Yesterday, the power generation companies of New Zealand launched a large public power-saving campaign in an effort to drive down demand on our national grid. There have been power-conservation campaigns over the last few years in 2001, 2003 and 2006, each time the rains came and saved the day before any issues were encountered. The difference this time is that the rains which have normally come mid-May[PDF] to save the day, haven’t yet arrived and New Zealand’s power demand has risen quite a bit over the years.
As of 12 June, the inflows into the hydro-lakes is less than in 1992, the peak demand and the average demand is above that of 1992 and the hydro-storage capacity half the average level but still twice that of the levels in 1992 so things are poised to get worse rather than better short-to-mid term. There was some mild relief over the last day or so with some rainfall into the lakes.
The power companies have set up an power-saving awareness website filled with data on the currently situation, comparisions to 1992 and tips and video on things you can do to save power. The website also has download-able posters that you can use as a desktop wallpaper or print out and stick around the place.
At this point, the situation is not as dire as in 1992, the power companies seem to still be optimistic that they can supply through the winter but without any significant rainfall in the South Island’s hydro-lakes, they’re going to be running a very fine line and if a cold-snap hits the country, the peak demand is poised to be higher than what is available which would mean some cold nights for some parts of the country if they have no power.
Independent energy experts say there is now a one-in-five chance of power blackouts because of the lowest hydro lake storage levels since the 1992 power crisis.
JAMES WEIR – The Dominion Post (29 May ’08)
New Zealand’s largest power generation facility, the Huntly coal-powered station is currently supplies around 17% of the country’s power capacity. Should anything happen to this plant, the national grid would be under stress to take up the slack as the hydro-dams are running at reduced capacity at the moment. The supply companies would need to fire up expensive emergency generation facilities to cope with any significant downtime.
Faults like what happened recently at the Otahuhu Gas-fired plant and its effects make a lot of people anxious about what is going to happen with the system under this kind of load.
The situation is remarkably bad. Just to keep the lights on, New Zealanders are relying on a broken Cook Strait cable, an asbestos-riddled mothballed plant in New Plymouth, and a diesel-guzzling emergency generator at Whirinaki.
National’s energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee (06 June 2008)
There is currently a political debate going on, the current government is basically saying, “its all under control, there is no problem” and the opposition party is screaming “you idiots, look, we’re close to a crisis!”. Nevertheless, there is currently investigation into legislation to allow the hydro-dams to operate their supply lakes below their environmentally-safe levels to keep up with supply.
Running the emergency plant at Whirinaki has caused the spot price on the energy market to skyrocket and the wholesale price is rising too. There is a that is due to be opened later this year. One option may be to get things moving faster and open it a few months earlier than planned.
There are still a lot of options in the pipeline, in 1992, deals were negotiated with some of the biggest electricity users in the country. One company uses 15% of our country’s supply and in 1992, a deal was negotiated to get them to reduce their operation down considerably and a part of a smelter was shut down to keep the usage with limits as well.
I know I’ll be working on saving power over the next few months, there are only a few bulbs left in the house that aren’t energy-saving bulbs, I’ll be replacing those this week. Shorter showers are on the agenda too. One good thing about saving power is that it ends up saving money as well.
