Tomago Aluminium chief executive Matt Howell says NSW power grid in crisis

Tomago Aluminium says the electricity grid is at “crisis point” after power shortages this week led to it shutting off its potlines for an hour at a time to keep the state’s lights on.

Its power supplier, AGL, says Tomago voluntarily reduced its electricity load as part of its commercial supply contract but the smelter, which uses 12 per cent of the state’s power, says it had no choice in the circumstances.

The power shortage arose after shutdowns of various units at the Bayswater, Liddell and Vales Point power stations, as well as restrictions on the transfer of electricity from Victoria, because of demand from South Australia.

Tomago lost a third of its power on Tuesday night and Thursday night and the Australian Energy Market Operator – which oversees the National Electricity Market – was forecasting power shortages again for much of Friday.

Although Tomago buys its electricity from AGL, chief executive Matt Howell made it clear he blamed the broader state of the grid, rather than AGL itself, for the problem. Mr Howell said Australia was at a crisis point with our energy system.

“This is not summer with extreme demand,” Mr Howell said. “This is the likely future of our energy grid as once reliable baseload generators exit the National Energy Market and are mostly replaced with intermittent wind and solar projects with no practical storage to speak of”.

“If we want to be a nation that makes things, rather than one that imports all of its needs, we must have internationally affordable and reliable energy: a system that can reliably deliver, independently of the weather,” he concluded.