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Katie Woolf spoke with Duncan Griffin from Power and Water System Control · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The territory was without power yesterday afternoon, from Catherine to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Driver to Nightcliff and Fanny Bay. You could only count
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: on one hand. I reckon the suburbs who actually still
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: had power yesterday afternoon. Businesses were forced to close for
• 0:15
  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
• 7:42
  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
• 8:00
  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
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: those customers got back online as quickly as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks again, Thank you,