Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

It was a catastrophobic weather event which cut the transmission network, but it had nothing to do with renewable energy, so why are people being political?

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Unfortunately because of the comments of some politicians who are either ill-informed or just determined to make a political point, I am afraid that a lot of the general public will now believe that more renewable energy will mean more blackouts.

There was an analogy earlier on involving Land Rovers, so I will offer another one.

Blaming renewable energy for the blackout is about as logical as saying Land Rovers are unreliable if they fail to arrive in a town that is cut off by impassable floodwaters.

I suppose it's not surprising that people who accept large donations from coal companies would try to undermine renewable energy. That's all I can say outside the Current Affairs section.

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Originally Posted by Roverlord off road spares

Well it was coming to Melbourne, but we did not get the storm that the weather bureau was talking up last night here. Must have lost it power coming across, luck us. Our front lawn is under water at the moment we do not want anymore. Heather

I was working in SA at the time. A few hundred km from Adelaide.
It was a fine, cloudless blue sky, sunny day. The wind was gusting around 30-40km/h.
Strange thing, the wind farm was parked.
It started to cloud over. The wind dropped. It started spitting. Then, bang, the site went down. No power anywhere except the battery backed emergency lighting and alarms.
That night it was dark, little wind and a fer showers.
Yes, Adelaide and to the north copped a hammering but we got little. The gas fired backup power generation facilities couldn't run because there was no power to compress the gas.
There was now wind power because they were parked. There was no interconnector power from that reliable coal fired Victorian power generation system because it tripped out on a synchronisation fault.
In short, there was no power. No surprise there. The surprise was that it shut down the whole state. This, simply, should not happen.
Queensland deals with category 5 cyclones. Lots of wind there. Yet, a few hundred kilometres away, the power is still on. It doesn't effect the whole state. NSW has lots of lightning strikes. Substations are particularly attractive. Yet a lightning strike on an electrical asset or three doesn't effect the whole state. The downed power lines should only have affected the assets and loads to the north of the state. Those that are still without power.
Now, Homestar has given his opinion. I reckon he's on the money. I would trust his opinion over anyone elses in this thread because he's in the industry. I know what he says is true because I am in the industry too. Working on SA assets, I am a bit closer to the coal face too, so to speak.
I must say, to say renewables caused this is not quite correct. It would be better to say the states reliance on renewables and lack of diversity in the states energy mix was a major contributing factor in putting the states energy security at risk. The storm just showed how the states energy system lacked robustness.

The scuttlebutt is the events unfolded something like this:
-Renewable assets were parked to protect said assets.
-Additional power was being drawn from the interconnect.
-Due to storms effect on infrastructure, the SA grid moved out of phase with the interconnect causing the protection systems at the interconnect to trip.
-Remaining assets were unnable to supply required power to the load (brown out) and the protection systems tripped (black out)

Unfortunately this all appeared to happen before they could load shed or get the backup generators on line.

Either way, it paints a picture that we can all learn from.. How often of late are we all experiencing 'freak weather events' or 'extreme bush fire events'? I've only lived here 9 years, but in those 9 years I've learnt that Australia has some of the most erratic, diverse and extreme weather I've ever experienced in all my travels. To that effect in our new house build, I have incorporated a way of hooking in and running a 7kva generator in the workshop away from the house, and I will have under cover 45000 litres of water at all times. Between those two tanks will be a tractor driven fire pump (and any day above 30 deg the tractor will be on it and Wifetec knows how to use it). In the center of the house is a 'safe area' in the walk in pantry. The back of the house is dug into a soil bank by 1.6 meters, and the front is raised by 1.6 meters, with a fire break in the form of a rock retaining wall.
Over the top? Perhaps.. Would we be fine with recent power outages? Yes. Will we be ok with a repeat of Pinery Fire? I'd like to think so. Has it cost me a lot... Not really. Genset $6800, Tanks $4000, Fire pump $3500, My time.. irelivant as I enjoy setting it up. There's probably $15000 in the extra bits of the build, but its all stuff that'll be used elsewhere. (Genset in the truck, Tanks for daily water supply, PTO pump for transfer from lower tanks). It does take a bit of setting up, but I personally think its money well spent. It'll put value on the house, and it means we're happy, warm and comfortable in a power cut, and I know in summer when the pager drops, I can jump on a fire truck in the knowing Wifetec is safe at home under a monsoon!!

Incidentally, the pager has gone off 4 time so far today, and each time its been 'trees down', 'flooding', or an accident caused by someone not concentrating and someone else not putting their lights on and driving very slowly.. The trees could be cleared by anyone who's handy with a saw, the flooding was 20 meters from the house in question and the owner was panicking, and the accident just didn't need to happen. Both parties were at fault. We all have to start being a bit more prepared, organised and ready for these events, and not go into major meltdown when they do. Just my opinion tho.

Here's an explanation of the power situation and how and why it occurred.https://www.theguardian.com/australi...s-not-to-blame

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Here's an explanation of the power situation and how and why it occurred.https://www.theguardian.com/australi...s-not-to-blame

There are so many errors in that article.

Here, try this one:
SA storms: Rushing to renewable energy targets puts sector's reputation at risk - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

So is the answer to increase interconnections so there are more available power sources? For example, rather than one interconnect to Victoria could there be more, to Victoria or even NSW?

I read that in this event the wind generators were still operating but had to be put into safe mode because 22 towers had been destroyed so the power couldn't be distributed. Is that correct?

Premier Wetherell said the power would still have gone out even if the state still had an operating coal-fired power station.

After all, in normal times, I believe Victoria benefits at times by being able to receive cheap wind generated power from SA. Its all one big grid with various power sources.

So is the problem not how the power is generated, but how it is distributed?

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