ongoing production from the Tamar Valley combined cycle plant in Tasmania – seen here via the ‘Bids & Offers’ widget in ez2view:
As we can see on the image:
1) There’s now been just over one month of continuous operations at Tamar Valley Combined Cycle Power Station (since Wednesday 15th July 2026)
(a) and, prior to that time, some discontinuous spurts of operations over the preceding days
(b) we’ve noted some of this in earlier articles:
i. On Monday 13th July we wrote ‘Tamar Valley CCGT gets a run over the weekend’;
ii. And then on Friday 17th July we wrote ‘Tamar Valley continuing to get a run … to Friday 17th July 2026’.
2) During this period, the output has most consistently been down at ~125MW but has occasionally risen to the ~208MW full capacity of the station.
Which brings me back to Observation #7 within this Interim Conference Wrap (i.e. ‘A broad realisation that Gas has an important role to play’) whereby all of the following ‘edges’ will be true at the same time in future:
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The Principle, that Gas has a role to play
There’s 4 edges to this principle:
1) At times, we’re going to need a large installed capacity of gas-fired (or other) Firming* capacity
* i.e. adopting the Nelson Review differentiation between Shaping and Firming.
2) We hope it’s not going to run all that often … and, in fact, most credible modelling suggests that it won’t
3) But, when it does run, it might need to run for days-on-end
(a) such as exactly what happened during the recent wind lull during June 2026 in South Australia!
(b) or what’s been happening at Tamar Valley over the past ~40 days!
4) We need to prepare the system into which we are transitioning such that this is actually deliverable
e.g. enough kit on the ground, enough fuel supply and delivery capacity etc…
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I think this article may be slightly misleading.
Since this current long run directly coincides with the Poatina maintenance (see https://www.hydro.com.au/alerts/north/water-flows-brumbys-creek), my guess is that this is to make up for the missing capacity rather than due to sustained low renewable production. So with the additional capacity from Marinus link or new wind farms in Tasmania this specific long run of Tamar Valley Combined Cycle would maybe not have to happen anymore in the future?
I also understand the importance of some peaking gas, but I think the conclusion that this specific long run is a hint for the role of gas in the future is not quite right… Happy to discuss!
Thanks for the added nuance, Tim
I don’t think Tamar Valley’s dispatch over the last 30-odd days has anything much to do with the needs of the Tasmanian power system.
The island has been exporting strongly to the mainland over Basslink for much of the period that Tamar Valley has been running (an average of ~180 MW flowing north), and Tasmanian spot prices have been relatively benign (~$67/MWh) – certainly not high enough for continuous dispatch of gas-fired generation to be economic.
This looks much more like management of a gas contract issue – perhaps Hydro Tasmania has a take-or-pay gas purchase contract requiring a minimum quantity of gas to be burned in a relatively short time.
The point I think Paul is making is not necessarily what is happening with Tamar Valley GPG now but what will happen in the future if the NEM and Tassie has insufficient dispatchable electricity. If Allan is right then not only do consumers pay for GPG sitting idle for most of the time but they also pay for gas supply contracts that aren’t needed ie consumers are paying “double insurance” to ensure sufficient dispatchable electricity. There is also the issue of the gas network needed to supply the gas to the GPG ie gas pipelines need to remain viable to remain operational.