According to the NZ Herald, Transpower is unhappy at suggestions from an independent report that it should give special treatment to sites where a failure would have a bigger impact. Specifically they are referring to the Otahuhu substation, which is currently on a critical part of the national grid, as a failure there takes out power to most of Auckland.

Transpower has said:

Okay. These high maintenance standards resulted in some stackles not being inspected properly during the last inspection, resulting in a power cut costing the city a lot of money. Obviously, these 'high standards' don't seem to be good enough.

Transpower doesn't seem to have got the concept of simple prioritisation. When you have limited resources, you need to prioritise how they should be used. The simple fact of the matter is that a failure in a substation such as Otahuhu, has significantly more effect than in other places. Consequently, it simply must be higher priority than some other things.

That is not to say that we should not do much maintenance on other lines and substations, or treat them badly. It simply means that Transpower should identify where the biggest risks are, and then manage them appropriately. It is just simple risk management - you identify the biggest risks, and then determine how to prevent them occurring and how to manage them if they do occur.

Fortunately the energy minister seems to think that a tiered approach is necessary, so Transpower may be forced to do things properly.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 8:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)