4 June 2021
Federal resources minister Keith Pitt was not advised that the Kaban Energy Hub project would feature both a wind farm and big battery before he vetoed a $270 million government loan on the basis that it was not dispatchable, department officials told a Senate Estimates hearing on Friday.
Project developer Neoen approached the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) to seek a $280 million loan for the Kaban Energy Hub project that will combine both a 157MW wind farm with a 100MW big battery. The project, to be built in Northern regional Queensland, is expected to support the creation of around 250 jobs during its construction phase.
26 May 2021
Yesterday, a fire at the Queensland Callide C coal plant caused the facility to suddenly snap offline. That triggered a cascade of flow-on events, including the disconnection of multiple transmission lines, and other generators, along with a huge ‘frequency excursion‘, in which the normal operating state of the grid begins to stray outside safe parameters.
Nearly half a million customers were disconnected, including Brisbane airport, sewage pumps in the Gold Coast, Gold Coast University Hospital (which had to rely on backup generators) and traffic lights. “About 360 traffic intersections across the Brisbane metro region lost power just after 2:00pm, causing “chaos” for drivers ahead of school pick-up time”, wrote the ABC. People were briefly trapped inside a shopping centre.