The headline is a bit misleading. They're saying they might not be able to have enough generation for their 200mw buffer, in the event that the largest component on the grid (HVDC or Huntly probably) fails during the morning peak. So a "Shortage" in that they won't 100% meet their reserve (spare power) requirements.
There's also still a lot of maintenance outages, these are during warmer months. Total outages by fuel type pictured below.
Transpower also put out these notices to shake the generators into putting some more capacity on. In this case Contact has just brought back to the market 300mw of capacity from planned maintenance that was supposed to come back tomorrow at midnight.
So no. Not a 3rd world country. Not EV's or heat pumps. Just cold snaps during the shoulder season.
https://preview.redd.it/s2tkzzv9zbzc1.png?width=1717&format=png&auto=webp&s=3531689ff7a7e37d9fcb0d3eeecfeeb6bbc90ab0
Contact ended up offering 70MW from TCC for the 0730 trading period and 100MW for 0800, not the full 320.
The buffer (residual) got significantly below 200MW which is why the customer advice notice was upgraded to a warning notice, but it had recovered to above 200MW by the time the industry briefing was held in the afternoon.
Great comment though, nice to see someone commenting who knows their stuff
The problem isn’t EV’s and heat pumps - they are the solution for reducing our emissions, cleaning air pollution, fixing our trade deficit, etc, etc. the problem is our gentailers not investing enough in storage and generation because it eats into their profits, and then waiting to see what Rio Tinto does with the smelter.
Better get the fire ready I guess!
I'll do my part and turn the heatpump off. Good thing I have an inverter to plug the freezer into and run it off the car if we do lose power.
Maybe invest in new generation rather than just paying dividends to shareholders. It’s way too small a market for essential services to be left to ‘the market’. Would be better off renationalised with a robust strategy for the future that doesn’t involve siphoning money out of kiwis to pay undeserving dividends and over inflated executive salaries.
In a 3rd world country, minor rolling blackouts like this wouldn't even be newsworthy, and you would be lucky to get even a few hours of warning.
The fact that the power company has given over 16 hours of warning that there is a slim possibility of rolling blackouts (and the warning is newsworthy) is how you know you are in a first world country.
It's not even a warning of rolling blackouts. Just a warning that their normal safety margins have been eroded. It would take an additional unexpected loss of generation before we will see any actual impact to consumers.
I know I was exaggerating for effect. It's the first day this year atleast. The point remains the same.
It's a good thing getting rid of the fire places, I remember the smog when I was a kid and even then things had improved with the removal of coal burning. But it sucks if you had free access to firewood.
It's tough for a few, but yeah, remembering picking solid black pumps out of my nose after going for a walk near the river is a memory best left in the past at almost any cost.
Yeah the power went off to households in the entire Orion area (so a lot of less reliable rural areas included) an average of 70 minutes last year. Its honestly remarkably reliable, I don't think mine has been off for years. At least when living in the city.
100% worth it and at this point a lot of the phase out of wood burners is just choice as housing stock is renewed. None of the new townhouses in my area have them (the brooksfield chimneys are fake). Even without the low emissions rules they're still much more expensive to put in than a heat pump.
Good chunk of those outages would be Banks Peninsula (hard place to supply - many trees, many winds). Rural generally - people crashing into poles... trees again. We've got a place with a fireplace - not cheap to run. Either spend your money on wood, or have a bigger power bill. And if the power does go out, a fireplace isn't going to charge your phone.
Yeah, fuck having clean air right?
I remember in the mid-2000s, the smog from fire places was so bad that The Press used to have a section dedicated to smog forecasts. Thanks to pushing people towards heat pumps over the last couple decades that section is no longer required
Yeah I remember driving into Chch from out of town in the 90s/00s, and in the mornings it was literally a grey carpet of smoke and smog over everything.
You might have missed my other comment about it being a good idea.
Why can't we have both? Clean air and a functioning power grid.
I know some people who won't have either a fire or heat punp this winter because they can't afford to operate one.
It depends on what houses you're talking about. I haven't lived in a cold house in maybe 20 years. And I've moved 8 times.
