UPDATED AT 7:11PM
It has become clear tens of thousands of households had their power cut on Monday night because there wasn’t enough electricity generated.
While the wind wasn't blowing, lake levels were high enough and coal was available. But there wasn’t enough generation.
Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods asked the country’s generators for an explanation.
By 2pm on Tuesday, she concluded constraints were “commercial” rather than physical.
Woods lay some blame on Genesis for not turning on the third of its three coal-powered Rankines at Huntly, ahead of electricity demand reaching a record high on Monday night.
She also said Transpower, which owns and operates the country’s electricity grid, asked some participants to cut back their electricity offerings by more than was necessary.
Genesis defends its position
Genesis CEO Marc England refused to be treated as a scapegoat and told interest.co.nz Woods' comments were "misguided" for "many reaons".
He said market conditions arose as a consequence of a number of plant and market-related issues and can't be attributed to a single cause or company.
What's more, Rankines physically can't be turned on quickly.
Genesis explained in a statement that by the time it became clear its third Rankine was necessary, it was too late to fire it up.
It said gale force winds pushed weeds into the intake of its hydro power station at Tokaanu, ultimately causing it to trip and lose about 115 megawatts of generation.
Around the same time, a “sudden” decline in wind affected central North Island wind generation, including at the Waipipi wind farm.
Wind generation fell from about 500MW at 5pm to 280MW by 9pm.
Genesis said the third Rankine was last operational on July 9. It was brought back in response to low hydrology and supply-side constraints in the gas market earlier in the year. These conditions have since eased.
“It was not intended that this unit would be continuously available to the market. This has been well communicated,” Genesis said.
“Further, it is important to note that Rankine units are not typically used to cover short term spikes in demand and have a 6 to 10-hour lead time from a cold start to full load.”
Genesis defended its decision to not fire up the Rankine after Transpower issued a Customer Advice Notice at 6:42am on Monday, saying it wasn’t directly asked to increase generation until being on the “cusp” of the evening peak.
Transpower’s Customer Advice Notice said: “If system conditions worsen, it could result in a WRN [Warning Notice] or GEN [Grid Emergency Report] being issued due to insufficient offers being available to cover for the largest contingency or meet demand and maintain frequency keeping reserve.”
Genesis said that at that point on Monday morning it thought it had adequate generation capacity.
Transpower then issued its first Warning Notice at 1:02pm on Monday, saying there was a “risk of insufficient generation”.
By 5:10pm it issued its first Grid Emergency Report, saying we were in a “New Zealand wide emergency” and there was “insufficient generation offers to meet demand”.
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Contact gas-fired plant couldn’t be fired up quickly
Another generator, Contact, confirmed all its available generation was online on Monday night.
However, it said its gas-fired Taranaki Combined Cycle (TCC) wasn't being used, because it couldn't effectively be switched on quickly to meet peak demand.
"It requires 72 hours to be recalled into use and begin generating," Contact said.
"TCC has been in use as recently as late July, but based on demand forecasts we switched it off on 30 July in order to prioritise renewable generation and use the water down south to generate at Clyde and Roxburgh to minimise water spill.
"We’ve always had a decision to make in 2022 around whether to go ahead with a major, necessary $80m refurbishment at TCC in 2023 in order to keep it operating."
Planned outages couldn’t be reversed
Meridian said its available generation was offered to the market. However, it had some planned outages, which Transpower knew about.
"We were able to delay and then cancel a planned outage at our West Wind farm and make additional generation available," it said.
"The other outages we had in place, which in some cases are scheduled to continue for months, could not be cancelled in the time available."
Mercury said its hydro and geothermal plants were fully in use.
Although one unit out of the five at its Rotokawa geothermal plant had been out of service since May for planned upgrade work.
Capacity is there
This Transpower graph shows how at 4:51pm on Tuesday, generation from different electricity sources wasn’t at capacity.
What the graph doesn’t show is how much generation capacity is actually available. Some capacity may not be available due to maintenance for example.
Woods, who had meetings with Transpower and the Electricity Authority on Tuesday morning, noted the HDVC cable that links the South and North Islands was also only operating at 50% capacity on Monday night.
She directed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to pull together information from the different parties involved and investigate.
151 Comments
Can you explain what particular government action caused these issues?
If you're thinking of the gas exploration ban, which particular gas fields do you think would have been explored and up and running in the few short years since, and would now be securing our supply?
Three government level actions
1. Lack of Planning
2. Lack of Investment in Infrastructure
3. Inadequate Governance and oversight of the Electricity market
Where the generators were at fault is simpler.
1. Planning based on minimal financial risk, rather than ensuring maximum network integrity.
Re the gas, it hasn't shut any fields, but it has impacted planning as all sectors look to transition away from gas. So inevitably some generation will start to come offline sooner that would have otherwise happened.
