New measure to stop excess solar power flooding the grid in case of an imminent blackout
On the fourth anniversary of the statewide blackout, a new measure has been announced to prevent similar outages – not from a lack of power but from an abundance of it.
SA News
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New household solar systems will now be prevented from feeding power into the grid if it’s deemed necessary to stop power blackouts.
The State Government announced the measure on Monday, the fourth anniversary of South Australia’s statewide blackout.
Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the change affected only new systems, and the measure would be used “very rarely” and as a last resort if other generators, such as wind and solar farms, had been disconnected.
Under a move towards “dynamic curtailment”, households would not be prevented from accessing solar power – only from feeding excess energy into the grid. It comes as the number of homes with solar continues to grow.
“Those aggregated together, those 350,000 or so households is an enormous chunk of electricity,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.
“From now on, we will need to curtail that electricity rarely, if at all, but only after all other generators have been turned off and only to avoid blackouts.
“It's an absolute backstop measure so we can keep the lights on for the two thirds of the state that don’t have solar and the one third of the state that does have solar, because otherwise they would be blacked out also.”
The Australian Energy Market Operator in April released a report proposing the ability to stabilise the grid by disconnecting household solar.
The Government says it is investing $10m to improve voltage ride through on the distribution network, meaning solar systems generate power more consistently with higher output across the year.
It hopes the SA-NSW Interconnector will be up and running by 2022.
The statewide blackout was triggered after severe storms caused damage to transmission lines, leading to the drop out of wind generation.