“We’ve always relied to some degree on the Victorian interconnector — that’s why it’s there, it’s been there for 25 years.
“Many times other supply will kick in and there’s always stuff on standby, but in this case it may well have been the size of the load.”
When the Victorian system shut down, 160 megawatts of energy was lost and wind power did not supply energy because it often does not start until 3am.
Mr Roberts said when outages were planned, people on life support were notified.
But last night’s blackout “caught everyone by surprise”, despite the fact Victoria had issued a low level risk notice for a power outage for the past seven weeks.
Mr Roberts said a review would be conducted into the widespread outage.
It is vital to understand the concept of a continuous supply where the default situation is to have power on continuously and blackouts are the exception. There are two kinds of interruption, planned and the unplanned sort referred to as blackouts. Planned interruptions involve the notification of consumers in advance and if kept to low levels are not a problem. Unplanned interruptions are an inconvenience for home owners, but can be a disaster to business. Most have emergency back up generators, but many don't due to the cost. Obvious examples are concrete, plastic rubber molding and smelting industries, but there are others where an unscheduled cuts would be disastrous. Electricity suppliers do all in their power to avoid unscheduled blackouts and reliable supply is a big factor for new and existing businesses in selecting a location or staying where they are. If the concept of interrupted supply is considered in a system without wind or solar energy, then moving to it would reduce costs by alleviating capacity reserve at a stroke. If industrial consumers and homes were prepared to accept scheduled blackouts that would reduced prices at the expense of the service received. The savings would be greater if unscheduled blackouts were accepted. With the current obsession with intermittent renewables, we are seeing attempts towards planned interruptions on a voluntary basis using smart meters and special deals with industry to turn off production at peak demand. I always claimed that industrial wind farms are appliances (net consumers of power), but whether that is correct or not, the fact remains that if the quality of supply is to be sacrificed, it makes no difference whether there is intermittent renewables in the system or not.
ReplyDeleteWe are seeing reports of the grid systems arranging to buy diesel power from industry and institutions. In other words, the supplier whose job it is to supply uninterrupted power to consumers is instead becoming a customer of its consumers, a reversal of rolls. It might be compared to going to a restaurant for a meal where you had to bring your own food and to give a bit to the chef.
This can only lead to massive de-industrialization, with the wealth creating activities whittling down to little or nothing. It defies all logic or common sense. How can such a deliberate event of self inflicted poverty be happening. Even I cannot answer that question but refer to a quote from the Black country "there's none so queer as folk".