Regarding those three actions, presumably we can agree that the blame for these is shared by a number of recent governments rather than just the current lot?
There does seem to be a fair amount of (admittedly belated) planning happening regarding the national battery project and there is a lot of investment happening, mostly private as would be expected given our current market structure. Meridian, Contact, Mercury all looking to massively expand generation and Transpower improving lines to get Manapouri power further north.
What additional governance and oversight is required? I'm aware of the investigations into Meridian and Contact spilling water allegedly to raise spot prices, do you have other concerns?
Regarding those three actions, presumably we can agree that the blame for these is shared by a number of recent governments rather than just the current lot?
Oh, absolutely. They are all hopeless.
What additional governance and oversight is required? I'm aware of the investigations into Meridian and Contact spilling water allegedly to raise spot prices, do you have other concerns?
I have lots of concerns re electricity.
We still own 51% of each of the generators, so it should be relatively easy to coordinate and standardise.
- The way pricing is managed at a retail level
- Network resilience and redundancy
- The ability to link other Govt Policy to Electricity (e.g. More people means more electrical demand (and hospitals, and schools, and...), incentivising EVs without any thought as to how they will be charged, removing future gas exploration and the impacts it has on supply, etc...)
As a shareholder in a few of the generators I'm a little conflicted - this seems to be one of very few occasions where people are calling for more government involvement in a market. There could certainly be changes to the market which lead to lower retail prices given the large delta between what e.g. Meridian can generate hydro for vs what they can sell it for with the current system.
I'd be a little cautious about large changes as the gentailers share price would be savaged, and more generally we really should be encouraging investment in businesses rather than properties so this would be an own goal in some ways.
I do agree more investment via Transpower to get electricity from the deep South to the North Island would be very worthwhile, and considering electricity alongside immigration policy and encouraging EVs makes sense. As suggested elsewhere in these comments, incentives to install insulation and double glazing would make a lot of sense and should be very obvious targets (saving money, saving electricity, improving comfort)
Having sold off half the assets to private enterprise, and spending it frivolously on Bike Trails and PR meetings for hemp-derived underwear, as a nation we should now borrow billions and buy them back.?
Neo-Liberal economics is what destroyed this nation's low electricity prices. Once we all (Us the taxpayers) owned the power assets, and it was presided over by real people, not the faux woke, culture cancelling urban liberal socialist mob currently presided over by the "Do nothing, divide and rule", Ardern club.
David Lange was right when he cut Roger Douglas off at the knees after the Fay Richwaite lot had absconded with all the money ... the pity is that no one could rein in Don Brash and his successors ... which eventually by dint of political ignorance resulted in the Clarke led lot that really didn't have a clue economics wise ... though they excelled in assuring us they did. Now you want the generation assets back.?
I suggest you sit on the side of the sandpit and cry baby with Jacinda and her lot ... and hope teacher, someone, anybody will come along and take the generators of the big bully boys and hand them to you.
But wait, Nania is about to steal the last of any "taxpayer" owned assets, (actually ratepayer assets). Technically not theft, but she assures us she knows better how to manage the three water's issues we all face due to impossible standards set by, yep you guessed it Nania and her clubmates. She is going to give you about $1 each, for the billions of dollars of water assets every council in NZ has built up in the last 150 years. She is then going to, with a stroke of a pen sign over 50% of the governance of those assets to 16% of the population. She will then borrow billions and squander those billions on feasibility studies and planning committee meetings.
And yes ... do nothing, divide and rule.
In answer to the proposition that governance is to blame hell yes, it's to blame ... all voters have to shoulder the blame. Judith Collin's currently is saying we need to demand the debate ... nice catchy phrase. That phrase should in essence backfire on her ... we should not only demand the debate we should also insist on hearing the truth. Voters should also expect economic competence from their governments. We the electorate have only ourselves to blame for the woeful predicament we find ourselves in. History will record that we did not burn our cheap high-quality bright coal, for the last 30-40 years preparing renewable power generation assets all the while. If we had, we could easily have met our climate change responsibilities and our energy generation needs.
We the electorate have to get ourselves to believe that all politicians are essentially dishonest only to the degree that sees them in power ... all voters need to develop the ability to resist the temptation of the dishonest political street vendors that sell the sweetest ice cream and vote responsibly. Governance Both social and economic, in a democracy are you and I.
We the woefully ill-informed and deliberately kept that way electorate.
The government should have a lot of the blame for the gas shortage (which caused the electricity shortage) correctly placed on it. In early 2020, there was a drilling rig here that was going to fix Pohakura wells, drill infill wells at Maui and drill at a couple of other fields. The rig could not get an exemption to drill as critical work during the lockdown so it left. News articles from the time haven't gone down the memory hole yet.
