Station blackouts add to ‘once in lifetime’ power failure across state
A political battle is brewing over Friday’s electricity meltdown, which has been labelled a once-in-a-10-year event. Power bosses are now blaming former premier Jeff Kennett for the widespread outages.
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Power bosses have branded Friday’s electricity meltdown a “one-in-10-year” event amid a political stoush over why the system failed.
The state government pointed the finger at former premier Jeff Kennett’s privatisation of electricity providers.
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The Australian Energy Market Operator, which operates the nation’s power market, said it had no choice but to switch off sections of the grid to avoid a mass power failure.
About 200,000 homes and businesses were left without power on Friday amid extreme heat. Only a handful were still affected yesterday.
Coal generation blackouts at Victoria’s Yallourn and Loy Yang A power stations added to the electricity woes.
“It was that one-in-10-year day,’’ a spokesman for the national operator said. “Even if we had half the generation available we were expecting, (Friday) wouldn’t have happened.”
Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government was not to blame.
“We know it was frustrating and uncomfortable for those who lost power,” she said.
“It was one of the hottest days since Black Saturday and the old, dirty, brown-coal power plants that Jeff Kennett privatised failed.”
The power shortages demonstrated the importance of the Andrews Government’s program of providing solar panel rebates to households, she said.
“It shows why our Solar Homes program and renewable energy targets are so desperately needed — they will boost supply of reliable, affordable clean energy, helping to protect us from what we saw (on Friday).”
EnergyAustralia executive of energy Mark Collette, whose organisation owns the Yallourn power station, said it was disappointing to see customers left without power.
Regular maintenance at the Yallourn plant meant one of its four units was offline.
Another went offline late on Thursday with a boiler tube leak.
Friday’s failures sparked chaos, with businesses forced to close and people sweltering without airconditioning as the mercury soared past 40C.
A Mornington aged care worker, who was stuck in a lift for 40 minutes when the power was cut, called the move to switch off some properties without warning “disgraceful”.
“It was so hot in there and I felt like I was going to die. If a resident was in the lift with me, they definitely would not have survived.”
The government pledged to work with AEMO to ensure energy reserves were secure.
Mr Kennett was contacted for comment.
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