This was published 10 months ago
Victorians cut off from power, internet and phone calls for up to a week
The Victorian government warns the energy network must be more resilient after destructive winds tore down transmission towers and blew trees onto power lines, leaving almost 130,000 homes without electricity more than a day later and many facing a week without power or internet.
Authorities believe 41 communities were isolated from public communications on Wednesday and unable to make emergency calls, while Ambulance Victoria had 39 branches without mains power.
Power lines came down in the You Yangs, south-west of Melbourne, following wild wind gusts.Credit: Jason South
Severe winds cut power to half-a-million homes and knocked out six transmission towers in Melbourne’s west on Tuesday, which Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Daniel Westerman said sent “shockwaves through the system”.
This triggered the shutdown of all four units at Loy Yang A power station and an energy shortfall that led to the market shutting 90,000 customers off power to protect the grid. At the same time, up to 530,000 homes across the state were blacked out because of storm damage to local poles and wires.
Asked about the resilience of the state’s power network on Wednesday, Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government initiated a review into the grid in 2021 after devastating storms.
She said the government had accepted all the recommendations of the review but that a national solution for energy resilience was needed.
“Poles and wires just don’t stop at the borders,” she said.
“It does need a national effort and that is something that I have already signalled to my counterpart energy ministers and [federal minister] Chris Bowen last year.”
Bowen on Wednesday said a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation fund to expand the transmission network would make the nation’s electricity supply more resilient as the climate changes.
“We’re experiencing more frequent and more severe extreme weather events due to the changing climate. This shows how critical a resilient and modern grid is to give network operators multiple options for rapidly diverting electricity around different parts of the grid and between states as needed,” Bowen said.
While power was restored to 250,000 homes by Wednesday morning, the outages occurred at the same time as wind-fuelled fires tore through parts of western Victoria.
About 20 properties in the small town of Pomonal – near the Grampians National Park – have been reported destroyed in a blaze on Tuesday, with many residents still in the dark about whether their homes survived.
On the other side of the state, a 50-year-old Gippsland dairy farmer died after being struck by a detached roof while herding cattle about 6pm on Tuesday, according to WorkSafe.
More than 15 health services were without power across Gippsland, Grampians and the Loddon Mallee regions on Wednesday due to the wild weather, but all switched to generator power. More than 30 schools and 46 early childhood providers were closed due to power or access issues, while the Belgrave train line remained suspended between Ringwood and Belgrave.
A VicRoads spokeswoman said approximately 550 traffic lights across the state were affected on Wednesday morning.
Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent said the storms were the “most destructive in years” and it could take up to a week for power to be restored to some communities.
“We need to fully understand the extent of the damage that has occurred and the systems and infrastructure that have to be repaired,” he said.
Nugent said the government was looking at bringing generators to affected towns that could face long waits for power to be restored.
Premier Jacinta Allan, who inspected fire-hit areas of the Grampians on Wednesday, said there was “significant damage” across the state and the government had made arrangements to support communities without power. She said crews were working “street by street” to reconnect homes to the grid.
“It’s only the second catastrophic wind event that we’ve had since the fires of Black Saturday 15 years ago,” Allan said. “It has clearly caused disruptions to the road network, to the power systems.”
The Australian Energy Market Operator, which manages electricity and gas markets nationally, said ongoing power outages were not caused by damage to major transmission lines, but by trees and debris falling on roads and power lines.
As of 4pm Wednesday, 127,743 customers were without power across Victoria and 3104 of these had a medical need to maintain electricity.
Eastern Victoria had the majority of outages with 108,415 customers currently blacked out.
Australian Industry Group director of climate change and energy Tennant Reed, said there would be some allowances in existing funding to repair the network.
“If that were to rise to a level of expense that is unable to be supported in these budgets, then the networks might appeal to the regulator,” he said.
“There's a chance that would be approved and then probably that would not arrive in one big whack, but it is something that would be spread over the next several years.”
The aftermath of Tuesday night’s storm in Clayton, in Melbourne’s south-east.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Reed said the high spot price for electricity during the transmission fault, which hit its limit of $16,600 per megawatt hour, may be indirectly passed on but wouldn’t appear as a line item on bills.
He said questions would be asked about hardening transmission lines to better protect against extreme weather, but that this would come at a cost.
Hardship payments have also been opened for those affected. Anyone who thinks they are eligible should contact their local council, in person at an Emergency Relief Centre or on the phone to Vic Emergency.
Victorian Greens energy transition spokesman Dr Tim Read said the government should introduce a levy on coal-fired power stations to pay for the storm clean-up.
State Opposition Leader John Pesutto said his thoughts and wishes were with people affected by fires and severe weather events, but questioned whether the government was doing enough to prepare the energy system for these disruptions.
Nugent said some telecommunications towers were disrupted by the winds, which reached 157km/h, and emergency services were attempting to contact affected residents.
Telstra reported that 221 towers were affected by outages and 41 communities were potentially isolated from all public telecommunications, including calls to triple zero, as of 4pm Wednesday. Those communities included Kilmore, Nagambie and Avenal in the state’s north-central region and Bright and the King Valley in the north-east.
More than 100 Optus towers remained offline by Wednesday afternoon, mostly due to power outages, while just over 250,000 NBN customers were affected.
At Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island, Kristy Armstrong spent Tuesday night without power and kept her daughters Mia and Phoebe home from school the following morning.
“My phone’s got no service,” she said. “I can’t contact [the school], they can’t contact me.”
Eighty school sites and early childhood services in the state closed because of weather or power outages.
Kristy Armstrong and her daughters Mia and Phoebe at the Cape Woolamai IGA on Phillip Island. They have gas at home and a day off together so they weren’t too concerned.Credit: Penny Stephens
Armstrong, who works at a fish and chip shop, also stayed home from work on Wednesday.
“We lost a lot of produce this morning and last night.”
Corinella resident Paul Tapscott said he was unable to even make a phone call from a Telstra phone booth.
Telecommunications experts have said companies and governments needed to do a better job of responding to natural disasters.
Bass Coast resident Paul Tapscott said the local phone booth was down.Credit: Penny Stephens
RMIT University associate professor Mark Gregory, the former editor of the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, described it as “going around in circles”.
“We get told there’s an outage and they’re going to do something about it as quickly as possible. The issue goes away until next time.”
Gregory said the federal government should step in to ensure telcos provided publicly available data on outages, their causes and the time it took to fix them.
“Are we seeing measurable outcomes? The answer to that is we’re still waiting.”
Tuesday’s mass outage has also triggered a debate about the state’s energy mix. On Wednesday, the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association said gas turbines that could be turned on quickly had supplied up to a third of Victoria’s electricity during the day.
“Victoria’s gas generators prevented a worse outcome from occurring,” chief executive Steve Davies said.
Victoria’s ban on gas connections for new dwellings came into effect on January 1. The state has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.