Investigation launched into major blackout that plunged Darwin, Palmerston and parts of Katherine into the dark

AN investigation is underway into the hours-long black out that affected most places north of Katherine yesterday, says Essential Services Minister Eva Lawler.

Essential Services Minister Eva Lawler addresses the media at a press conference about the massive blackout that affected Darwin, Palmerston and parts of Katherine yesterday. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

• Top End businesses lose stock, forced to close early due to blackout
• ‘Gas supply interruption’ at Channel Island caused major blackout in the Top End
• List of suburbs affected by the mass power outage across the Top End
• Power outages across Darwin suburbs, Palmerston and Katherine, according to Power and Water

AN investigation is underway into the hours-long black out that affected most places north of Katherine yesterday, says Essential Services Minister Eva Lawler.

A one-off blunder during routine maintenance has been blamed for the widespread outage.

“T Gen will look at the root cause of the breakdown,” Ms Lawler said.

“It is unacceptable to have our power go off, it’s not something that any of us want to see,”

Ms Lawler said the investigation would look into how the supply of gas was stopped to the power station at Channel Island.

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APA Group, the company that owns the pipelines that supply gas to Channel Island Power Station, confirmed that during routine maintenance on Wednesday a “one-off technical issue” had caused gas supply to be temporarily interrupted to the power station.

Almost instantly, at 3.53pm, suburbs across Darwin, Palmerston and as far south as Katherine went dark as the interconnected grid that supplies the region ran out of electricity.

She said the power had been restored as quickly as possible, but noted the headache it had caused for thousands.

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“It was a busy time at night. It was knock-off time for a lot of our public servants, (and) a lot of Territorians heading home experienced traffic lights that were out, so about 34 traffic lights out across the area between Darwin and Katherine,” she said.

“So thank you to the police who went to those intersections to make sure that the impact was minimal.”

Follow @JudithAisthorpe