Technical fault at Loy Yang power station cuts Tasmania’s Bass Strait’s electricity cable, boosting calls for a second cable

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The case for a second Bass Strait electricity cable has been given a boost after the recently repaired existing connector again went offline.

On Wednesday operators of the Basslink marine cable confirmed a technical fault at the Loy Yang power station east of Melbourne cut the service from 6.18am.

Fibre optic services are not affected but there is no estimate for when electricity transmission will resume.

“Such an outage is not an unusual occurrence across the electricity network,” Basslink said.

Second electricity connection to Tasmania under consideration Read more

“Basslink is investigating the exact cause and hopes to have the issue rectified as soon as possible.”

The cable has been back in operation for only nine days after a fault detected in December.

Basslink has ruled out any link between the issues.

The latest fault comes just a day after the Coalition released a preliminary report, written by former federal Liberal minister, Warwick Smith, backing the construction of a second connector.

At an estimated cost of $1bn, a second cable now has in-principle support from the government and Labor. Labor is prepared to pay half the construction cost.

It would future-proof Tasmania’s energy needs as well as drive renewable energy projects, create jobs and an estimated $3bn of investment, the government said.

The island state has just emerged from an energy supply crisis when record low rainfall meant hydroelectric scheme dams were not refilled, putting at risk local generation, which coincided with the Basslink outage.