Homes and businesses without power, repairs to take weeks

With thousands of homes and businesses still without power and the AusNet outage site ‘overwhelmed’ with demand for answers, here’s what happened.

WIld weather brought down powerline towers near Anakie. Picture: Alison Wynd

No. This was a freak event brought about by wild weather that forecasters had not expected to be so destructive.

No. This was a freak event brought about by wild weather that forecasters had not expected to be so destructive.

What caused the power outage?

Loy Yang is Victoria’s largest electricity generator, and its Loy Yang A went offline about 2pm (AEDT) Tuesday after the state was hit by a storm that brought strong winds, heavy rains and lightning.

The storm felled critical transmission lines that carry electricity from power stations across the state and eventually to homes and businesses with six high-voltage power transmission lines damaged.

An earlier unrelated partial outage at Victoria’s second largest generator, EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn exacerbated the issues.

What happened in the power outage? (explaining different plants)

Meteorologists had warned of a storm and it hit the state around early afternoon.

The first impact came when it damaged a critical transmission line that carries electricity from the state’s largest electricity generator, Loy Yang A, which is owned by AGL Energy.

Without Loy Yang, the market operator had to order distribution companies to switch off power to 90,000 homes and businesses to protect the wider grid in a practice known as load shedding.

But the storm caused more damage to distribution lines, which carry electricity to homes and businesses with another 400,000 odd homes and businesses were disconnected due to other storm damage.

Who is affected by the power outage?

At it peak disruption about 530,000 homes and businesses were without power but by 7.30am on Wednesday, AEMO said approximately 285,500 homes and businesses are still without power in Victoria.
AEMO said Victoria’s electricity distribution businesses provided the following outage numbers as at 7am.

AusNet Services

Outer east, outer northern Melbourne, eastern and north-eastern Vic = 236,901

CitiPower

Melbourne CBD and inner suburbs = 12,400

Jemena

North-west Melbourne = 4

Powercor Australia

Outer western suburbs of Melbourne, and central and western Vic = 11,715

United Energy

South-east Melbourne, and Mornington Peninsula =24,572

The damage is across the state and authorities are working to repair the damage to distribution lines, which are typically easier to fix.

As of 12 noon (AEDT) about 250,000 homes and businesses are without electricity. At 1.30pm AusNet said it had about 168,000 customers off supply and that it had already restored 170,000 customers since the start of the incident.

When will power be restored?

AGL Energy says it will restore full operations at its Loy Yang coal power station within 24 hours.
An exact timetable for power restoration to homes is difficult.

It deepens on the extent of the damage and AEMO has warned a full restoration could take days if not weeks.
According to the AusNet outage tracker, hundreds of faults are still ‘awaiting assessment’ across the state. At 8pm on Wednesday, AusNet said 104,000 of its customers were still without power. It anticipated 48,000 customers would have their power back on by 6pm on Thursday and another 50,000 customers by 6pm on Saturday.

How much power does Victoria feed into the grid?

The grid is a generic term to describe the electricity system. Victoria has three coal power stations, Loy Yang A, EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn coal power station and Alinta’s Loy Yang B. Yallourn is partially offline due to an unrelated fault, with Loy Yang A - first impacted by the storm - will be fully operational within the next day.

Will energy prices be affected?

Loy Yang A’s trip caused wholesale electricity prices to spike exponentially.

Wholesale prices hit a cap of $16,600/MWh on Tuesday afternoon, but fell back to normal levels on Wednesday.

The spike is likely to have some small impact when new price tariffs (that flow to households) are implemented on July 1.

It’s too soon to say what the longer term impact will be other than any further escalation will have a larger impact on prices.

Prolonged high wholesale prices will cause higher bills, which authorities are desperate to avoid after two years of price increases of more than 20 per cent.

Storm damage in Clayton Rd, Clayton. Wednesday, February 14. 2024. Picture: David Crosling

What should I do if I have no power?

Authorities are working round the clock to repair but supplies will remain offline for some days.
AusNet says that due to “extremely high volumes” of traffic, its Outage Tracker is experiencing slow loading times.
“We have a temporary solution supporting customers to find outages impacting them. Our Facebook page will be updated with the latest information,” it says.
“Ensure your mobile number is up to date with your retailer so we can send you updates directly by SMS over the coming days.”

How do I contact AusNet?

AusNet said it wase “prioritising restoration to the backbone of our network that will restore the most amount of customers at a time. We plan to communicate directly with customers via SMS (on) their estimated restoration times later today (Wednesday)”.
Outage tracker

https://ausnetservices.my.salesforce-sites.com/OutageTracker/

Report a fault:

https://www.ausnetservices.com.au/outages/report-a-faul

Originally published as Homes and businesses without power, repairs to take weeks