❓ Mr Catania questions the Minister for Energy about the delayed Kalbarri microgrid and its ability to solve the town's unreliable power supply. The Minister acknowledges the delay, explains the microgrid's function, and anticipates significant improvement, but cannot guarantee 100% reliability.
AnsweredQoN 395Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ELECTRICITY SUPPLY — KALBARRI
395. Mr V.A. CATANIA to the Minister for Energy:
I
have a supplementary question. Given this microgrid was due for completion in
2019, will it solve Kalbarri's woes when it comes to not having
reliable power?
395. Mr V.A. CATANIA to the Minister for Energy:
I
have a supplementary question. Given this microgrid was due for completion in
2019, will it solve Kalbarri's woes when it comes to not having
reliable power?
AnswerView source ↗
It is physically impossible to
provide 100 per cent reliable power. That is physically impossible. There is no
community anywhere in the world that gets 100 per cent reliable power. But the
microgrid will be a significant improvement. I will explain the reason for
that. If we think about the physics here, we have the power stations around
Collie and the electrons have to travel through the high-voltage system,
through the medium-voltage system and through the low-voltage system—it
is literally thousands of kilometres—and any break in the system prior
to Kalbarri means that there will be a disturbance and people will lose their
power. The whole idea of the microgrid is to keep energy on the other side of
that long line, in the community in Kalbarri, so when the line goes down, the microgrid
will be able to provide power. It is expected that there will be a very, very
significant improvement in the performance of the Western Power network in
Kalbarri when the microgrid is fully implemented.
I acknowledge that there was a delay
in the completion of the project because one of the contractors engaged by this
government went into receivership and we had to select a new technical provider
to complete the project. The project is engineering complete. It was being
tested immediately before cyclone Seroja hit. It would have been fully
implemented now if it were not for cyclone Seroja. But, naturally, we applied
all our effort to the recovery work first before we went back to work on
completion of the microgrid. I cannot guarantee that people in Kalbarri will have 100 per cent reliability, because nobody
can have that. I will say that there will be a significant improvement in performance for people in Kalbarri and I thank them for showing such strong
support by the majority voting Labor at the election.
The SPEAKER : Members, that
concludes question time.
provide 100 per cent reliable power. That is physically impossible. There is no
community anywhere in the world that gets 100 per cent reliable power. But the
microgrid will be a significant improvement. I will explain the reason for
that. If we think about the physics here, we have the power stations around
Collie and the electrons have to travel through the high-voltage system,
through the medium-voltage system and through the low-voltage system—it
is literally thousands of kilometres—and any break in the system prior
to Kalbarri means that there will be a disturbance and people will lose their
power. The whole idea of the microgrid is to keep energy on the other side of
that long line, in the community in Kalbarri, so when the line goes down, the microgrid
will be able to provide power. It is expected that there will be a very, very
significant improvement in the performance of the Western Power network in
Kalbarri when the microgrid is fully implemented.
I acknowledge that there was a delay
in the completion of the project because one of the contractors engaged by this
government went into receivership and we had to select a new technical provider
to complete the project. The project is engineering complete. It was being
tested immediately before cyclone Seroja hit. It would have been fully
implemented now if it were not for cyclone Seroja. But, naturally, we applied
all our effort to the recovery work first before we went back to work on
completion of the microgrid. I cannot guarantee that people in Kalbarri will have 100 per cent reliability, because nobody
can have that. I will say that there will be a significant improvement in performance for people in Kalbarri and I thank them for showing such strong
support by the majority voting Labor at the election.
The SPEAKER : Members, that
concludes question time.
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