Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

South Australia blackout: interim report makes renewables defence look foolish

A graph shows the source of electricity supply to South Australia before a blackout. Source: AEMO preliminary report

• The Australian
• 12:12PM October 5, 2016
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• Graham Lloyd
  
  
  
  Environment Editor
  Sydney
  
  
  

A dramatic, sudden loss of wind power generation was the root cause of South Australia's state wide blackout last week.

And the bulk of damage to high voltage transmission lines that was caused by high winds and paraded as evidence to defend renewables most likely took place after the power had been lost.
These are the major facts contained in the Australian Energy Market Operator's (AEMO) preliminary report.
More work is needed to flesh out the forensic, time sequenced analysis that has already been conducted.
But there is enough in the interim report to make the rush to defence of renewables mounted by special interest groups and conflicted state governments since the lights went look foolish.
Certainly, the power would not have been lost were it not for the big storm.

• More: Premier resists blackout inquiry
• More: Weatherill storm blame doubts

And seven big towers were damaged in the lead up to the blackout.
But AEMO said data currently available indicates that the damage to the Davenport to Brinkworth 275 kV line on which 14 towers were damaged ?occurred following the SA Black System?.
The big event was a 123 MW reduction in output from North Brown Hill Wind Farm, Bluff Wind Farm, Hallett Wind Farm and Hallett Hill Wind Farm at 16.18.09.
Seconds later there was an 86 MW reduction in output from Hornsdale wind farm and a 106 MW reduction in output from Snowtown Two wind farm.
No explanation was given for the reduction in wind farm output.
But the loss of wind farm production put too much pressure on the electricity interconnector with Victoria which cut off supply.
This in turn led to a shut down at the Torrens Island power station, Ladbroke Grove power station, all remaining wind farms and the Murraylink interconnector.
AEMO says a lot of work is needed to fully explore what happened.
But definitely there are lessons here for putting high levels of intermittent renewable energy into the electricity system.
The speed with which renewable energy spruikers rushed to argue otherwise is a measure of their ideological self interest.
Reported in Australian today.
Regards Philip A

A more balanced report than that in the Oz Fishwrapper:

AEMO report into SA blackout raises questions, answers none : Renew Economy

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

As I understand it, the loss of the towers unbalanced the system (I'm sure someone can explain that in technical terms) and the interstate interconnectors shut down to protect themselves. The wind generators continued to operate, but the grid cut them off for safety reasons.

South Australian blackout: Malcolm Turnbull politicking at time of emergency, Jay Weatherill says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Yep. To the north. When power lines are down the protection systems would have tripped isolating them from the rest of the grid thus protecting the grid.
Given the grid was protected from the loss of the HV transmission lines to the north, why did the grid to the south go down?
I have explained this before. Because the renewables had been parked, and the interconnector had been tripped, SA didn't have the generating capacity to cope with the load.
They need more stable generating capacity in their energy mix to maintain energy security. Wind and solar PV are not stable, they are intermittent.

Wind wasn't parked. From Bee Utey's link:

Wind generators were producing a total of 883MW at the time (gas was providing 330MW and 613MW was coming from Victoria) ? and had ridden out the loss of the first two transmission lines.

A small amount of wind capacity dropped out after the second transmission line collapsed, possibly ? the operators say ? as the result of lightning strikes and a software glitch that has since been rectified.

But as this chart below shows, there was no impact on frequency. It was only the failure of the third transmission line at 1615.18 that some generation was lost, the frequency dropped the system went black 1.2 seconds later.

The loss of the third transmission line took away the delivery mechanism for two other wind farms, which suggests it wouldn't have mattered which power source was operating on that line. Within another half a second, all remaining gas and wind plants had gone after the interconnector tripped.

Clearly, it was an extreme weather event, the loss of the transmission lines was unprecedented and tripped the system, and it appears the wind plants were operating, but lost the links to transmit to the grid. Still questions unanswered.

Storms and power outages in Tasmania.
Wild spring weather lashes Tasmania, Maatsuyker sets wind record - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


Didn't take out the whole state though.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

The loss of the third transmission line took away the delivery mechanism for two other wind farms, which suggests it wouldn't have mattered which power source was operating on that line.

Not all power sources operate on that line. It was the HV transmission lines between Pt Augusta and Jamestown. Pelican Point, Torrens Island, the wind farms on the south coast and in the south east and the Heywood interconnector can operate and power Adelaide and the south east of the state independent of that HV transmission line. That is how they restored power to Adelaide before they repaired the Pt Augusta/Jamestown HV transmission lines.
With the wind farms on the south coast and in the south east parked they were relying too heavily on the brown coal generated power from the Heywood interconnector, it overloaded and tripped, all over red rover. Torrens Island and Pelican point couldn't supply the power needed, brown out, black out, bang.
There are emergency gas fired turbines all over the state they did not bother to switch on when they parked the wind turbines. They should have.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

Storms and power outages in Tasmania.
Wild spring weather lashes Tasmania, Maatsuyker sets wind record - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


Didn't take out the whole state though.

