Public sides with Jay Weatherill on blackout explanation that renewable energy not to blame, Galaxy poll finds
EXCLUSIVE: South Australians want more money spent on upgrading the electricity network in the wake of the statewide blackout, and largely accept the Premier Jay Weatherill’s claim that renewable energy sources aren’t to blame.
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SOUTH Australians want more money spent on upgrading the electricity network in the wake of the statewide blackout, and largely accept Premier Jay Weatherill’s claim that renewable energy sources aren’t to blame.
An exclusive Advertiser-Galaxy poll taken a week after the grid failed — and immediately after the release of an Australian Energy Market Operator report which raised questions about the role of wind power — shows most voters believe an act of God was mainly to blame for the blackout.
Just over a quarter of voters said Mr Weatherill’s State Government was mainly to blame for the outage affecting the entire state, indicating that he is withstanding the worst of a political assault over SA’s embrace of renewable energy.
A bigger 34 per cent said the storm, which brought strong wind gusts and rain, was mostly at fault. An overwhelming 73 per cent of respondents said spending more money to improve transmission infrastructure was the best way to stop a catastrophic blackout occurring again.
ElectraNet now says it has almost repaired all fallen transmission lines in the state’s Mid North, but further upgrades to “strengthen the underlying network” near Blyth will go until next week.
Asked when full power would be restored to major employers like Arrium and BHP Billiton, ElectraNet could only say it aimed to increase supply to full load levels “as soon as possible”.
A “period of emergency” also remains in place across SA’s electricity system, as the State Government invokes special powers so AEMO can ensure continuing and reliable supply.
About 9000 homes across the state lost power for a short time on Sunday in an outage unrelated to the mass blackout, as a new severe weather front brought trees down on lines.
The political blame game over the statewide blackout also continued, as federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said SA had “very aggressively, too aggressively pursued a ramp-up in renewable energy without paying enough attention to the need for stability in the system”.
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis said it was wrong to blame the state’s energy mix for the blackout, but that there should be a national debate on how to bring the grid into the 21st century.
The poll shows voters believe operators of the electricity network are just as much to blame as Mr Weatherill’s government for the blackout affecting the entire state.
A small six per cent blame Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose government oversees the national grid.
The survey of 567 people was taken last Wednesday and Tuesday, after a week in which Mr Weatherill had been dismissing the impact of renewables and attributing blame to the storm.
AEMO’s technical report was released on the Wednesday morning that polling began.
It found the sudden and unexplained withdrawal of wind power led to huge draw being placed on an interconnector to Victoria, and its failure.
Collapse of the remaining network followed. The report also revealed the system restart was heavily reliant on thermal power, rather than wind.
AEMO will deliver an update to those findings next week, but cautioned that a final report and conclusions on exactly what occurred could be as long as six months away.
Australia’s chief scientist is also heading a separate inquiry examining energy security and the role of renewables.
The poll shows lukewarm support within SA for increasing the amount of coal and gas power used, with just 16 per cent of people responding that it should take priority over renewables.
Only 18 per cent thought renewables were mainly at fault in the statewide power outage.
Galaxy Research managing director David Briggs said Mr Weatherill had “successfully dodged the blame for the statewide blackout, with most South Australians accepting the problem was caused by a severe weather event and more likely the result of an act of God”.
Mr Cormann said there must be a “a properly co-ordinated approach at a national level” to energy and climate policy instead of “states going off and pursuing more aggressive targets”.
“Because of the decisions that were made by the State Labor Government ... the system wasn’t stable enough,” Mr Cormann said.
“It is completely unacceptable surely, for a whole state and every business in that state and every household in that state, to lose access to energy.
“If you want to attract future economic activity, reliable access to competitively priced energy supply surely is an important feature of what you need to be able to put on the table.”
Mr Koutsantonis told The Advertiser wind power had not worsened the blackout, but there were questions over “how we integrate renewable energy to a grid built for 20th century generation”.
“There are two separate debates here. One is about energy mix, which I’m prepared to have,” he said.
“Renewable energy is intermittent by nature, so you need to properly manage it.
“Coal is not the answer for the 21st century. That answer is how do you use technology and integrate renewable energies into an old grid, and make it sustainable for the long term.”
Mr Koutsantonis said SA’s strong wind resources meant it was a target for much of the renewable energy incentivised by the Federal Government, but exports of it were constrained.
“The entire nation is not going to meet its targets,” he said.
“Investment goes where the resource is. “Better interconnection and a true national market ... will get us better outcomes.”