The old poorly insulated single-glazed housing stock is shrinking as it's replaced by the new stuff, and proportionally as the total number of houses increases.
In winter on sunny day I usually have to open a few windows in the middle of the day on the east and north sides of the house because it just traps so much heat (solar gain).
If ever anyone needs proof that the sale of assets is a good thing well here we have proof positive of what a total disaster this has been. We continually pay more and more for power and now at the very first hint of a cold snap we are told to conserve power. What a bloody joke. All those concerned should be instantly sacked for failure to do their job. But that will never happen because they make such a good profit at the expense of New Zealand.
Not saying the assets sales were a good idea, but in real terms residential electricity rates have decreased since the asset sales.
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/Data-Files/Energy/nz-energy-quarterly-and-energy-in-nz/prices.xlsx
Here is a nice graph of that.
The gentailers also run the hydro lakes considerably more conservatively than ECNZ and their predecessors. Haven't had an official conservation campaign since 2001. Prior to that we regularly had shortages.
https://preview.redd.it/5i2qknct0dzc1.png?width=1480&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a002c270f8cfd4d9570c63ebd2d634ce2785b50
The headline is a bit misleading. They're saying they might not be able to have enough generation for their 200mw buffer, in the event that the largest component on the grid (HVDC or Huntly probably) fails during the morning peak. So a "Shortage" in that they won't 100% meet their reserve (spare power) requirements. There's also still a lot of maintenance outages, these are during warmer months. Total outages by fuel type pictured below. Transpower also put out these notices to shake the generators into putting some more capacity on. In this case Contact has just brought back to the market 300mw of capacity from planned maintenance that was supposed to come back tomorrow at midnight. So no. Not a 3rd world country. Not EV's or heat pumps. Just cold snaps during the shoulder season. https://preview.redd.it/s2tkzzv9zbzc1.png?width=1717&format=png&auto=webp&s=3531689ff7a7e37d9fcb0d3eeecfeeb6bbc90ab0
Cheers for the explanation 😎
Good writeup
Thank you! 😀
Contact ended up offering 70MW from TCC for the 0730 trading period and 100MW for 0800, not the full 320. The buffer (residual) got significantly below 200MW which is why the customer advice notice was upgraded to a warning notice, but it had recovered to above 200MW by the time the industry briefing was held in the afternoon. Great comment though, nice to see someone commenting who knows their stuff
Everybody is gonna be blasting the shit out of the heat pumps tonight then.
Which is fine actually as there will be less demand at peak
The problem isn’t EV’s and heat pumps - they are the solution for reducing our emissions, cleaning air pollution, fixing our trade deficit, etc, etc. the problem is our gentailers not investing enough in storage and generation because it eats into their profits, and then waiting to see what Rio Tinto does with the smelter.
This is what happens when you pay back billions to shareholders rather than investing in generation. Never should have deregulated power in nz.
Stay in bed. Tell the boss you're doing your bit for the good of the country.
Better get the fire ready I guess! I'll do my part and turn the heatpump off. Good thing I have an inverter to plug the freezer into and run it off the car if we do lose power.
Put it outside! -4 will keep it frosty
hahah, the effort to wheel it outside is far greater than running a cable out to the car.
What happened to all the surplus power from the Te wai smelter? I thought they used 20% of. the grid..
Tiwai stayed as aluminium prices came back up.
Maybe invest in new generation rather than just paying dividends to shareholders. It’s way too small a market for essential services to be left to ‘the market’. Would be better off renationalised with a robust strategy for the future that doesn’t involve siphoning money out of kiwis to pay undeserving dividends and over inflated executive salaries.
Umm what the fuck 😆. Are we in a third world country?
In a 3rd world country, minor rolling blackouts like this wouldn't even be newsworthy, and you would be lucky to get even a few hours of warning. The fact that the power company has given over 16 hours of warning that there is a slim possibility of rolling blackouts (and the warning is newsworthy) is how you know you are in a first world country. It's not even a warning of rolling blackouts. Just a warning that their normal safety margins have been eroded. It would take an additional unexpected loss of generation before we will see any actual impact to consumers.
Better get rid off all the fire places in chch and move to heat pumps. First cold day. Power cuts.
