The Australian Energy Regulator has started proceedings in the country’s federal court against four wind farm operators in South Australia for alleged breaches of the National Electricity Rules (NER) in 2016.
Proceedings against subsidiaries of AGL Energy, Neoen, Pacific Hydro and Tilt Renewables concern events on 28 September 2016 when severe weather conditions damaged transmission lines in South Australia causing voltage disturbances.
A subsequent loss of wind generation contributed to a state-wide black-out or so-called black system event, with approximately 850,000 customer connections in the state losing power on the day, the regulator said.
It alleges that each of the operators failed to ensure that “plants and associated facilities at the relevant wind farms complied with their generator performance standard requirement to ride-through certain disturbances”.
The regulator also alleges that the companies failed to “provide automatic protection systems to enable them to ride-through voltage disturbances to ensure continuity of supply”, in contravention of the NER.
Australian Energy Regulator chair Paula Conboy said: “The AER has brought these proceedings to send a strong signal to all energy businesses about the importance of compliance with performance standards to promote system security and reliability.
“These alleged failures contributed to the black system event, and meant that AEMO was not fully informed when responding to system wide failure in South Australia in September 2016.”
“Providing timely and accurate information to AEMO is critical in ensuring power system security and the effective operation of the wholesale energy markets.”
The regulator is seeking declarations, penalties, compliance programme orders and costs.
AGL said it considers that it has complied with the company’s legal obligations in relation to the events, “but will review the allegations made by the AER and consider its position”.
Tilt Renewables said that it “believes it acted in good faith and in accordance with the applicable National Electricity Rules, and the company will continue to engage with the AER in an endeavour to resolve this matter”.
A spokesperson for Neoen’s Hornsdale wind farm said: “We have maintained a collaborative relationship with the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Operator.
“This includes full transparency during previous investigations which produced a final report in March 2017, and we will continue to do so throughout the new proceedings.”
Pacific Hydro said it would not comment at this stage as proceedings had only just started.