Now 18 months later, the government claiming its hands are clean, it didn't cause the gas shortage, and relying on commentators with the attention span of goldfish not to do any research. And reporters are even more complicit in the coverup.
Last spike was a similar reason. HDVC was down, and Huntly "Couldn't" be started.
In a coordinated market Huntly should be up and running whenever the HDVC is not at 100% capability, to act as a reserve should anything go wrong. Unfortunately that is not profitable for Genesis, as if not needed they lose money.
That's why generators who own expensive peaking or storage capacity need to be paid for it, otherwise they won't build it. This is what happened in South Australia when all the (coal/gas) base load capacity was displaced by cheaper but unreliable wind and solar power. Blackouts and system instability ensued. Victoria too. Huntly and TCC are not peaking plants however (more expensive, old and inefficient dirty base load which is slow to kick in). I think Otahuhu B was more efficient for peaking but it was removed (despite being relatively new) when Genesis did the co-gen E3P at Huntly and closed the 4th old Huntly turbine.
I do have some expertise in radiation, although not particular to Nuclear Power. In general, our fear and regulations of radiation are way out or proportion to the actual risks they pose. Similar to how we fear shark attacks (scary, we've all seen Jaws etc) but don't fear drowning.
As above, the other issues can be reduced or eliminated with more modern designs like fast breeder reactors (which can use existing waste stockpiles as fuel) or thorium.
The question is:
Who would build and run our nuclear power stations? The french? Chinese?!
Also, how long would it take to get them online?
Where is the fuel coming from?
Where would we put them that's free from earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions?
Might be better to let Aus build them and have a cable from there to here...?
I personally think the bigger issue is the record demand.
Sure it was a good cold snap but if we keep growing our population we're going to eventually outgrow the ability of renewable resources to supply adequate electricity for events like this. Again, another issue that population pressure is negatively affecting, although I doubt anyone in positions of power is going to put two and two together and think about this. Best to ignore the contribution, just like housing, water infrastructure, healthcare, education, emissions etc.
I'm sure this probably will improve by the time we hit 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 20 million
Hydro and geothermal are both classed as 'renewable' to, and neither of them are as unreliable as wind or solar, by a long shot. Especially geothermal.
Solar although it can be intermittent during the day, also has well-known periods of 0 generation, so it can be planned around.
Hydro is renewable and reliable. In fact you can even use pumped Hydro to store other forms of electricity which is exactly what they are planning to do.
So given the choice between burning coal as our main electricity source or having the very odd blackout you would choose coal. Entitled much?
The last major dam built in New Zealand was one of Muldoon's "Think Big" projects and commissioned in 1992. Given the national purse strings have been tightly closed for 30 years I would put the risk of a new hydro project at close to zero.
The Resource Management Act was passed in 1991 and no major hydro project has been approved since.
What is utterly ridiculous, is that this late in the piece we are still assuming 'First World' is somehow omnipotent.
As you might gather from my pen-name, I've been pointing out this was coming, for some time. We will get bogged down in finger-pointing, rather than face the real problem - which is the Limits to Growth, our place upon the trajectory thereof.
Here's the Bible - Jenee (indeed everyone) should read it all; particularly the Conclusion:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/chapterhtml/2018/9781788015530-00001?is…
"I've been pointing out this was coming": no kidding ;)
However I am sure we have the ability to generate a lot more renewable electricity in this country, but I'm not sure our free market model encourages it. Also we could use a lot less per person too through double glazing etc. There are of course limits to growth but I don't think we have hit them, just the limits of our own stupidity and selfishness.
This.
It’s not complicated to produce more reliable power. For starters some solar panels and batteries would go a long way. The problem is the Bradford reforms act as a disincentive to investing in abundant power. What’s true is if we want to close Huntley and move industrial heat to electricity we need to actually do something.
And what a time for the building industry to be fighting a more stringent insulation standard.
Partially yes, as in other areas the current government is somewhat naive with regards to this industry. It's pretty simple that it's in the interests of generators (note not Transpower who simply run the grid) in the current market model to keep the amount of generation down so that electricity spot prices are higher - it just makes them more money so they're clearly incentivised to do so.
Hard to argue whether there's any cartel like behaviour but given last nights debacle - certainly there are enough generators engaged in this behaviour to drop generation (note not transmission capacity) far below where it could/should have been.
The market makers at the generators are playing games with this stuff (like turning off generation because of weeds lol) and peoples lives are being risked (ask someone on a ventilator how easy it is to breathe without one... which needs power...).