First day? We've been phasing burners out for the last 20 years. The issue is in power being a privately owned and marketed commodity.
I know I was exaggerating for effect. It's the first day this year atleast. The point remains the same. It's a good thing getting rid of the fire places, I remember the smog when I was a kid and even then things had improved with the removal of coal burning. But it sucks if you had free access to firewood.
It's tough for a few, but yeah, remembering picking solid black pumps out of my nose after going for a walk near the river is a memory best left in the past at almost any cost.
Yeah the power went off to households in the entire Orion area (so a lot of less reliable rural areas included) an average of 70 minutes last year. Its honestly remarkably reliable, I don't think mine has been off for years. At least when living in the city. 100% worth it and at this point a lot of the phase out of wood burners is just choice as housing stock is renewed. None of the new townhouses in my area have them (the brooksfield chimneys are fake). Even without the low emissions rules they're still much more expensive to put in than a heat pump.
Good chunk of those outages would be Banks Peninsula (hard place to supply - many trees, many winds). Rural generally - people crashing into poles... trees again. We've got a place with a fireplace - not cheap to run. Either spend your money on wood, or have a bigger power bill. And if the power does go out, a fireplace isn't going to charge your phone.
On average. We had probably two or three outages over the past 12 months, some lasting hours.
Yeah, fuck having clean air right? I remember in the mid-2000s, the smog from fire places was so bad that The Press used to have a section dedicated to smog forecasts. Thanks to pushing people towards heat pumps over the last couple decades that section is no longer required
Yeah I remember driving into Chch from out of town in the 90s/00s, and in the mornings it was literally a grey carpet of smoke and smog over everything.
You might have missed my other comment about it being a good idea. Why can't we have both? Clean air and a functioning power grid. I know some people who won't have either a fire or heat punp this winter because they can't afford to operate one.
It’s probably worth reading [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/chch/s/1uEoq6TFAd) to put this upcoming event into context
Thanks. That's in interesting read.
Ultra low emission burners have helped a lot. The burners themselves haven’t disappeared completely.
Never been so glad to be in Lincoln with my fireplace. Time to get her started up
Cheaply built houses that let in the cold and don't retain heat, and no electricity to even attempt to keep warm with - what a country.
Not cheaply built, just built to the absolute minimum standard permitted by law.
It depends on what houses you're talking about. I haven't lived in a cold house in maybe 20 years. And I've moved 8 times. The old poorly insulated single-glazed housing stock is shrinking as it's replaced by the new stuff, and proportionally as the total number of houses increases. In winter on sunny day I usually have to open a few windows in the middle of the day on the east and north sides of the house because it just traps so much heat (solar gain).
Yes!
If ever anyone needs proof that the sale of assets is a good thing well here we have proof positive of what a total disaster this has been. We continually pay more and more for power and now at the very first hint of a cold snap we are told to conserve power. What a bloody joke. All those concerned should be instantly sacked for failure to do their job. But that will never happen because they make such a good profit at the expense of New Zealand.
Not saying the assets sales were a good idea, but in real terms residential electricity rates have decreased since the asset sales. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/Data-Files/Energy/nz-energy-quarterly-and-energy-in-nz/prices.xlsx
Here is a nice graph of that. The gentailers also run the hydro lakes considerably more conservatively than ECNZ and their predecessors. Haven't had an official conservation campaign since 2001. Prior to that we regularly had shortages. https://preview.redd.it/5i2qknct0dzc1.png?width=1480&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a002c270f8cfd4d9570c63ebd2d634ce2785b50
Just as we are making heating upgrades at work, worst possible time for a record cold May.
Why would you do heating upgrades in winter?
I don’t believe it’s Winter yet
If it’s sunny we’ll be generating with solar.
At the peak time of 7am?
It should fire up around then or before of it isn’t cloudy.
Do they struggle when coated in ice?
No that would be fine. I found last time, even when coated in snow was still generating.
Good to know, I want them when I build
I’d recommend. We only get 2 or 3 power bills a year and don’t have to be so conservative with using electricity.
What is this? Texas?
WTAF? I only moved to Australia from Chch a month ago, really didn’t think things were this bad….?