Unreliable Power
NALCOR failed... again, with help from the PUB
Not surprisingly, the folks at NALCOR want you to believe that the fact the LIL managed not to crash despite carrying slightly more than 10% more of the biggest load than it had previously carried without crashing is a Cochrane-esque inflection point, a moment that forever changes the world.
“…tremendous performance by those assets” said NALCOR veep Rob Collett as if the lines were people.
Yeah, no.
Truth is, the fault-prone LIL is not the hero of this little drama any more than ice jamming up the intakes at Bay d'Espoir caused the weekend’s power emergency in Newfoundland or for that matter that seasonably cold temperatures did.
The problem was NALCOR, currently doing business under its former name Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.
Here we are some 16 years after the provincial government approved what became Muskrat Falls and about 20 years or so after people started talking about the future of Holyrood and we still do not have reliably working transmission lines from Labrador or a replacement for the clapped out thermal generators at Holyrood.
NALCOR and before that NL Hydro always considered Holyrood would be an integral part of the island’s electricity system. Today, it still calls the plant “a critical asset for power generation for our province.” Even when they used to say they’d convert Holyrood to be the support for Muskrat Falls transmission of the sort they eventually built at Soldier’s Pond, there was always supposed to be a chunky amount of thermal generation available from other sources, just in case. Early plans for Muskrat saw more new thermal generating capacity with Muskrat Falls than there was installed at Holyrood. Most recently, NALCOR included a full replacement for Holyrood in its plans alongside adding another generator at Bay d’Espoir.
All of that makes perfect sense. Electricity system operators will tell you that - unless you are Iceland with all your electricity made using unstoppable natural steam vents - you need generation from different sources to ensure there’s always steady power reliably available to make electricity. Since it first fired up, Holyrood has been a backup for most of the year and historically, the plant has only been needed at full capacity for a few weeks around this time of the year when things are really cold and the 75% of island homes and businesses that heat with electricity have the thermostats on bust. But it was and is and will be still important because long transmission lines go down even if they are not the chronically troublesome Labrador-Island Link called LIL.
We need thermal generators at Holyrood, near the biggest load on the island and that is all there is to it. Period. The fact we do not have them running reliably or a timely plan to get new ones is and will remain the problem, not the cold or frizzle or whatever other novel term engineers have meteorologists have for what the great unwashed among us call shitty weather.
The problems on the weekend had a couple of triggers. One was a physical problem that shut down the single largest generating plant on the island. But that only because a problem because a failure of basic system planning and management - the stuff that really matters - left Muskrat Falls and the LIL not working at full capacity and prone to tripping and worst of all no thermal generation at Holyrood. There was only one functioning generator after a second one tripped while the third one is down for maintenance.
Ultimately, even if the LIL was wonky, NALCOR needs Holyrood 2. Right now the public utilities board - another chronic problem over the past 20 years in electricity management - hasn’t approved NALCOR’s application and there’s no sign when it might. The thing was supposed to be under construction now with an expected start to functioning before 2030. The original timeline expected approval last year, construction to start this year, with final work done by 2029. At this point the application for prep work is still not approved. Realistically, you can slide the whole schedule back two years, minimum.
Oh yeah, and get ready for more emergencies in the middle of winter.
A search show island peak demand of in 2023 at 1730 MW during a polar vortex event.
For 2024 it was 1691 MW
For 2025 it was 1384 MW
For 2026 early Jan it was 1229- 1446 MW
Isn't the peak well below the forecast one by the Muskrat Falls promoters? Does that forecasting engineer still have his job?
Generally there seems to be no growth in peak demand, and that without a robust efficiency program,(worst in Canada), which could reduce peak demand further.
A max of 780 MW was brought over the LIL, which is about 95 % of MW generation capacity, more than I expected they could do at present. This suggests a transmission loss of about 5 %, but TL may be higher if some other Labrador Power was on that line, which is rated at 900 MW. If TL was about 10% then another 42 MW over and above MFs capacity would have been transmitted to get 780 MW received here at Soldier's Pond.
What is the present reliability factor for the LIL? How many hours per year downtime from unexpected events resulting in no power or reduced power, if one or two of the DC conductors are malfunctioning?
Basically the LIL is not very reliable, and they must have been "shit baked" that it might fail.
That would have been a Dark Nfld event if more than a few hour duration, with the 600 MW of island hydro off for a few days. That was a rare event, frazzle ice on the intakes, but a possible event to be anticipated, and more so with climate change, as we can expect shitty weather more often.
Yes we will always need thermal for backup on the Avalon, due to the exposure of the lines coming unto the Avalon, as to severe icing, that can take down the strongest of lines.
In the 1970s, when I worked there, I looked at photos of lines taken down by icing with 6 inches of ice build up. The steel towers buckled and went down and the steel sold as scrap. They learned the most vulnerable sections and rebuilt stronger. But the LIL is generally not build to those standards, and so at high risk. Then Holy rood thermal was relatively new, now largely obsolete.
I wonder how much power was imported on the Maritime Link, as there is no obligation that they supply power.
I feel that Liberty Consultants pulled out of NL, as adviser to the PUB, due to Nlfd Hydro not doing the right steps to make our system better.
major rethink is needed for island power that is reliable, and thermal as backup.
Island Demand was about 1450 MW, about 20 % lower than 1800 MW that can be expected at times.
How many of the those in the MF fiasco are still involved in Nfld Hydro operations, in any department?
Will there be a big shake up by the new government?