WRITTEN QUESTIONS
9th Assembly
23/10/2002
21. Generators reliability in Yulara, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Darwin
Mr Dunham to MINISTER for Essential Services
QUESTIONDetail funding in the 2002/2003 budget towards improving the reliability of the generators in Yulara, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Darwin?
ANSWERAnswered on 25/02/2003
C:\TEMP\Aqsts21.doc
Reliability is a function of maintenance and capital investment.
Generator set maintenance expenditure is determined by hours of operation of each set and also, for gas turbines, by the number of starts required of the set. So the expenditure can be quite “lumpy” with periods of high expenditure (particularly when a major overhaul of a Channel Island (Darwin) set falls due) followed by lower expenditure years. It tends not, therefore, to follow normal expenditure trends (such as increasing each year by CPI).
Anticipated expenditure this financial year provides for a $3 million major overhaul of Set 2, a gas turbine set and also repairs to the exhausts to Sets 1, 2 and 3 at Channel Island, plus a major overhaul on Set 8 at Ron Goodin in Alice Springs and so is higher than in recent years ($9.442m in 1999/2000, $9.368 in 2000/2001). At this stage, Generation anticipates a maintenance budget of $9.68m for 2003/2004.
Maintenance expenditure for 2002/2003 is as follows – the impact of the major overhauls is obvious:
| Channel Island Power Station | $5,959,000 |
| Berrimah Power Station | $715,000 |
| Katherine Power Station | $641,000 |
| Tennant Creek Power Station | $810,000 |
| Ron Goodin Power Station | $1,465,000 |
| Yulara Power Stations | $770,000 |
| Kings Canyon Power Station | $125,000 |
| Remote Centres | $615,000 |
 | |
| TOTAL | $11,100,000 |
Darwin-Katherine is the total of Channel Island Power Station, Berrimah Power Station and Katherine Power Station, namely $7,315,000.
Alice Springs is Ron Goodin only (Energy World Corp owns Brewer Estate Power Station there).