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Category: Hydro Energy / Environment / Electricity Energy and Utilities / States and Territories

Hydro dams facing worst-case scenario as levels continue to fall

Wednesday, 16 Mar 2016 13:45:01 | Richard Baines

The dams are at a record low and falling by more than 0.5 per cent every week. (Supplied: Kaylee Hattinger)

The Tasmanian Government is bracing for a worst-case scenario of Hydro Tasmania's dam levels reaching a minimum of 6.5 per cent.

Key points:

  • Dams currently at 14.8 per cent capacity
  • Previous predictions estimated drop to 13.6 per cent
  • Government now bracing for fall as low as 6.5 per cent

The dams, which are used for hydro-electric generation, are currently at a record low of 14.8 per cent and falling by more than 0.5 per cent every week.

The Government previously predicted they would reach a low of 13.6 per cent before the broken Basslink power cable was repaired, but that figure appears to have been abandoned.

Today Liberal frontbencher Adam Brooks was focussed on a different figure.

"Our management is looking at a 6.5 per cent limit across the Hydro asset," he said.

"We are still a fair way off that.

"What we are focussed on is that we deliver the energy requirements to Tasmania as required. There are circumstances that are certainly unprecedented."

The 6.5 per cent figure is the lowest the dams can go before they lose the ability to generate electricity.

Mr Brooks said it was a fluid situation.

"We can't predict when it's going to rain or not, so what we will do is we will work on the worse-case scenario and the best-case scenario and look at it on a day-to-day basis," he said.

In a statement Energy Minister Matthew Groom said Hydro's advice was that water storages will fall to 13.6 per cent on May the first, based on average inflows.

Low levels raise environmental concerns

Labor Leader Bryan Green was alarmed by the change in rhetoric.

"I think any fair minded person looking at our Hydro system as it stands at the moment would say that 6.5 is almost ridiculous," he said.

"That's catastrophic in terms of the level of the lakes and the impact they would have. They would be basically dry."

Greens Leader Cassy O'Connor is worried about the environmental impact of reducing Hydro's dams to that level.

"We know that there are potentially threatened species impacts on rare and endangered fish that live in Great Lake and other Hydro storages," she said.

"It's a responsibility of government to make sure it is protecting and managing threatened species, uniquely Tasmanian species."

The plummeting dams levels combined with a broken Basslink cable, the only power link to the mainland, means Tasmania is grappling with an unprecedented power crisis.

Some big industrial users have already cut back usage, but households have been guaranteed they would not have to cut back.

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