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Speaker 1: The territory was without power yesterday afternoon, from Catherine to

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Speaker 1: Driver to Nightcliff and Fanny Bay. You could only count

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Speaker 1: on one hand. I reckon the suburbs who actually still

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Speaker 1: had power yesterday afternoon. Businesses were forced to close for

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Speaker 1: the night, Restaurants shut shop, gym's classes were canceled, and

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Speaker 1: it was chaos on the roads with many traffic lights out.

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Speaker 1: Now it is reported that more than forty thousand people

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Speaker 1: lost their power in the outage.

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Speaker 2: So what happened?

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Speaker 1: Well, joining me on the line right now to tell

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Speaker 1: us more is Duncan Griffin from Power and Waters System Control.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Duncan. Now, Duncan, what caused the

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Speaker 1: ardage yesterday?

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Speaker 3: I look at about three fifty three yesterday afternoon. There

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Speaker 3: was a localized gas infrastructure issue at the Channel On

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Speaker 3: power station which resulted in lots of fuel supply to

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Speaker 3: the generators there and those generators coming offline. Those generators

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Speaker 3: coming offline, and we lost about half of our generation

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Speaker 3: and about sixty percent of the customers on the Darwen

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Speaker 3: Catherine system.

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Speaker 1: So how many customers are we talking? Was it forty

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Speaker 1: thousand or is it more?

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Speaker 3: It's the final figures that I got through last night's

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Speaker 3: about forty.

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Speaker 1: Nine thousand, about forty nine thousand people without power. Duncan

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Speaker 1: you said there that it was a gas infrastructure issue.

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Speaker 1: Was it was it an issue with their not being

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Speaker 1: the backup gas or was it an issue with the

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Speaker 1: actual generators not working?

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Speaker 3: No, there was. There was gas available and the generators

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Speaker 3: couldn't work because the infrastructure, the controls that flowed to

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Speaker 3: the generators from the regulated pipeline operator. That's where the

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Speaker 3: issue was. So there's gas available there, it's just we

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Speaker 3: couldn't get the gas through to the Church generation generators.

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Speaker 1: So there was an issue with the gas infrastructure. Is

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Speaker 1: that actually waters infrastructure or somebody else's.

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Speaker 3: The infrastructure itself is owned by APA, so they're the

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Speaker 3: pipeline operator and we were waiting on a report from

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Speaker 3: them on the exact cause of that. What happened was

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Speaker 3: that the Woodell and Pine Creek stations remained online and

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Speaker 3: the protection systems worked as they were designed, which prevented

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Speaker 3: further loss of customers down downstream.

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Speaker 1: From there, it certainly sounds as though it's a fairly

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Speaker 1: big failure to have a situation where the gas isn't

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Speaker 1: able to flow through to those generators.

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Speaker 2: Has this ever happened before?

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Speaker 3: Not this specific event. I mean, we do a lot

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Speaker 3: of scenario training and operations, but this particular event hasn't

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Speaker 3: happened previously, and we were waiting for the outcomes of

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Speaker 3: the report to know exactly what happened there.

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Speaker 1: Duncan, Is there anything to suggest that this could happen again?

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Speaker 3: Look, no systems immune from outages. We try and plan

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Speaker 3: for for all contingencies, but there's there's items where we

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Speaker 3: can lose customers. Look, we're working with peak loads at

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Speaker 3: the moment, which which has its challenges. Is this event

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Speaker 3: likely to occur again? Until of the specific details on

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Speaker 3: what occurred with that gas supply infrastructure or could make

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Speaker 3: a comment on that. Other than that, we'd be looking

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Speaker 3: to make engineering changes to suit.

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Speaker 1: Okay, And so are they engineering changes that power and

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Speaker 1: water would have to be making or that the supply

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Speaker 1: would have to be making.

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Speaker 3: Again, it would depend on the outcomes of the report.

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Speaker 3: It's it's probably in the supplies infrastructure, But I would

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Speaker 3: like to see.

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Speaker 2: What comes back Duncan. What happens now?

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Speaker 1: As you said, obviously a report needs to be put

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Speaker 1: together to determine exactly what has gone wrong? But why

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Speaker 1: wasn't there a backup system in place to stop everybody

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Speaker 1: losing their power?

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Speaker 3: So we cater for for continguoency events of a certain size,

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Speaker 3: and we run reserves to cater for that. But to

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Speaker 3: lose half the generation supply from from Channel Island is

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Speaker 3: not something that we can cost effectively meet. So we

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Speaker 3: work on plans on restoring power as quickly as possible equations,

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Speaker 3: and like I said, we trained for that, and in

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Speaker 3: this instance, you know, we had many of those customers

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Speaker 3: back up after two hours, and everyone back up after.

