Hobart Mercury
12/01/2008 Page: 16
Tasmania capitalised on Victoria's new year heatwave yesterday exporting power at premium prices as electricity consumption surged to record levels because of the use of air conditioners. On Thursday when the mercury climbed to 40C in Melbourne, Hydro exported power at prices up to $1616 a megawatt hour. Hydro's trading of electricity via the undersea cable Basslink came despite Hydro storages being at their lowest January levels since 2002.
Energy storage is 3754 gigawatt hours: it was 6365GWh in January 2006. Hydro exported electricity between 11.30am and 7pm on Thursday and imported overnight between 7pm Thursday and 9am yesterday. Hydro also sold power into the National Electricity Grid between 9am and 1pm yesterday. When a cool change hit Melbourne about 1pm the switch was flicked and Tasmania imported power between 1pm and 4pm.
Basslink spokesman Matt Mahon said that the undersea connector had been operating at full capacity of 630 megawatts on Thursday afternoon. Hydro spokeswoman Helen Brain said that the flexibility allowed by Basslink was important to Hydro. "Hydro Tasmania is able to import energy during off-peak periods to sustain our storages and export when prices are very high as they have been over the past two days." she said. "It allows us to generate income back into the business and balance some of the cost of imports." The Hydro yesterday released figures for 2007 that show it generated income despite being a net importer of electricity.
While the import of 1887 gigawatt hours cost $78.7 million the export of 594 GWh brought revenue of $86.6 million. The cheaper average price of imported power ($41.68 per GWh compared with the average exported price of $145.76 per GWh) gave a profit of nearly $8 million. Hydro used Bell Bay gas-fired power station and wind turbines at Woolnorth to protect water storages. In 2006-07 electricity imports cost Hydro $65 million on top of the $92 million annual Basslink fee.
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