Mrs BRAHAM - 1996-05-15
The Alice Springs 'Power Save' committee announced a scheme whereby local businesses will switch to private power generation in times of high consumption or stress on the Power and Water Authority's supply. The Leader of the Opposition has been very vocal in her claim that this meant that the system could not cope. Is this true?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I thank the honourable member for her question. As were other members of the Alice Springs community, she was concerned by the irresponsible remarks that the Leader of the Opposition made in relation to this issue. It is extremely disappointing for me to have always to respond to misinformation from the Leader of the Opposition, particularly in relation to power and water issues and particularly where, as in this instance, she has taken an excellent community activity and turned it into a source of fear in the community by saying there is a power crisis in Alice Springs.
I wish to inform the House of the true situation in Alice Springs at the moment. PAWA has the capacity to produce 41 MW of power in Alice Springs. This year, a peak demand day occurred on 30 January. A 39 MW demand was placed on the system. Clearly, it is well within the capacity of PAWA to meet that demand. However, PAWA continues to monitor demand on the system. It works on a basis called N - 2 which represents how the system would cope with 2 turbines down. If 2 turbines went down, that would create a situation in Alice Springs where we would have to look for load-shedding.
In anticipation of that occurring, I announced last month a $40m initiative to build a new 8 MW power station on Brewer estate in Alice Springs. I issued a press release, and not a peep was heard from the opposition. That augmentation will occur within 37 weeks. There will be an additional 8 MW of power in the system and therefore Alice Springs will have a far greater comfort zone with regard to demand on the system.
It is important to note that Alice Springs has never been in a situation where load-shedding has been required. There have been power outages in the past. These were caused for myriad reasons, involving anything from bird strikes to technical problems with substations going down. However, in this instance, the Leader of the Opposition has taken an excellent community initiative and tried to say that Alice Springs has a power crisis. The objective of Project Power Save is to encourage businesses in the Alice Springs community, that have alternative generating capacity, to join with the community and with PAWA. In the event that PAWA had a technical malfunction and 2 turbines were down, and we had to consider load-shedding, those businesses have joined together voluntarily and said that they will switch first to that alternative capacity ensuring thereby that no requirement to load-shed would be placed on the Alice Springs community.
I say again to the people of Alice Springs that there is no power crisis in their town. We have never needed to load-shed in Alice Springs. We are operating well within the capacity of the system at the moment and we are about to augment that capacity with the new turbine at
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the Brewer estate. It would be helpful if the Leader of the Opposition were to learn to recognise the difference between outages and load-shedding. Personally, I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition is now out of the PAWA portfolio. Perhaps, when I work with the member for Nhulunbuy, we will be able to stick to the facts when we talk about PAWA issues, particularly in Alice Springs.
The only outages of note that I think the opposition should consider are the outages that have occurred in its own party of late. The 'outage' of Bob Collins and the 'outage' of Terry Smith have now been followed by the 'outage' of the member for Stuart. It is a time-honoured tradition that leaders of the opposition in this House have their portraits painted when they stand down from the position. I wonder whether this latest Leader of the Opposition has made her appointment with the artist.
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I thank the honourable member for her question. As were other members of the Alice Springs community, she was concerned by the irresponsible remarks that the Leader of the Opposition made in relation to this issue. It is extremely disappointing for me to have always to respond to misinformation from the Leader of the Opposition, particularly in relation to power and water issues and particularly where, as in this instance, she has taken an excellent community activity and turned it into a source of fear in the community by saying there is a power crisis in Alice Springs.
I wish to inform the House of the true situation in Alice Springs at the moment. PAWA has the capacity to produce 41 MW of power in Alice Springs. This year, a peak demand day occurred on 30 January. A 39 MW demand was placed on the system. Clearly, it is well within the capacity of PAWA to meet that demand. However, PAWA continues to monitor demand on the system. It works on a basis called N - 2 which represents how the system would cope with 2 turbines down. If 2 turbines went down, that would create a situation in Alice Springs where we would have to look for load-shedding.
In anticipation of that occurring, I announced last month a $40m initiative to build a new 8 MW power station on Brewer estate in Alice Springs. I issued a press release, and not a peep was heard from the opposition. That augmentation will occur within 37 weeks. There will be an additional 8 MW of power in the system and therefore Alice Springs will have a far greater comfort zone with regard to demand on the system.
It is important to note that Alice Springs has never been in a situation where load-shedding has been required. There have been power outages in the past. These were caused for myriad reasons, involving anything from bird strikes to technical problems with substations going down. However, in this instance, the Leader of the Opposition has taken an excellent community initiative and tried to say that Alice Springs has a power crisis. The objective of Project Power Save is to encourage businesses in the Alice Springs community, that have alternative generating capacity, to join with the community and with PAWA. In the event that PAWA had a technical malfunction and 2 turbines were down, and we had to consider load-shedding, those businesses have joined together voluntarily and said that they will switch first to that alternative capacity ensuring thereby that no requirement to load-shed would be placed on the Alice Springs community.
I say again to the people of Alice Springs that there is no power crisis in their town. We have never needed to load-shed in Alice Springs. We are operating well within the capacity of the system at the moment and we are about to augment that capacity with the new turbine at
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the Brewer estate. It would be helpful if the Leader of the Opposition were to learn to recognise the difference between outages and load-shedding. Personally, I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition is now out of the PAWA portfolio. Perhaps, when I work with the member for Nhulunbuy, we will be able to stick to the facts when we talk about PAWA issues, particularly in Alice Springs.
The only outages of note that I think the opposition should consider are the outages that have occurred in its own party of late. The 'outage' of Bob Collins and the 'outage' of Terry Smith have now been followed by the 'outage' of the member for Stuart. It is a time-honoured tradition that leaders of the opposition in this House have their portraits painted when they stand down from the position. I wonder whether this latest Leader of the Opposition has made her appointment with the artist.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016