The arrival of summer in Australia is heralded by some time-honoured traditions: putting up the Christmas tree, the sound of Test cricket on the radio and the now traditional pre-Christmas alarm about the risk of blackouts.

Blackouts – the sudden and unexpected loss of electricity supply – remain an annoying, and sometimes expensive, reality in every electricity system in the world. While Australian energy politics is still scarred by the entire state of South Australia going dark in September 2016, we’re not alone.