Normally they do this behind the scenes and only those in the game notice what's going on - but a sudden spike in demand like last night caught them out. Turn off this and that, generation drops, spot price rises... $$$. Unfortunately you can't turn on stuff fast enough if you bet the wrong way.
The Minister ought to be kicking off an immediate inquiry followed by heavy regulation and massive fines to force the generators to keep generation at certain levels (seasonally adjusted ofc) - but I very much doubt that there's the insight to the problem or guts to do what's necessary to solve.
No. They're doing what they were charged with doing. Sack Max Bradford (and every other short-term neoliberal mantra-bleater.
Oops, there's nobody left.
What they failed to address, was that this was a record demand - directly related to record population (albeit advertised-to that they deserve stuff and have 'rights' - an invalid arrogance sans population curtailment within a bounded system. And you ain't seen nuthin' yet. This is just a peek
A month or three ago Woods was watching the lake levels and prices. In the last week or so the lake levels SI returned to around about their long term average. She must have stopped watching. All of a sudden not enough generation resulting in a rolling blackout. Maybe she should have been watching the wind. I wonder what else she is watching?
Every few years we have issues with lack of supply, everyone wants to reep the benefitsts of infrastructure but no one wants to fund it.
Probably be worse in future when everyone gets home and plugs their electric car in. An extra 5 or 10kw per vehicle used daily would absolutely crush the market.
You forgot more demand coming onto the grid from:
1) industrial and commercial consumers committing to phase out their coal and gas boilers in the years to come and switch to the national grid
2) domestic consumers running hot showers on electric heaters with no new gas connections being permitted 2025 onwards
There are actually several industries that that idled production capacity already to try to keep electricity capacity available (e.g. Methanex.) This isn't a new issue, these brown-out situations will become more common without immediate investment and emergency approval of new generation projects.
Just luckily we kept the coal fired units at Huntley going long after they where due to be phased out.
"Probably be worse in future when everyone gets home and plugs their electric car in" Not if its managed properly, cheap rates at night for example, I believe all cars can automatically charge at certain hours. This was a peak demand issue, I doubt many people needed to charge their car then.
SO typical of this Government. Great feel-good announcements about electric cars, and they can't even guarantee reliable supply for existing demand. All talk and no action - good for the UN.
Thankfully, at least, we have no Greens in Government, as they are one of the few things potentially more dangerous than climate change itself.
But this Government will still win the next elections, unless National wakes up, starts doing real opposition, and it stops being the mouthpiece of housing specuvestors.
Silly comment - personal bias bulging from every letter.
Both Left and Right (and the insipid Greens who are currently Pink) are on the wrong track; both advocate Growth. Aided and abetted by a sycophantic MSM, which doesn't make it easier to have the needed conversation.
We have to negotiate a de-growth (rather than howling in injured anguish) and make what we have more resilient. Mike Jack (Otago Uni/energy studies) was on Nat Radio earlier, making some sense.
"Thankfully, at least, we have no Greens in Government"
Unfortunately there is a distinct possibility of them being full coalition partners with Labour after the next general election. Inclined to vote for the Greens so if in coalition with the govt it'll show how you can really screw up a country big time. If people have come to the realisation that Labour are really not much cop with the Greens it'll be a lot worse.
We also have a sleeper or plant from the Maori party in the Greens so that'll just add to stuffing up the country.
Nowhere have I seen anyone suggest that the solution is to reduce demand. The majority of the demand yesterday will have been for heating - heatpumps, bar heaters, fan heaters etc.
Retrofit existing housing stock to much higher insulation standards and aim for passive solar heating with the view that demand for input (the national grid) is lessened and more even.
The comment from the PM that"Even if it really was a peak on an extremely cold night, it is still not good enough that we weren't able to warm our homes.” just shows how out of touch with external inputs she really is.
you are talking about a government that insisted on the private sector insulating their homes - but gave itself two extra years -- yes teh worst of teh housing stock in this country is Kainga Ora's -- much of it still not insulated and nowhere near meeting the healthy homes standards
Great comment. If every house in the country was double glazed and fully insulated we wouldn't have had the issue. Other countries seem to be able to achieve that... We will probably spend more building new power plants than it would cost to retrofit the entire housing stock (not that I am suggesting the government should stump up for either).
Jevon's paradox would likely apply to a degree. I strongly support the idea of building for passive sun. House orientation and design plays a big part in this and some designs are appalling.
My own home is based around this principle and in winter on Sunny days it holds 20-25C well into the night off solar heat alone (we don't have to heat at all on these days despite the air temp being subzero in the evenings).
Other low hanging fruit is sealing air gaps and teaching people how to properly use curtains to actually retain heat.
Curtains are poor insulation even at recommended fullness.
