  
8. Managing South Island SupplyThis article has been reproduced with the permission of Transpower New Zealand Limited, Wellington as the subject is considered to be of interest and importance to many in the electrical and electronic industry. Every effort continues to be made to avoid the possibility of short-term power outages in the upper South Island this winter. Transpower has been working with the electricity industry since mid April to address short-term security of supply issues in the upper South Island. This has included providing real time demand and capacity information to help distributors and others co-ordinate the management of demand at peak times. Parts of the upper South Island are experiencing strong growth in demand for electricity. Last summer Transpower installed new sub-station equipment in Christchurch with capacitors that enable the amount of electricity transported into the upper South Island to be increased by around 4% compared to last year. Transpower has been working with the Electricity Commission, lines companies, high load customers and others to put together additional measures to maintain system security. The result is a range of measures that can be be put in place during times of peak load, typically between 17-00 and
19-30 on weekdays : - Full ripple control of water heating by lines companies
- Additional use of customer owned generation
- Assisting with additional standby diesel generation
- Maximising output at existing generators
- Switching part of Timaru to service from other transmission lines so that it does not add to the upper South Island load
- Adding capacitors to one local network
- Arrangements with some high load customers to reduce demand if necessary
As well, "intertrip" devices have been added to Transpowers network , which allow lines to carry more power , with the ability to respond if voltage stability becomes an issue so that overall system security is maintained. The intertrips have increased the load limit for the upper South Island (the area north of Timaru) to 1055 MW. At the time of publication the highest demand recorded so far this winter has been 971 MW on Friday 23rd July.
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