Heavy rain fills hydro lakes, boosts winter energy supplies
Photo:
Supplied/Meridian
The country looks set to get through this winter with no squeeze on energy supplies but is still at risk from energy demand peaks.
The national grid operator Transpower said concerns at the start of the year about reduced gas supply and dry conditions had eased after wet weather filled hydro lakes.
Large generators had also struck deals with major industrial users such as Methanex and the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, along with an increased coal stockpile.
Transpower said hydro lake levels had recovered to be at average levels for this time of year.
In the past week alone total hydro storage increased by 18 gigawatt hours, according to data from Energy Link.
Transpower's executive general manager of operations Chantelle Bramley said the outlook for this winter "has definitely improved".
"We started the year with a dry period, and we did see our hydro storage rapidly decline," she said.
"But we've seen a strong market response, particularly with increased thermal generation and that set us up well to meet New Zealand's electricity needs this winter."
However, Bramley said
demand peaks
- such as those seen last year - remained a risk.
"Those are challenges that we will always potentially face - making sure that we've got enough generation plants available to meet those coldest evenings and mornings," Bramley said.
"Events can always happen, and power plants can always break down," she said.
Bramley said the industry spent "a lot of time and energy" ensuring their plants were in working order for winter.
"It's really important that generators do work to keep [power plants] available and we've certainly seen that for this year."
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