The perilous state of Australia’s electricity network is obvious

The perilous state of Australia’s electricity network is obvious when a seemingly simple underground cable fault in suburban Sydney can send shivers through the entire energy industry writes Nathan Vass.

• Power outages hits 45,000 in eastern suburbs
• No end in sight for Sydney blackouts as hot weather causes power stations to break down

The perilous state of Australia’s electricity network is obvious when a seemingly simple underground cable fault in suburban Sydney can send shivers through the entire energy industry.

About 45,000 homes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs lost power due to a fault in an underground cable yesterday.

Crews responded to several lift rescues during a power outage in Sydney’s eastern suburbs yesterday. Picture: FRNSW

The timing was critical as AEMO had estimated NSW faced a shortage of 283MW on Thursday, placing extra stress on the network.

The reality is, with the national grid unable to hold up under demand pressures in the summer heat, every system malfunction, no matter how small, is now potentially disastrous for families and business, because there is so little capacity in the network to cover breakdowns.

Nathan Vass

That extra capacity is no longer there because 10 coal-fired power stations across the country have been removed from the grid over the past decade. And renewables, which will play a vital role in a cleaner energy future, just don’t feature in the conversation when it comes to providing affordable and reliable baseload power. If they did, South Australia would have the most reliable network in the country. On Thursday, imports from Queensland provided more generation than either wind or solar in NSW.

This finely balanced position means when something goes wrong, it will go very wrong.

When hospitals are forced to revert to their backup generators and traffic lights are out, things have gone very wrong.

Going forward, the national energy grid is only going to face more pressure because February tends to be hotter and electricity demand increases as people return to work and school.

But of more concern is the impending closure of the Liddell coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley. Liddell will be shut down in just three years, taking yet more capacity from the grid. There is no like-for-like replacement planned.

Earlier this month, however, Delta Energy announced a proposal to build two new high-efficiency low-emissions (HELE) coal-fired power stations, with one planned for the Hunter Valley.

The national energy grid is only going to face more pressure because February tends to be hotter. Picture: Brendan Esposito

A new HELE coal-fired station to replace Liddell will ensure the state is not left with a generation gap and would help NSW avoid the mess Victoria and South Australia are currently in. Something which just can’t be achieved with renewables.

Already, the NSW renewable energy mix has showed how unreliable it is. During the blackout, more of the generation shortfall was made up by importing electricity from Queensland and Victoria than was generated by solar and wind combined.

While the blackout was ultimately attributable to a network fault, the fact remains such occurrences could become regular events once Liddell is closed without a like-for-like replacement.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which operates the energy market across most of mainland Australia and Tasmania, anticipates that once Liddell is taken offline 200,000 homes in the state could be subjected to rolling blackouts.

On the other hand, a new HELE coal-fired power station to replace Liddell, such as the one proposed by Delta Energy, would provide the state with cheap and dependable power, ensuring NSW doesn’t end up with rolling blackouts as in South Australia and Victoria.

Nathan Vass is founder of the Australian Power Project, a leading advocacy group calling for a balanced and sustainable approach to achieving a clean energy future

Originally published as The perilous state of Australia’s electricity network is obvious