SA Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan warns of tighter summer supply after Victorian power plant closure

The state has been warned of a new risk of local summer blackouts as a coal-fired Victorian power station is knocked out for at least seven months.

South Australia has been warned that the increasing unreliability of Victoria’s ageing coal-fired power stations poses a new risk of local summer blackouts, as the State Government revives its push for new interconnection with NSW.

SA made it through last summer, including a record-setting 46.6C day, without forced blackouts.

However, it was necessary to fire up a fleet of emergency diesel generators bought by the former Labor state government as power was stretched thin across SA and Victoria.

The Loy Yang A power station in the Latrobe Valley.

SA, which has struggled with unreliable power supplies from wind farms, is currently only linked to Victoria in the national grid and suffered a major brownout in 2017.

The later closure of Victoria’s Hazelwood coal power station, about 25 per cent of that state’s supply at the time, has led market watchdogs to warn that it now has an even greater risk of blackout than SA.

It has emerged this week that Victoria faces further struggles as AGL Energy’s Loy Yang A coal-fired power station is knocked out for at least seven months as concerns rise about summer supplies.

SA Energy and Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan told The Advertiser: “Loy Yang’s failure will result in tighter supply this summer until its planned return”.

He said new developments in the gas-fired Baker Inlet power station and Tailem Bend solar project “will help”.

“We’ll be working closely with the market operator to make sure we’re ready,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.

Energy and Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan.

The Government is currently waiting for a decision from the Australian Energy Regulator, expected in the middle of this year, about if a new $1.5 billion connection to NSW will be allowed to go ahead. It is strongly backed by the SA Government as part of a pledge to cut bills by $302.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan said failures in Victoria made the NSW link more critical.

“The failure of generation in Victoria highlights the importance of the proposed interconnector between SA and NSW,” he said. “The SA-NSW interconnector will help insulate us from problems in Victoria while delivering cheaper power to local households.”

Opposition energy spokesman Tom Koutsantonis said his decision to buy the diesel generators was already paying off, and warned of a higher blackout risk if the State Government leased them to the private sector as planned.

“You’re seeing interconnection drive out baseload generation and old plants closing down,” he said. “If we sell our generators, we are more reliant on another extension cord.”