An energy expert says summer will be "nerve wracking" as the state grapples with an "extremely tight" electricity market. Households were told to conserve power yesterday after the break down of coal-fired generators caused a supply crunch in spring. Questions are being raised about why the system couldn't handle the outages when energy demand was well below the summer peaks.
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00:00The light stayed on this time, but the state of the energy network has sparked worry.
00:08I think, again, it will be a nerve-wracking summer in New South Wales.
00:12Fears of a supply shortage yesterday prompted warnings of blackouts.
00:18It was a hot spring day, 39 degrees in Sydney's west, but not as hot as it gets in summer.
00:24We are not yet at the peak demand periods.
00:26The peak demands are well off the summer peaks.
00:30The coal-fired power stations at Vale's Point and Ararring at Lake Macquarie and Bayswater
00:35at Musselbrook had generation units out of action.
00:38Two of the outages were planned, two were unexpected.
00:42Even with ample solar and wind generation, households and businesses were told to conserve
00:47power to ward off a shortfall.
00:50Why is it that the power system can't handle what is pretty moderate conditions?
00:56And I think the answer to that is it's just such an extremely tight market.
01:01A report by the Australian Energy Market Operator in August forecast reliability risks in New
01:06South Wales this coming summer.
01:09We knew this was coming.
01:11Ageing coal-fired power stations are increasingly unreliable.
01:15The state government's been accused of taking too long to approve renewable projects.
01:20We know there's one project that's sitting there right now that could be ticked off before
01:23the end of the year, another large-scale wind project.
01:26The government says it's released new planning guidelines to speed up the approval process,
01:31but that won't help keep the lights on this summer.
01:33A failure of a number of units at a coal generator, certainly one of the bigger ones, at time
01:39of summer peak must have New South Wales government petrified.
01:45A buffer against blackouts that's looking increasingly thin.