The Colongra gas-fired power station on the Central Coast has been running at historically high levels in recent months in an attempt to sure up an increasingly unstable electricity grid.
The current evolving energy shortfall conditions have been attributed to unprecedented failures and low output of coal-fired generators in the National Energy Market and the ongoing unseasonal low output of renewable generators over the last two months.
Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad said Colongra and the company's other gas generating assets were playing a critical role in safeguarding the grid.
"Over these two months, Colongra has been running at unprecedented levels of generation with 34-gigawatt hours in April and 91-gigawatt hours in May. May also saw the highest-ever monthly generation level for our hydro assets of the mighty Snowy Scheme," he said.
"Today Colongra has been running to critically supply the morning and evening demand peaks. Looking forward, the ability to continue to operate Colongra will be dependent on the ability of the gas supply system to provide fuel for operation."
Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria said Australia was now in a similar crisis to the one that crippled the UK's energy sector last northern autumn and forced dozens of retailers to exit.
"The key matter that I think industry and government need to work through is in fact how they actually lift the output of the coal generation capacity here," he said.
He said the problems in gas were rooted in power, and the increased demand for gas for electricity generation was due to the coal outages, combined with soaring international prices.
Mr Broad said Snowy Hydro, a government- owned company, was not at risk of leaving its customers 'high and dry', which has occurred with the collapse of several smaller energy retailers in recent months.
"Our contracts are iron-clad. We have no "force majeure" or other legal loopholes, which are common in the market but protect the retailer/generator, not the customer," he said.
"Snowy - and its retail brands - will not abandon customers and it is concerning to see retailers leaving their customers high and dry during this challenging period of market disruption."
The coal shortage at Eraring Power Station has been caused by production issues at Centennial Coal's nearby Mandalong mine. Origin Energy said the shortage was expected to persist well into next year.
A Centennial Coal spokesman said the company was working with its customers to meet its contractual obligations.