On the other hand, I think they prevent people near the window radiating to the night sky, so comfort improves.
The logic is if we can feel heat from the sun through window we can probably radiate that energy to a colder body like the night sky.
A triple backed floor length curtain vastly outperforms the equivalent glazing. Virtually all of the insulation is from the trapped air pockets so layered curtains and a full window seal is required if you want the best performance. Most people's curtains still permit open air space to the window which allows convection loops to form as cold air rushes downwards from the glass. It's the air pocket that is needed.
Our current obsession with air temperature is a trap, our grand parents used radiant heat with lower air temperatures, an open fire, and they were far more comfortable.
The elderly with poor circulation now end up with cold toes and nose in an air heated room.
Poor things.
That is incorrect. While a triple-backed floor-length curtain vastly outperforms the equivalent glazing, an insulated wall also outperforms triple back floor-length curtains so it is a false comparison.
If you have high-performance windows, then the curtains are only needed at certain limited times as a privacy screen and should deliberately be thermally conductivity to allow the warmth of the room to keep the internal face of the window at the same temperature so condensation will not occur.
When you insulate the window from the warmth of the room, then the window stays colder and the air between the window and curtain cools faster and drops usually hitting dew point as it falls.
With the condensation, this is in effect a dehumidifier and removes moisture from the air (to be soaked up by the curtains, but recreates a convection pull down the face of the window, so a proper convection loop is not needed, although one almost always exists anyway as the curtains do not provide an airtight seal.
No, it doesn't get soaked up by the curtains. Think it out; it sits on the glazing surface, then drips down. Channel at the bottom, a few 2-3mm holes out through the channel....... no need for a dehumidifier.
But society is set up to sell more and more dehumidifiers......
Since I help remediate these types of problems, I see what happens on multiple houses. Most of the time the condensation drips down the windowpane and touches and soaks into the curtains draped at the bottom.
The fact there is a need for drainage holes highlights a systems failure.
And I never mentioned buying a dehumidifier, the vapour condensing on the window is drawing moisture from the air and is thus a dehumidifier by design.
Since moving into a modern home, the difference between something built in 1997 and 2015 is night and day. For starters the home is better insulated and with double glazing it maintains a higher differential temperature between inside and out by about 7 degrees (results from a weather station) WITHOUT any heating. Condensation on windows suddenly doesn't exist, not a drop of water because the glass doesn't get cold enough anymore. Small things that nobody thinks about like LED lighting no longer needs holes right through the ceiling that were needed to ventilate 75W incandescent light bulbs that all the heat in the room escaped through or the cold air dropped through.
If you are getting condensation on the interior of your windows, your losing more energy than you need to. The holes are to counteract the poor thermal efficiency of the window. And any hole to the outside will pull the cold air in and out through it when pressure differentials are created.
If they are by design you may be able to point to the standard or the manufacturers specification, I’m not aware of it.
I’m a bit sensitive to this issues as we are carrying out repairs to a polished floors adjacent full height windows.
A Bay window and the water damage lines up with the old curtain line mostly, but some of the specified holes blew water on the floor in certain winds…
Mutter..mutter.. mutter..
)
You will also find that if there is any water in the holes, either getting there by condensation or driving rain from the outside, then when you turn on any extraction fan in the house, this will suck in air/water into the house through these holes to replace the air lost by extraction.
Yes, the problem is, moving in the most economic direction from where you are now to where you want/need to be, given what are your immediate needs.
ie if you are cold now, it's easier to light the fire, or turn up the heater, rather than the cost and time of replacing the existing windows with triple glazing.
Enerlytica analyst John Kidd estimates Genesis has been burning about 250,000 tonnes of coal at Huntly each month since it took a third, coal-fired turbine out of storage in February. It is mainly subbituminous coal imported from Indonesia. Genesis chief executive Marc England says the calculation is probably in the right ballpark.
That coal typically creates two tonnes of carbon-dioxide for every tonne burnt. So that would be 500,000 tonnes of emissions a month. Equivalent to approx. 1 million 3.2l diesel Ford Ranger utes travelling 2000km a month. Or 1.8 million Toyota Corolla 2.0l petrol hatchbacks doing the same.
Not often I agree with you oldbloke, but you are right on the money! The real point is we USED to own it ALL! Should never have been privatised as electricity is a strategic asset. Bradford and Shipley should be flogged for this! The state still owns the majority of generation and therefore make bigger dividends when the price is higher. Part of the reason nothing changes.
Electricity Authority should be closed down immediately! Only set up by Clarke to run the Whirinaki diesel station which was never used. A quango that should have gone years ago! Now used as a back door tax grabber.
