By Eric Fryrkberg
Transpower has been fined $150,000 after power was cut off to about 34,000 homes in August 2021.
The power failure happened during extremely cold weather, with inadequate wind generation and a technical failure at the Tokaanu power station.
This was the responsibility of Transpower. As well as running the national grid, it is the so-called system operator, which means it is responsible for the practical day to day running of the electricity system.
In a subsequent hearing before an independent Rulings Panel, brought by the Electricity Authority, Transpower admitted two charges and two others were dropped.
The Rulings Panel then ordered the authority to pay a fine of $150,000 after it admitted failings in respect of demand allocation, communication, and the issuance of a formal announcement disclosing the shortfall in the electricity supply.
Commenting on the Ruling Panel decision, the Electricity Authority said Transpower had conceded the tools it used to calculate and equitably allocate demand reduction during the grid emergency were not fit for purpose.
They were not regularly tested, they were not properly updated and they were operated by inadequately trained staff, the Authority said.
It noted there had been a series of improvements made in the wake of the 2021 incident.
The Rulings Panel also ordered Transpower to pay the Authority’s costs in the amount of $6,207.50.
3 Comments
We're going to see a lot of these self-perpetuating feed-back loops.
Society is that far down the EROEI graph now, that it cannot afford itself. We can't 'pay' enough for power, for ferry crossings, for road surfaces, for health, for education, for all sorts of things - not enough excess energy available to both parry entropy (there's never been more infrastructure, all aging).
Continuing to blame someone is understandable, but misplaced. And we can be accurate as to the chain of events too; Aurora was requested to hold off on maintenance so it could pay a good enough dividend to get the Dunedin Stadium over the line (source of claim: multiple insiders). Thus rotten power poles, thus price hikes. Trace the price-hike....
Transpower are on a hiding to nothing; an aging infrastructure, increased costs (of everything) and an increasing inability of its customers, to pay. We could choose to have enough redundant capacity, to never go near the edge. We don't; not enough generation, storage, hospital beds.
And if you think it's wild west now, wait until real intermittency becomes a fact of life.
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