NT Minister for Essential Services, Willem Westra van Holthe, has ordered an investigation into several Alice Springs power outages that have occurred in recent months, including a recent six hour power supply failure.
A generator failure at the Ron Goodin Power Station caused the ‘system black’, triggering a number of protection mechanisms in the system because of the change in frequency.
The ‘system black’ saw total supply lost in the network, impacting customers in Alice Springs and outlying communities.
Mr Westra van Holthe said, “The current situation is completely unacceptable, with several outages in the Alice Springs region over recent months.
“We’ve seen major disruptions which have caused inconvenience to households, businesses, government agencies and other service providers.
“I will not be satisfied until we discover the cause of these outages and develop an action plan to ensure power supply failure isn’t a regular occurrence in Alice Springs.”
Mr Westra van Holthe directed Territory Generation to provide an interim report on the issue, along with a detailed final report within 28 days, including how the problem can be solved.
“Territorians deserve answers and the Northern Territory Government will ensure they get them,” Mr Westra van Holthe said.