SIGH SIGH -- green environmental courts still blocking new hydro and geothermal options -- government still bans our own clean coal but imports dirty coal from abroad - and we want all cars to be EV's -- not much talk about how we reduce demand - perhaps insulate Kainga Ora's properties to the same standard as teh private sector - double glazing as a standard in teh building code - etc - half baked energy policies made on the steps of the beehive bannign future oil and gas - but little support for wind wave hydro and geothermal
Most generation capacity pre-dates the RMA. Per person Kiwis use less electricity than we used to and are now back at the level people used in 1995. Unfortunately New Zealand's population has grown a lot since 1995 so the overall level of demand has increased faster than we have made efficiencies:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=NZ
This is what Transpower said."So we put out a forecast in the morning in terms of what the evening peak would be. That allows generators to work out what offers to put in of their generation to meet that peak."We then issued the warning notice late afternoon to indicate that it was getting extremely tight in terms of the quantity of generation to meet demand and then just before 6pm last night there was insufficient generation to meet demand so we issued what was called a grid emergency." So the response from Genesis should be to crank up the 3rd generator so they were ready for the predicted evening peak. For them a nice earn from what would have been a high spot price. But they didn't for some reason. Has the recent publicity about the amount of coal being burned at Huntly caused their main shareholder to tell them via back channels to reduce the coal burn?
"Has the recent publicity about the amount of coal being burned at Huntly caused their main shareholder to tell them via back channels to reduce the coal burn?"
With 51% ownership of Genesis, the govt must have some sway via the govt appointed directors so I think this is highly likely.
Given the privatisation and resultant profit seeking of the electricity sector they are incentivised to not over build capacity as the ROI is too low. It's much more profitable to run close to the limit and increase prices when demand gets close to the available supply.
For short term peaks such as these there will be some taking a close look at grid scale battery installations as unlike the fossil fuel plants quoted above they can respond to additional load in milliseconds, much quicker than even hydro. A battery like that would have made a killing last night with prices going above $100,000 per MWh
It really makes no sense. Whatever their excuses for the North Island supply, the DC Link was only operating at half capacity. The SI lakes have plenty of capacity and the generation capacity is more than enough to utilize all the DC Link capacity. They will just pour though a whole bunch of stored water. Hydro power can be bought up to full capacity very quickly, seconds to minutes. Does this mean that the operators of the SI generators were choosing to not supply. Surely there have to be rules that make this impossible. I get the impression that there is a bit of tension over what is going to happen to the SI generators after the smelter closes. (I interpret that crazy green hydrogen proposal in that light.) Are they trying to be smart and flex their muscles and intimidate the government? The whole structure of the industry is crazy and bad enough running under the traditional older energy world. Trying to change it to address the issues that it needs to in the world of global warming will be next to impossible. The Government needs to use the matters raised in the recent industry review as an opportunity to de-fang the Gentailers and stop the wasteful market abuse that we have witnessed. It needs to get back as close to possible to the centralized control that can be run for maximum efficiency and minimum emissions instead of maximizing profits.
Because the system is completely based on spot prices, i.e market driven. There is no cooperation between generators , only competition.
Now we learn there is a gas turbine sitting idle in Taranaki , while we burn coal at Huntly . different generators , making different market driven decisions, the left foot doesn't know what the right foot is doing.
And of course , conservation doesn't get a mention , because the last thing they want is people using less power , until an emergency forces them too.
SI at full demand capacity leaving only part DC link surplus available is the only other explanation that makes sense. If so I had not appreciate just how little margin we have in our system. Electric cars make little sense until after the smelter has stopped, provided that Meridian and others don't do something stupid to use up the power. Where are we going to get the energy to charge them, burn more coal at Huntly?
Re NI battery is it possible to create a storage lake somewhere on the central plateau and pump up to it. The surplus energy still needs to come from somewhere.
Someone suggested manipulating the level of Lake Taupo, I nearly died laughing…
Other countries back their wind with battery but we appear to know better and have skipped the batteries.
As you say, the demand in the South Island must have been creeping up or generators are down for maintenance.
The new demand may be heat pumps running flat out on a freezing night for example, like a resistance heater as someone mentioned.
This is good news, as we know that nothing ever gets done, and then only poorly until it turns into a crisis.
The point to take from all this is do not rely on the Govt. to look after you, in spite of them implementing policies that make us more dependent on them. They can't look after themselves, let alone the people they are meant to represent.
Build more energy-efficient, and self-sustainable properties, etc. so you don't need someone else to look after you for this type of basic need.
Just how will NZ function at net zero carbon emissions?
Last night, the coldest night this year, saw evening power cuts in parts of the country as demand exceeded the generating capacity that was operating at the time (there is supposedly adequate generation capacity, just some wasn't being used). To me that indicates a lack of resilience in the electricity generation and distribution system.
