Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

Originally Posted by bee utey

Quite likely Uncle Rupert will report it as confirmed "fact" by this afternoon, according to a farmer who saw something funny last night on the way home from the pub.

lol.
its not being reported in the news.

about 1630 the battery tripped off the network.

Originally Posted by bee utey

Most of the local infrastructure around the wheat growing area near Jamestown is 50+ years old and feeds a lot of farms and small towns in an area not used to giant tropical storms, unlike the Pilbara. At least it's not hard to stand up again.

A few years ago I was driving up that way and saw a "wall of death" storm studded with continuous lightning flashes bearing down on the road I was on. A quick skedaddle later I arrived at our friend's place to find the power was out. The next day I went back down the road and about 2km of local 11kV feeder line was lying on the ground with multiple smashed poles. Nothing short of undergrounding can stop that sort of thing.

Underground HV has it's problems. Mainly cost and maintenance difficulties.
NSW has more atmospheric electrical activity around infrastructure and yet has way less asset damage issues. It's all about using the correct lightning protection systems. I have been involved in the design of these systems for various electrical substations and other industrial infrastructure. Above ground transmission systems can be protected from lightning strike.

Would have been nice to have had underground power around here a couple of weeks ago Mick. We had a massive storm come through Kal which reportedly took out around 1,000 trees, many of which damaged buildings, cars etc - and there were power lines down everywhere. Two houses burnt down during / immediately after the storm as live power wires dropped onto them setting them alight.

The power went out at about 3:00pm on the Saturday - we didn't get it back on at our place until the Wednesday evening. Makes me laugh some of the belly aching I read when people lose power for a couple of hours.

We managed to survive using a combination of 2 x Engel fridges, a couple of battery packs and an 80 watt solar panel, plus sharing a small Honda generator with the next door neighbour to keep the fridges / freezer cold enough so that we did not lose any food - we never opened the doors to fridges (other than the Engels) and freezer for the duration. Closest we came to losing anything was some scallops which thawed out - so I had them with a T-bone steak cooked on the baby.

Originally Posted by BMKal

Would have been nice to have had underground power around here a couple of weeks ago Mick. We had a massive storm come through Kal which reportedly took out around 1,000 trees, many of which damaged buildings, cars etc - and there were power lines down everywhere. Two houses burnt down during / immediately after the storm as live power wires dropped onto them setting them alight.

The power went out at about 3:00pm on the Saturday - we didn't get it back on at our place until the Wednesday evening. Makes me laugh some of the belly aching I read when people lose power for a couple of hours.

We managed to survive using a combination of 2 x Engel fridges, a couple of battery packs and an 80 watt solar panel, plus sharing a small Honda generator with the next door neighbour to keep the fridges / freezer cold enough so that we did not lose any food - we never opened the doors to fridges (other than the Engels) and freezer for the duration. Closest we came to losing anything was some scallops which thawed out - so I had them with a T-bone steak cooked on the baby.

Didn't know you had a baby. Didn't know you could cook on one. Do you light them or are they just naturally hot?

Did the affected infrastructure have lining protection systems on them? What about the buildings? Most of the buildings in Melbourne CBD have lightning protection systems on them, even a few of the elevated houses around here.
Perhaps you should build your houses underground. Is flooding a problem there?

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

Underground HV has it's problems. Mainly cost and maintenance difficulties.
NSW has more atmospheric electrical activity around infrastructure and yet has way less asset damage issues. It's all about using the correct lightning protection systems. I have been involved in the design of these systems for various electrical substations and other industrial infrastructure. Above ground transmission systems can be protected from lightning strike.

Modern spun concrete poles might be stronger than 50 year old 6" Stobie poles too.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Whilst over visiting Pete in Thailand he got his power bill... 3 months.... $30 AUD....

We get totally screwed over here on Essential services...

Thailand does not have any coal fired power stations, all their power comes from other sources. There were big public protests which prevented a coal station being built about a decade ago.
They have a lot of hydro in Thailand and have also funded the construction of hydro power in Myanmar to supply Thailand.
I have visited the hydro station which powers Yangon. It runs the same water through three huge hydro generation stations, located on a river down a mountainside. Funded by the Japanese and Chinese.
Coal power is a dying industry around the world.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Thailand does not have any coal fired power stations, all their power comes from other sources. There were big public protests which prevented a coal station being built about a decade ago.
They have a lot of hydro in Thailand and have also funded the construction of hydro power in Myanmar to supply Thailand.
I have visited the hydro station which powers Yangon. It runs the same water through three huge hydro generation stations, located on a river down a mountainside. Funded by the Japanese and Chinese.
Coal power is a dying industry around the world.

comparing apples and pineapples

True, but Tombie mentioned low Thai power bills, so I thought I'd explain it. Many countries have avoided coal altogether.
We rightly praise the Snowy hydro scheme, but the fact is we then dropped the ball. It should have been expanded long ago. We are playing catch-up.