Basslink
| Country | Australia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates |
38°15′45″S 146°36′29″E / 38.26250°S 146.60806°E 38°24′22″S 147°4′6″E / 38.40611°S 147.06833°E 41°2′32″S 146°52′07″E / 41.04222°S 146.86861°E 41°6′53″S 146°53′31″E / 41.11472°S 146.89194°E |
| From | Loy Yang Power Station, Victoria |
| Passes through | Bass Strait |
| To | George Town substation, northern Tasmania |
| Owner | CitySpring Infrastructure Trust |
| Construction started | 2003 |
| Commissioned | 2005 |
| Type | submarine cable |
| Type of current | HVDC |
| Total length | 370 km (230 mi) |
| Power rating | 500 MW (670,000 hp) |
Basslink is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable link crossing Bass Strait, connecting the Loy Yang Power Station, Victoria on the Australian mainland to the George Town substation in northern Tasmania. It can supply some of the peak load capacity to the mainland of Australia and take some of the excess base load capacity off the coal-fired generators on the mainland to supply Tasmania, leading to reduced pollution. Financial benefits from the Basslink investment included reduced or deferred need to invest in further base load generation facilities, and potential to profit from selling peak load power into a market in which prices are generally higher, and because the cable was also used to supply power to Tasmania in times of drought, as the majority of Tasmania's electricity generation is hydroelectricity. However, "Basslink-related costs have been around $130 million ($ nominal) greater than the actual revenue benefits". This was due to drought conditions reducing hydro production
When the Board of Hydro Tasmania originally entered into a preliminary agreement to build Basslink in 2000, it was projected to cost $500 million. Efforts to prevent corrosion of pipelines and other factors ultimately meant it cost around A$800m to build.
The interconnector was constructed between 2003 and 2005 as an asset of National Grid Australia Pty Ltd, which itself was owned by UK company National Grid plc.
On 1 December 2005, electrical power flowed across Basslink for the first time, as part of the testing procedure. At midnight on the morning of Saturday, 29 April 2006, the link was officially enabled for commercial trading of energy on the National Electricity Market.
On 31 August 2007, CitySpring Infrastructure Trust, a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek, completed the acquisition of Basslink Pty. Ltd. group, i.e. a conglomerate of 10 commercial subjects owning the Basslink cable infrastructure, with a total enterprise value of AU$1.175 billion.
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