I recognise we are in a climate crisis - change is urgently needed.
What I'm most concerned about is ensuring we have resilience as we transition to low/net-zero carbon emissions. That is, the capacity to keep our homes heated and the lights on. Without built in resilience, our democracy, our social cohesion, our economy will be threatened.
In the last 20 or so years we have increased reliance on electricity as the primary energy source. And when the electricity supply is disrupted, no heat, no light, can't cook. Not to mention disruption to commercial activities like eftpos and inventory management systems, and infrastructure elements like traffic lights.
My perception is that the core of our electricity generation and distribution was established in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. Then followed the Rogernomics/Ruth Richardson experiment of the 80s and 90s of not only little investment in increased generating capacity but also serious run down of the generating/distribution infrastructure though lack of investment in maintenance. The "free market economy" has not proved effective in this area. And in the meantime the population has almost doubled and electricity consumption increased by a factor of - I don't know. Last night was the highest peak demand recorded in NZ.
What can be done?
No point moaning about the current government, this situation is 30+ years in the making.
My thoughts:
First, de-politicise the transition to a net-zero carbon emissions objective. That transition will need some painful change to be carried by all NZ.
Second, divert a portion of the Covid recovery driven infrastructure funding away from urban roads and into expanding alternative energy production infrastructure (increased electricity generation and perhaps hydrogen).
Third, remove the profit and dividend requirements on SOE energy entities. Thereby reinforcing the status of energy as one of the basic foundations for our nation to function (along with health and education). Perhaps even nationalise the electricity sector again.
Fourth, incentivise investment in home energy generation, along the lines of insulation or the electric vehicle incentives. For example, a 50% subsidy for installation of solar generation on the roofs of homes. Coupled with an attractive price for feeding electricity back into the grid.
Those are just some of my thoughts. To transition to net-zero emissions we need to act as the team of 5 million. The Covid response has demonstrated that we can do it. That same cross-party leadership now needs to step up and apply themselves to this urgent need. Please get on with it.
Genesis said gale force winds pushed weeds into the intake of its hydro power station at Tokaanu.
Does that happen often? Peak wind gust in Taupo yesterday 57kph SW. On 3/8 it was 52kph on 4/8 it was 50kph on 7/8 it was 50kph all SW direction. Did it happen on any of those days? If it did then that would make it semi predictable and if you had a warning from Transpower the same day they they were predicting record peak demand for that evening. You would probably fire up your coal generator just in case.
2 minutes to fix the problem. Was this system broken as well.
https://www.duperon.com/wp-content/uploads/Genesis-Energy-Case-Study-SC…
This wasn’t a renewables problem. There was plenty of capacity. The problem was the gas and coal generation couldn’t respond (or didn’t want to) and the hydro down south wasn’t fully used. As people have pointed out it seems like a failure to supply rather than a lack of supply. And yes some power sources can’t start quickly but they still made a decision to withhold supply to increase the price.
something was up , it doesn't make sense. while the spot price system isn't perfect , the price yesterday should have had the S.I hydro producers pushing as much electricity as they could north . What stopped them ? Is this what Woods meant by her rather cryptic comment that " Transpower, which operates the national grid, had taken about twice as much power out of the system as was actually needed." By 'taking out ", does she actually mean , did not accept or request ?. where would the energy taken out of the system go too???
Having read this , https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/126029919/power-cuts-genesis-boss-says…, it appears that Transpower asked generators to restrict generation , to safeguard the grid. This may be what she mean't by taking the power out.
so it seems it was more of a transmission issue , rather than a generation issue.
It is unbelievable that there was no warning to the general public about the possibility of power outages from a lack of generation. Heads should roll for this.
The government needs to ensure that it has far better emergency plans for dealing with the situation where electricity consumption exceeds generation capacity.
The way that arbitrary power outages were imposed on the public, without warning, must never happen again.
At a minimum the public should be given a warning prior to the outages so that they can reduce electricity consumption & minimise any impact.
Subsidies for solar batteries, like they do in Australia would also help the country reduce its peak load. If the government was serious about climate change it would have offered subsidies on solar systems during this term of government.
During the power outage we were able to keep essential services going with a solar battery. This avoided the problem of being without power.
No-one has spotted the bleedingly obvious: two almost instantaneous generation outages caused a cascade effect through the system.
1 Tokaanu tripped out (the weeds may be the cause but the trip was the real issue) so 115Mw vanishes. That's what 'trip' means-instant big red switch flicked.
2 Wind dropped. 500Mw down to 280Mw, so 220Mw vanishes, just a bit more slowly.
Some context: NZ total demand in mid winter is north of 6000Mw, so having 335Mw go west in a matter of seconds to minutes means slightly over 5%.
