Australian Energy Market Operator navigated treacherous summer to avoid blackouts
A terrifying new report shows we only just dodged widespread blackouts last summer across Australia as ageing power plants failed and smoke obscured solar panels.
SA News
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The electricity grid teetered on the edge of massive blackouts as the severe summer bashed the system with record temperatures, catastrophic bushfires and violent storms causing increasing failures at gas and coal plants, severing interstate transmission links, stopping wind farms and cutting solar output.
The system is “being increasingly challenged by longer lasting and more extreme climatic and bushfires conditions”, Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Audrey Zibelman said in a report published on Monday.
In a warning to governments, business and consumers, Ms Zibelman said planning and investment was needed to shore up the system and avoid blackouts and high costs.
On eight occasions in the 2019-20 summer, the system reached the point where loss of the single biggest generator would cause widespread blackouts – four times in NSW, three in Victoria and once in South Australia. AEMO had to buy reserve power, at a cost of $38 million, in NSW and Victoria to secure supply.
Six times interstate transmission links were lost, three of which involved SA because of disruptions in Victoria.
On January 31, demand for energy in the National Electricity Market – SA, NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania and the ACT – hit a record 38,055MW. High levels of rooftop solar were crucial to meeting that demand.
Heat stress caused breakdowns at ageing coal and gas plants and, for the first time, led to some wind farms cutting out.
Smoke, ash and dust cut solar output.
And AEMO had to intervene in the market — ordering generators to turn on or off rather than leaving it to the market’s bidding system — 178 times, a tenfold increase compared with the previous three years.
“Despite unprecedented challenges, power system security was maintained,” Ms Zibelman said.
“What’s clear from our experience last summer, is that planning is essential and it’s critical for AEMO with governments, industry and other stakeholders to assess how we can best assure the resilience of Australia’s energy infrastructure to these rare but extreme events.”
New interconnections between states, integration of wholesale demand response, more flexible market design and interim reliability measures were needed, she said.