Risk of power cuts on Friday passes but Transpower not yet out of the woods

Friday, 12 August 2022

Transpower says power demand on Friday morning was the second-highest on record.

A risk of power cuts appears to have passed for now after electricity generators managed to keep up with near-record demand during the Friday morning peak.

However, network operator Transpower forecasts there may be another eight days over the next fortnight and a further five days in September when supplies could again be tight, with the highest risks currently centred on August 22.

Earlier in the week, Transpower twice called on power companies to offer more generation into the market on Friday morning.

That was after voicing concerns that there would only be a small buffer of reserve generation between 7.30am and 9am to cope with any expected events.

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Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew says there’s a need to “make sure there's enough capacity to meet all that new demand”.

Transpower had expected power demand might hit an all-time high on Friday morning as a cold snap moved over the country’s major population centres.

But demand peaked at 6890 megawatts, which while up 600MW on last Friday’s morning peak was below the previous record of 6920MW.

Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew said supply and demand were looking very tight for Friday earlier in the week and the state-owned enterprise had a busy night with “some challenges”.

Cold weather tended to coincide with less wind, she said.

But in the end the power system got through the morning with more than a 200MW buffer, she said.

“Industry responded well to our calls for extra generation and … we've come through this morning very well.”

Transpower said some industrial users and network companies reduced their demand without being specifically asked to do so, in the latter case by managing rippled-controlled hot-water heaters.

Spot prices on the wholesale market climbed above 60 cents a kilowatt-hour hour as generators turned on some of their more costly thermal generation.

Andrew said peak demand in the morning and evening had risen by about 4% this year, with the ‘top 10’ periods of peak demand all falling within the past 12 months.

“We are seeing demand growth. We're not sure whether that's people working from home offices or what's happening, but we need to be prepared for this.

“The Government has a New Zealand battery project looking at this particular problem and another problem we identified is just making sure there's enough capacity to meet all that new demand.”