Muskrat Falls link offline for 7 hours, N.L. Hydro downplays concerns
CBC
Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is confirming that no power flowed from Muskrat Falls to Newfoundland for a seven-hour period this week, but is downplaying any concerns about the interruption.
According to Hydro, both poles of the Labrador-Island Link were brought back online around 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
Early Wednesday, Pole 1 tripped due to electromagnetic interference on a sensor. The sensor will be replaced.
Around noon, Pole 2 tripped, taking the LIL out completely, due to a damaged control component for a cable in the Strait of Belle Isle. That damaged component has also been replaced, and an investigation is ongoing.
"There were no customer impacts," Hydro spokesperson Jill Pitcher wrote in an emailed statement.
Pitcher noted that Hydro has not had any extended generation supply issues since 2014 — the year of a mutli-day outage known as DarkNL — and stressed there are sufficient available generating reserves at this time.
"We may have a piece of equipment come offline at any time, whether it's the LIL, or Holyrood or a station you don't hear about as often. This can happen at any time, and also during storm conditions," Pitcher wrote.
"We balance the system in response, while we assess, repair or correct, when needed. We plan for it, and we respond to changes on the system daily."
Hydro says it has plenty of reserve on the system over the coming days, anywhere from 650 to 720 MW at peak times — well above the total output of a fully-operating Holyrood plant.
The trips on the LIL come as Hydro is facing questions about winter readiness — including the reliability of the Labrador-Island Link.
"Equipment failures that have occurred on the LIL in the past two winter seasons are concerning to Newfoundland Power and highlight uncertainty regarding the LIL's ability to provide reliable service to customers for the upcoming winter," Dominic Foley, Newfoundland Power's legal counsel, wrote in a Dec. 6 letter to the Public Utilities Board.
In that letter, Newfoundland Power sounded the alarm about an "elevated" risk that electricity demand could surpass supply.
A group representing big industry in the province says it shared the PUB's concerns about this coming winter, and called the aging Holyrood assets a "particularly acute concern" for the years to come.
The Public Utilities Board wrote Hydro on Dec. 15 to say concerns about winter readiness have been "heightened," and to ask for more details about the reliability of the system.
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