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Category: Hydro Energy / Electricity Energy and Utilities

Basslink running again after 'mechanical failure' caused outage

Friday, 24 Jun 2016 04:28:42 | Richard Baines

The Basslink cable faulted just days after restarting following a six-month outage. (ABC News)

Power is again flowing between Tasmania and Victoria, with the Basslink cable back online.

The undersea cable started operating again early Thursday evening after an almost 36-hour outage.

This time the problem was not with the cable itself but equipment at Victoria's converter station.

The company was quick to stress there was no link to the December outage which, combined with record-low Hydro dam levels, plunged Tasmania into an energy crisis.

Basslink said this latest issue was not unusual.

"This was a relatively straightforward mechanical failure, and Basslink had sufficient spare parts to carry out the repair," it said in a statement.

Premier Will Hodgman said the outage made the case for a second Basslink cable.

"It certainly reminds us all, especially off the back of an extended outage, that we need to increase our redundancy, our contingency, across Bass Strait," he said.

"It reminds us that we need to increase storage levels in our dams."

Basslink is blaming a "protection trip" at the Loy Yang converter station in Victoria for the latest outage.

Hydro Tasmania was exporting power when the cable went offline but would not say at what rate, instead referring all questions to Basslink.

Legal documents seen by the ABC showed that the two parties have previously had disputes over how much power can be exported.

The problems between Hydro Tasmania and Basslink got so bad that the two had a legal arbitration in 2013.

AustraliaPlus


 

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