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Widespread power blackout hits Adelaide

POWER has been restored to most South Australian homes after a widespread blackout put thousands into darkness, when the state lost electricity supply from Victoria.

2 min read
November 4, 2015 - 4:04PM
Adelaide’s Afternoon Newsbyte

POWER has been restored to most South Australian homes after a widespread blackout put thousands into darkness, when the state lost electricity supply from Victoria.

A spokesman for SA Power Networks said the state lost supply from “upstream” when the interconnector shut down, triggering an automatic loss of power — load shedding — in SA, resulting widespread outages.

About 110,000 homes were affected by the load shedding from Victoria, which started about 10.20pm on Sunday night — and there are warnings this morning that such a large blackout could happen again.

Across South Australia, homes from Sellicks Beach up to Nuriootpa, the Barossa and Angaston, to Elizabeth and further north to Munno Para West, and east to Belair all lost power, and many more in between.

The outage also hit the Eyre Peninsula, with Cowell, Lucky Bay, Mangalo and more losing power.

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said the blackout wasn’t planned.

“There was no time to warn customers about the loss of supply,” he told ABC 891.

“We’ve always relied to some degree on the Victorian interconnector — that’s why it’s there, it’s been there for 25 years.

“Many times other supply will kick in and there’s always stuff on standby, but in this case it may well have been the size of the load.”

When the Victorian system shut down, 160 megawatts of energy was lost.

According to data from the National Electricity Market Operator, AEMO, wind power output was at 221 megawatts at the time of the interconnector outage, and continued at around these levels for the next few hours.

Mr Roberts said when outages were planned, people on life support were notified.

But last night’s blackout “caught everyone by surprise”, despite the fact Victoria had issued a low level risk notice for a power outage for the past seven weeks.

Mr Roberts said a review would be conducted into the widespread outage.

On its Facebook page last night, SA Power Networks said it had “been advised the interconnector was available again and we are gradually restoring power”.

“SA Power Networks does not generate electricity, we are reliant on upstream supply.

“In this case, the loss of capacity from Victoria resulted in automatic load shedding to avoid wider issues.

The suburbs affected at 12.20am showed a big drop in the number without power.
The suburbs affected at 12.20am showed a big drop in the number without power.

“Supply from Victoria is part of the mix of generation sources that meet our electricity needs.”

It was not clear if the loss of the Victorian interconnector was related to the storm activity across that state.

The SA Power Networks website said the blackout was a “direction by the energy regulator to commence rotational load shedding”.

According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, SA experienced a “separation event” and was separated from the national electricity market.

A screenshot from the SA Power Networks at the height of the blackout.
A screenshot from the SA Power Networks at the height of the blackout.

Many people hit Twitter to report the blackout.

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Original URL: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/widespread-power-blackout-hits-adelaide/news-story/f43beca5199964b6d9666ca16c58ea03