Yes the boffins at the Hydro are weaving their magic again, and should soon get their incredible complicated silly scheme to run....
Only a few years late perhaps, and twice over budget... seems they can't find the ignition keys.
Actually it is a complicated integrated system that will defy gravity and the laws of the universe, and deliver clean green energy to the island whatever the weather or cost for that matter.
They have spent so much, that they could have bought the next 20 years worth of deisel, and given the island free power.
It consists of a flywheel generator, battery storage, inverter, the whole power station as it stands, solar panels, and a control system that no-one seems to understand.
One can only assume they will commission it, have a few stuff ups in the first months, find it is too hard to keep integrated as they wanted, and go back to just windmill and solar with a 1mw generator pinning it down...... like the last 20 years or more..... very similar to the king island vanadium thing.
I should take this opportunity to thank all our poor taxpayers out there who funded this white elephant, as it has been a constant source of amusement for all of us, as the deadlines all pass, and they make new ones on a monthly then yearly basis.
I must say, that we do have a very good system as it stands, and it is a credit to the authorities that it is so good, but it seems to require a bottomless pit of money to keep it going.
It used to be a few gennies, and two blokes to run the thing, now it is about 20 people, engineers, electricians, and lord knows what else, to do the same thing, and 20 million dollars of plant and equipment that runs no better than it always has.
The reticulation system is very good considering the 1500 sq km surface area, and only 400 or so meters on the island, but there are plenty of places with no power lines any where near them... so a lot of off grid places.
There are a lot of new retiring baby boomers that buy bush blocks in the middle of nowhere, spend a fortune on new palaces, only to find there is no power for miles ... so there are more off grid places coming into being that seems right.... ie population is slowly increasing, but new meters may not be.
Hydro provide a very good system, but I would not like to pick up the costs.
...............oztules