Part of the solar array at the Coober Pedy Renewable Hybrid Project

The Coober Pedy Renewable Hybrid Project is progressing well. During March and April 2017, the remaining major equipment (which comprises the Diesel Uninterruptible Power Supplies (DUPS), Heat Banks and Switchboards) arrived and was installed on site, and connected to electrical and mechanical services.All equipment is now on site and physically installed. The power station equipment underwent pre-commissioning in April, and commissioning of the system has commenced as of 1st May. This entails incorporating the control system and associated components into the system, and ensuring that the system is operating correctly one piece at a time. Risk assessments are conducted to ensure that activities are undertaken without placing the power system at risk during these commissioning operations.

There have been a number of brief outages over the past weeks and these have caused some concern with residents within the town. These outages are as follows

– 12th April at 04:29. EDL experienced a generator fault – this was un-related to the project

– 12th April at 18:24. A piece of 24V equipment mal-operated and power was restored very quickly. This was a project issue.

– 23rd and 24th April. The DCCP network had a number of network faults (i.e. due to a bird or other issue with an overhead line). The power station is designed to open a circuit breaker and automatically reclosed under these situations. This occurred correctly.

If you have any questions in relation to the project, please make contact via cprhp#edl.com.au