The usual response to instantaneous outages is having spinning, synchronised reserve generation available: gas peakers, hydro, geothermal (or any steam whether it be coal, wood chips, nuclear or oil fired). The first three were unavailable, and the coal unit needs a good half day to raise steam, reach safe operating temperatures, spin up, synchronise, and start contributing. Nothing instant....
If anything, it emphasizes the folly on relying on the non-dispatchables - wind and solar - in the depths of winter.
And if we want spinning, synchronised, reliable reserve on tap, get prepared to pay for it.......and swallow the dead rats of imported thermal coal, imported gas and new hydro (pumped or dammed, whatever). Or nuclear, the power which must not be named....
Waymad,
this is the brave new world of wind and solar, minutes is the ramp up time and batteries are the name of the game.
No one want a fossil fuel generator spinning, they are far too inefficient at no load and consider the pollution.
Hydro maybe kept spinning but shouldn’t that be the base load?
Easy on the grid batteries (unless you mean pumped hydro). The Tesla battery farm in Oz had a battery pack ignite just recently: four days to put it out, battery farm immediately offlined. Point is that large-scale grid batteries are very new technology, and it's early days in figuring out the externalities like recycling, safety etc. Precautionary principle seems to have been overlooked.....
Here's the link, from the Grauniad: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/02/tesla-big-batter…
I notice Barbara Chapman is on the board of genesis and has replaced Jenny Shipley.She also on the board of the NZME(Herald and Hosking), Fletchers, The New Zealand Innitiative and previously the ASB).
Would be interesting if a journalist found some staff who had been forewarned of this.
One does have to wonder if this has been done as a stunt to show up labour and soften us up for higher prices....how will we be able to complain..at least we have power right?!
Is this where lobbying has got to in NZ? It looks suspect!
The overwhelming thing that comes across in the comments is people do not understand how things work, both on transmission and generation side. Most power stations can't start generating at the flick of a switch and the consents are a significant impediment to operational variability. For the grid, there is massive balancing needed in terms of MW, voltage and phase angle. All 3 are related and they have to be kept within very narrow limits. . The DC was limited running north because of the voltage issues. T
he NZ grid is not really capable of carrying the loads we expect of it at peak times, especially in the North Island Wellington to Whakamaru and most of South Island. To fix it needs money and the EA has turned down Transpower getting more money. New generation is expensive to build and operate - needs about $150/MW hour to be viable and no-one wants to commit with Onslow hanging there - just like it was Tiwai beforehand.
Great comment. Generation and demand have to balance at all times, and it does not take much to cause cascade effects. The Tokaanu trip and Gaia stopping windifying were in this case enough to upset that delicate balance, given the unavailability of spinning synchronised reserve.
Sure, we can have that reserve. But it's gonna cost, whether in RMA consents, green dead-rat-ingestion, yet mo' overseas munny and ownership, flooded landscapes, a scattering of small nuclear power packs, or more shiploads of Indonesian coal.
Pick yer poison....
to me , it points to storage at the point of use , rather than storage at the bottom of the South Island. An example would be the valley behind Caable Bay , Where the HVDC line comes ashore, near Wellington . a steep sided valley , with a small river to replenish, It would be perfect for pumped storage, at a point that has the electrical infrastructure.
Another possible storage method (been explored for dairy sheds ) is the inter seasonal storage of heat / cold, in underground insulated water tanks. this stores the waste heat / cold from heat pumps, then uses it to provide the opposite in the following season. I.e heat stored in summer is used to heat the heat pump in winter, raising its efficiency.
Without really knowing the area, I suspect Cable Bay would only be able to perform part of the job proposed for Onslow. Not only could Onslow be used for short term balancing allowing more intermittent generation, it also could have enough storage to help see us through a dry year when other hydro generation is down - like we have seen over the last year which was a major culprit for burning mountains of coal.
Just like the "water crisis" where the govt will take charge. This crisis and govt rhetoric is designed for the govt to take control of the power supply and distribution. Fully nationalised and will be shared with iwi. Throw in legacy media becoming an extension of govt and boom. Last piece is central bank digital currency and no banks within 18 months. Welcome to our new nz..
In a long set of comments by people that don't know what they are talking about, but are pushing their barrow, yours is probably the most inane. Why would power cuts, caused by inept government decisions and fronted by a Minister out of her depth, be of benefit to the generators? They incur the wrath for something not of their making.
Generators don't run unless Transpower dispatches them. And Transpower knows how long it takes for each dispatched unit to come on-line. They get fined if the don't meet their dispatch target, though as usual, wind gets a free pass. Now tell me which units were dispatched and didn't generate
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