Through our Energy Supply Plan the Government is doing everything necessary to maintain energy security.
The Energy Supply Plan outlines the circumstances we face, notably, low rainfall and the ongoing Basslink outage, and the actions we are taking to manage the situation.
Over the past week, moderate rainfall resulted in positive inflows to the North-West catchments, slowing the draw on those storages.
As of today, Hydro’s water levels are at 15.5 per cent, a reduction of 0.6 per cent during the previous week.
We remain in close contact with Basslink and we anticipate that they will provide a further market update shortly.
The Energy Supply Plan continues to be rolled out, and this week we will begin to bring online diesel generation. At this stage:
Hydro Tasmania has also concluded a further commercial arrangement with TEMCO to reduce its energy consumption temporarily. Again, this was a voluntary reduction and does not impact on permanent jobs or the long-term viability of the business.
This brings the total load reduction at this time to 115 MW, made up of:
Bell Bay Aluminium – 40 MW
TEMCO – 65 MW
Norske Skog – 40 MW for one week, which is equivalent to 10 MW over a month
Hydro has advised that due to logistical issues, the return to service of the Trent Unit has been delayed by around two to three weeks. Under the revised schedule it is expected to return to the Tamar Valley Power Station during April.
Tomorrow in Parliament, I will make a Ministerial Statement to provide information on the current circumstances and to outline the next steps the Government will take in addressing the challenges ahead of us.
Hydro and the Government will provide regular updates on the Energy Supply Plan as the situation evolves. Tasmanians can be assured we will do everything necessary to maintain energy security.