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Speaker 2: Four hours, oh one hundred percent.

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Speaker 1: Power and Water did a phenomenal job in terms of

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Speaker 1: getting the power back on, And I tell you what,

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Speaker 1: it would have been a difficult afternoon for you and

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Speaker 1: your staff. I suppose what I'm getting to though, is,

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Speaker 1: you know is until we know what the what exactly

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Speaker 1: the issue was that caused the outage, I know there

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Speaker 1: will be a lot of people listening this morning who

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Speaker 1: are concerned that it could happen again.

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Speaker 3: Not not for this particular item. There are other events

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Speaker 3: that occur on the system, and as I said, we

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Speaker 3: plan for those contingencies. There's weather events and there can

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Speaker 3: be issues with high loads and making sure that we

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Speaker 3: have the generation available. Again, we deal with each of

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Speaker 3: those and every situation is different. I guess it's it's

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Speaker 3: it's difficult to story at this stage exactly, but you.

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Speaker 1: Are confident that whatever caused the issue yesterday, it can

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Speaker 1: be rectified.

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Speaker 3: Yes, the issue yesterday was rectified and brought back up online.

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Speaker 3: And thanks to the guys that A p A for

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Speaker 3: progressing that and Tchen in particular for their for their

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Speaker 3: efforts in getting steps back up and running.

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Speaker 1: Did that issue with the with the gas supply infrastructure

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Speaker 1: cause any any long term damage to to the to

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Speaker 1: the generators.

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Speaker 3: That's unclear at the stage. There's nothing to indicate the

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Speaker 3: stage that that's a problem. Obviously, any sort of a

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Speaker 3: trip like this is is not something that the generators appreciate.

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Speaker 3: But again they have safety systems in place to mitigate

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Speaker 3: against those. That's ondden loss of generation.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So will there be a bit of an investigation

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Speaker 1: today as well to determine if the generators have been damaged.

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Speaker 3: Look TGen. We'll be looking into that and we'll gather

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Speaker 3: that information as we will with API and put together

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Speaker 3: a report for the ututilist commission all major insistors. We

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Speaker 3: provide a report through and provide comment on where things

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Speaker 3: are at.

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Speaker 1: Just going back to the actual outages, I know, as

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Speaker 1: you said, most people obviously had their power on last night.

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Speaker 1: I think Nightcliff, well, it seemed as though Nightcliffe was

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Speaker 1: probably the suburb that had theirs out for the longest.

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Speaker 2: Was that correct?

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Speaker 3: I know, the longest customers out. We keep the industrial

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Speaker 3: customers at the end and people with backup generation life defense.

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Speaker 3: We try and restore domestic customers as quickly as possible. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: the restoration process depends on what generation is available at

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Speaker 3: the time, so we'll try and match the feeder loads

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Speaker 3: with the generation available. Hence, every situation is different. The

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Speaker 3: focus is to bring as many people back on us

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Speaker 3: as quickly as possible.

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Speaker 2: And I've just got a message here from one of

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Speaker 2: our listeners.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to I don't know whether it's a correct

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Speaker 1: scenario that you could even go through, but somebody has said,

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Speaker 1: get AKD and crew. Why wasn't the power generation switched

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Speaker 1: to diesel generators immediately when a problem was noticed?

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Speaker 2: Is that even possible?

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Speaker 3: I look, there is opten to run diesel, and that's

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Speaker 3: something that we have in on standby it need be

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Speaker 3: in the situation, it's much quicker to restore the gas

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Speaker 3: supply and get the units back up on gas.

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Speaker 1: Well, Duncan Griffin, I really appreciate your time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Of course, Power and Water System Control. I know it

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Speaker 1: was a very trying afternoon for Power and Water. We

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Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on this morning and giving us a

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Speaker 1: bit further insight.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I'd just like to say thanks to the police,

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Speaker 3: emergency services and obviously to the customers in taking time

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Speaker 3: around the traffic lights. Wasn't a good time a day nice.

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Speaker 3: I appreciate that patient Yeah, and you.

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Speaker 1: Know same to you guys and to your staff. I

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Speaker 1: know that it was a really difficult afternoon. I know

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Speaker 1: that while a lot of people are frustrated and wondering

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Speaker 1: exactly what happened, we really appreciate the work that Power

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Speaker 1: and Water has done to make sure that all of

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Speaker 1: those customers got back online as quickly as possible.

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Speaker 2: Thanks again, Thank you,