SA blackouts: Danger electricity will fail during fire season as BHP warns energy debacle risks jobs
THE embattled State Government cannot guarantee a constant power supply during the peak bushfire season, while SA’s biggest private employer warns the energy debacle is risking jobs and investment.
- Analysis: Groping in the dark for blackout explanations
- 200,000 South Australians — and Olympic Dam — lose power again
- What caused South Australia’s statewide blackout in September
- Extended blackout could damage Olympic Dam infrastructure
- BHP: Power crisis is crippling industry
THE embattled State Government cannot guarantee a constant power supply during the peak bushfire season, while SA’s biggest private employer warns the energy debacle is risking jobs and investment.
After a quarter of the state — about 200,000 customers — suffered power outages on the first day of summer, Treasurer and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis conceded growing public concern, but argued “there was sufficient thermal, wind and solar generation to cope.”
There are growing fears that a major blackout coupled with a severe bushfire would endanger lives by weakening communication networks and adding to chaos in a natural disaster.
MORE: ‘SA should not accept this as the new normal’
The state’s major mining operations — including the massive Olympic Dam operation — were among those kicked off the grid, following outages during the September 28 statewide blackout costing them tens of millions of dollars.
It is understood Olympic Dam lost power for about four hours early on Thursday, OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine for almost six hours, and the Arrium steelworks at Whyalla also lost power.
In an unusual move for the company, BHP’s chief executive Andrew Mackenzie issued a statement saying that state and federal governments needed to get their act together on power or risk jobs and investment fleeing offshore.
“Olympic Dam’s latest outage shows Australia’s investability and jobs are placed in peril by the failure of policy to both reduce emissions and secure affordable, dispatchable and uninterrupted power,’’ Mr Mackenzie said.
“The challenge to reduce emissions and grow the economy cannot fall to renewables alone.
“This is a wakeup call ahead of the COAG meeting and power supply and security must be top of the agenda and urgently addressed.”
The next meeting of the Council of Australian Governments will be held on December 9 in Canberra.
A spokesman for OZ Minerals reiterated Mr Mackenzie’s comments.
“We have consistently said this is a national issue that needs a co-ordinated response from both State and Federal Government and this latest outage is just another example why,’’ he said.
Ironically, large energy users such as BHP underpin a large part of the economics and stability of the energy grid by signing up for large contracts for power, but are among the first to be “load shed” during a power crisis because of their physical isolation and large energy draw.
Asked if consumers hit by major blackouts this year could be guaranteed there would be no repeat this summer, Mr Koutsantonis said: “There’s never been a summer we’ve had in Australian history where any of the states have not had a blackout”
“Every state in Australia has had load shedding throughout summer.”
Asked what he could do to allay South Australians’ fears about electricity security over summer, Mr Koutsantonis said the state had sufficient thermal, wind and solar generation to cope.
“We are basically a very good, diversified electricity generator. The problem we have is we don’t have a cheap, available amount of gas.
“I’d reassure South Australians that fundamentally our system is sound.
“But we do have load shedding that occurs in summer. Every summer we’ve ever had there’s been load shedding.
“The issue for us isn’t so much in reliability for BHP, it’s in cost. That’s the real issue that I think BHP are trying to grapple with.”
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said SA was now 100 per cent reliant on the interconnector with Victoria for stable power supply.
“We’ve had three major blackouts in South Australia this year and there’s more on the way,” he said.
Business SA executive director, industry and government engagement Anthony Penney said it was getting tiresome that so-called “unprecedented” events continued to occur and “it shakes confidence.
“It highlights that reliability and security are equally as important as affordability, and it raises concerns that come the summer, Business SA, and our members and businesses as a whole are concerned that reliability is going to be an issue.
“I’ve got plenty of examples of Victorian companies and other businesses that want to invest in this state, but when the cost of it is so high they question that.’’
Nyrstar’s Port Pirie smelter was knocked out for two weeks, at an estimated cost of more than $7 million and the Arrium steelworks and mining operations also lost millions and narrowly averted a disastrous cooling of the blast furnace.
Inside the blackout
WHY DID PARTS OF SA LOSE POWER?
Nobody knows the exact reason why South Australia lost approximately 220MW of power in the early hours of Thursday morning.
However, it has been confirmed that a transmission issue in Victoria led to the Heywood interconnector being switched off, isolating SA from the national electricity network.
To maintain the national network’s stability, load shedding — used to balance supply and demand — then occurred in SA, ultimately leading to the loss of power to about 200,000 homes and businesses — a quarter of the state.
In a statement, the Australian Energy Market Operator said it was now working with Victorian transmission network service provider AusNet Services to identify the exact cause of the fault. Additional details will be made public following a comprehensive investigation.
Notably, AEMO was quick to point out that this latest event was unrelated to the September 28 statewide blackout.
KEY TIMES
12.46am: SA’s power system separated from Victoria.
2.15am: All affected SA households had their power restored.
5.11am: SA’s network reconnected to the national grid.
FOR HOW LONG WERE CUSTOMERS AFFECTED?
About 200,000 homes and businesses lost power for up to an hour. Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said he hoped families were “not too inconvenienced” by the outage.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT ON BUSINESS?
Some of the state’s biggest employers were affected, with BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam operations and OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine both cut off from the grid for a number of hours.
This prompted BHP’s global boss Andrew Mackenzie to warn about the impact on investment and jobs in the state. It was the first time he has weighed in over SA’s “unreliable energy supply system”.
Both BHP and OZ were again forced to rely on back-up measures, after both industry heavyweights went without grid power for several days following the September 28 statewide blackout.
Arrium’s Whyalla operations were also affected, although there was no material impact on production.
Nyrstar’s Port Pirie smelter was unaffected.
Across the border, Alcoa’s aluminium smelter in Portland was cut off for more than three hours.