Hornsdale Power Reserve (HPR), which is owned and operated by French renewable energy giant Neoen, has been ordered to pay a AUD 900,000 fine for breaching Australian power rules.
The fine, ordered by the Federal Court, comes after the Australian Energy Regulator brought legal action against HPR. It is related to breaches of the National Electricity Rules, involving backup contingency services for the grid.
The regulator claims that between July and November 2019, HPR failed to provide contingency frequency control ancillary services (FCAS), despite making offers and receiving payment from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to be on stand-by to provide them. HPR admitted that it would have been unable to comply with its offers and provide those services during that period, despite being paid to do so.
The failure was identified when an unexpected outage at the coal-fired Kogan Creek power plant in Queensland in 2019 caused grid disturbances. The court heard that investigations after the Kogan Creek incident had revealed that the battery, also known as the Tesla big battery, had been under-delivering on promised stability services since technology provider Tesla had performed a firmware update earlier in 2019.
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I do not understand why a federal court has to be involved. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is still buying this Big Battery’s services, and still paying for it, correct ? All they have to do is to deduct it from their payment, right ? like normal buyer and seller, settling the due by adding or subtracting from the payment .. Faster, a lot less work and expense .. It is up to the seller to sue if they do not agree ..
Even if the deduction is more than taking back what had been previously paid, that there are extra penalty involved, it still can be taken care of by not paying the seller until the amount if cleared .. Penalties are usually included in this kind of contracts and carefully negotiated prior to signing .. Nobody can fake surprises on this kind of important issue ..