The national electricity grid operator is warning of possible insufficient power generation to meet households’ demand on Friday.
Transpower has issued a notice saying there was a risk that power generation and reserves would not meet demand between 7.30am-8.30am.
It said if power generators could not provide enough electricity, Transpower would manage demand to avoid a grid emergency.
“The system operator may instruct the grid owner to disconnect feeders without further notice to connected parties,” it said.
I mean Taupo lake looks a bit low?
The graph is in available GWh, which means it goes all the way to 0 before it stops being able to provide electricity. It’s just at the low end of normal but we are coming out of summer so that’s not surprising.
None of the lakes look like they can’t produce at maximum for an hour to cover the shortfall. So I’d guess hydro isn’t the problem. Hard to say why tomorrow is an issue though. Perhaps this snuck up on them, getting a fossil fuel power station up and running takes time, so maybe they could have covered it but weren’t prepared?
I tried to find historical data on peak load but could only find live data on current load. So I’m all out of guesses!