Energy giant AGL chooses not to appear at Senate inquiry into energy reliability

SA POWER Networks has come under fire for not compensating 60,000 customers they “accidentally” cut power to during “load-shedding” on February 8.

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SA POWER Networks has come under fire for not compensating 60,000 customers they “accidentally” cut power to during “load-shedding” on February 8.

Blaming new software, installed in 2015, for 90,000 homes and businesses losing power, SAPN apologised for the mistake yesterday — but advised those wrongly affected to talk to their own insurers.

The network’s acting head boss Richard Sibly said: “I don’t think I’m going to admit any liability for negligence”.

“For some businesses that may have been operating at that time, we’ve suggested they talk to their insurers.”

But Senator Nick Xenophon said it was not good enough and argued that for “just a few million” in compensation would earn the network a lot of goodwill, considering their broader operations are worth $26 billion.

SAPN was also chastised by a Senate committee meeting in Adelaide investigating electricity resilience in the wake of SA’s statewide blackout, for arriving unprepared yesterday.

When the Australian Energy Market Operator told SAPN to load shed power, it was only meant to affect 30,000 homes and businesses,.

“I understand, regrettably, that we shed more load than requested,” Mr Sibly said. “This is the first time that we had operated this software since 2015.”

AGL Energy also copped a serve from the committee when two representatives failed to show up.

That was “pretty bad form”, SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said. AGL said they would provide a written submission.

A frustrated Senator, Labor’s Jenny McAllister, said they had known the meeting was coming.

“I really would have hoped you’d be in a position to provide us with a bit more assistance,” she said.

Pelican Point operators Engie had to defend themselves against claims they were gaming the system by not turning on a second unit that could have prevented the load shedding incident.

Engie head of corporate affairs, Jim Kouts, said the second unit was not commercially viable so it was mothballed — AEMO knew it was mothballed and didn’t direct Engie to turn it back on early enough, he said.

Electranet told Senators they had “never seen anything” like the weather last year, and that while they were taking steps to make transmission towers more robust, “if there’s an extreme enough weather event they will fall over”. “If it’s at the lower end of 190 to 260 (km/h winds) they might stand, but at the top end of that — the towers are not designed to withstand that,” asset management executive manager Rainer Korte said. 1