Last I heard SA was only one part of a sovereign nation and shares all sorts of things with the other states. The entire population of SA (1.7M) is less than half that of either Melbourne or Sydney. It has a very long thin grid which is partly a legacy of the coal deposit at Leigh Creek, the lack of which would have grown an entirely different grid to what is there today. Anyway, the outage happened and the (privately owned) gas generators haven't covered themselves with glory.

Exerpt:

Nearly all the state's gas capacity was not available:
AGL's Torrens Island [Gas Thermal]
? Units A1, A2, A3, A4 and B2 ? All cold (480+240MW unused capacity)
? Units B1, B3, B4 ? Running at roughly 33% capacity (delivering 250MW of 600MW spinning capacity)
Engie's Pelican Point [Gas Turbine]
? Units A & B + CGST ? Both Cold (160+160+165MW available capacity)
At 16:18 Transmission Towers get flattened, SA generating capacity & Victorian Interconnector overloads and trips ? SA grid collapses.So, let's start with Plan A of the Back Start procedure.
At 16:32 SRAS #1 (Presumably Origin's Quarantine PS Unit), black-start capable with multiple units (216MW in total), ordered to power up with ElectraNet switching to facilitate power to auxiliaries and main units at Torrens Island PS next door.
At 17:13 SRAS #1 starts supplying power to Torrens PS to enable auxiliaries, but by 17:55 it is diagnosed they can't supply enough power to enable any Torrens PS main unit restarts. [Suspect one of the Quarantine PS units not available].
Oops ?. let's go to Plan B
SRAS #2 (Origin's Osborne PS), black-start capable, but advised they can't deliver power to Torrens PS due lightening strike to their plant. Would also require ElectraNet to facilitate HV route to Torrens PS to enable a power-up. Plan ditched?. Ditto 210MW of Gas capacity
Oops again. Let's go to Plans C (D & E)
At 17:23 Torrens PS restart from Victorian supply initiated requiring 275kv route switched from Heywood thru South East, Tailem Bend, Cherry Gardens, Mt Barker South, Magill, Torrens Island bulk substations.
At 18:36 Engie, which owns Pelican Point Point Station, offer to make their ?off-line? units available with 4 hours notice.
At 18:43 Torrens Island PS auxiliaries switched from Quarantine PS power to Victorian Interconnector supply, and Torrens PS begins main unit power ups procedures at 18:54.
At 19:00 Adelaide CBD commences limited re-connection via Victorian Interconnector and to provide load for Torrens (& Pelican Point re-connections).
At 19:50 Pelican Point PS has auxiliaries connected to Victorian Interconnect power, and prepares for start-up.
At 19:55 Quarantine PS quoted as on having only 4 (of 5?) gas units on-line
At 20:58 Torrens Island PS gets ?A2? unit on-line. Capable of 120MW? Hang on, all the ?A? units were cold at 16:18!!!
At 22:02 Torrens Island PS gets ?A4? unit on-line Capable of 120MW? Hang on again, another ?A? unit, what about the warm ?B?? units..
At 22:05 Pelican Island PS gets ?GT #1″ unit on-line Assume GT-stage only delivery of 160MW
At 22:08 Snuggery Point PS quoted as being on-line Assume Delivery 63MW (Diesel) [still running at 00:005]
At 23:31 Torrens Island PS gets ?B1? unit on-line?. Capable of 240MW
Confirming the NEM Watch chart captured at 00:05 ? SA Gas & Diesel providing >800MW + Victorian Interconnector
South-East Wind zone 100-250MW reconnected before 03:50, releasing diesel & some gas capacity to return to reserve.
Okay at this point some questions?
1) What happened to Torrens Island B3 [240MW] and B4 [240MW] Units? did they get broken during outage event, and B1 which was an operational unit, but took five (5) hours to return to service.
Additionally, why were these SA Gas units NOT used?..
* Torrens A1 [120MW], A3 [120MW], B2 [240MW]? unused cold = Total 480MW
* Pelican Point #2 & CGST capacity [160+165W]? unused cold = Total 240MW
To sum up, the best part of 1.2 ? 1.5GW of gas generation capacity remained unused, off-line or was outright unusable for various reasons.

Source

Well my sparky friend will be here to fit my changeover switch soon and then my place will keep humming along regardless.

Summers not here yet and it's not going to get any more reliable.