The great blackout of 2016

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Apparently it has now been established the black outs were actually to do with Melbourne infrastructure overload and not what they first suspected.

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treeman said:
Apparently it has now been established the black outs were actually to do with Melbourne infrastructure overload and not what they first suspected.
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"SOUTH Australia’s disastrous power blackout was caused by an overloaded interstate electricity interconnector switching itself off after fierce winds knocked out high-voltage power lines and disconnected wind farms, a preliminary report shows."

Oh Mr Turnbull, what a mess!
 
Oh Mr Weatherill, what a mess!

deaneus brucetiki Elite Crow

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...k=af42fcb0b64033892a3bd09de8e7b628-1475641103

South Australia blackout: interim report makes renewables defence look foolish
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A graph shows the source of electricity supply to South Australia before a blackout. Source: AEMO preliminary report

  • The Australian
  • 12:12PM October 5, 2016
  • A dramatic, sudden loss of wind power generation was the root cause of South Australia’s state wide blackout last week.

And the bulk of damage to high voltage transmission lines that was caused by high winds and paraded as evidence to defend renewables most likely took place after the power had been lost.

These are the major facts contained in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) preliminary report.

More work is needed to flesh out the forensic, time sequenced analysis that has already been conducted.

But there is enough in the interim report to make the rush to defence of renewables mounted by special interest groups and conflicted state governments since the lights went look foolish.

Certainly, the power would not have been lost were it not for the big storm.

And seven big towers were damaged in the lead up to the blackout.

But AEMO said data currently available indicates that the damage to the Davenport to Brinkworth 275 kV line on which 14 towers were damaged “occurred following the SA Black System”.

The big event was a 123 MW reduction in output from North Brown Hill Wind Farm, Bluff Wind Farm, Hallett Wind Farm and Hallett Hill Wind Farm at 16.18.09.

Seconds later there was an 86 MW reduction in output from Hornsdale wind farm and a 106 MW reduction in output from Snowtown Two wind farm.

No explanation was given for the reduction in wind farm output.

But the loss of wind farm production put too much pressure on the electricity interconnector with Victoria which cut off supply.

This in turn led to a shut down at the Torrens Island power station, Ladbroke Grove power station, all remaining wind farms and the Murraylink interconnector.

AEMO says a lot of work is needed to fully explore what happened.

But definitely there are lessons here for putting high levels of intermittent renewable energy into the electricity system.

The speed with which renewable energy spruikers rushed to argue otherwise is a measure of their ideological self interest.
 

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Starting to point in the Wind Turbine direction by the looks.
Loved the comments section..lol :eek:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...k=57350b176402bb1a8676c9a7f1f0475b-1475667003

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Snowtown windfarm in South Australia. Picture: Christopher Russell
SA News
Australian Energy Market Operator orders 10 SA wind farms to limit generation after statewide electricity blackout
Chief Reporter Paul Starick, The Advertiser
October 5, 2016 9:41am
Subscriber only

TEN South Australian wind farms have been ordered to limit generation in the wake of the disastrous statewide power blackout because the national electricity market operator has declared they have not performed properly.

The state’s biggest wind farm, at Snowtown, is among those which the Australian Energy Market Operator has targeted in its “management and analysis” of last Wednesday’s unprecedented power outage as it gradually restores the power network.

The move will prompt further questions over whether renewable energy jeopardised electricity grid stability and triggered the cascading blackout, which started when fierce winds damaged 23 Mid North transmission towers and severed three high-voltage lines.

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Premier Jay Weatherill revealed former police commissioner Gary Burns would lead an independent review into the catastrophic storms and power outage.
Premier Jay Weatherill, who on Tuesday revealed former police commissioner Gary Burns would lead an independent review into the catastrophic storms and power outage, said he expects a preliminary report from the national electricity market operator by late on Wednesday.

The 10 wind farms, all but one in the Mid North, were the subject of a national electricity market notice issued late on Monday night, in which AEMO says it is not satisfied that a failure, or trip, of multiple generators, following another disruption to the grid is “unlikely to re-occur”.

Asked to explain, an AEMO spokesman said it had been established that some South Australian generators “had not performed as AEMO would have expected” but did not say whether this was before or after the statewide blackout.
“While further analysis needs to be undertaken to identify the cause (of the statewide blackout) and any remedial steps, AEMO must continue to manage the power system to avoid any further risk,” the spokesman said, in a statement to The Advertiser.

He said the power grid’s security could be maintained, in the face of a credible perceived threat, by limiting generators’ output or the flow on transmission lines to “minimise the risk of a significant supply/demand imbalance”.

AEMO did not respond to The Advertiser’s questions about whether the wind farms in some way contributed to a cascading power grid shutdown, once the high-voltage pylons were toppled.

Announcing Mr Burns’ appointment, Mr Weatherill said he would examine the circumstances surrounding the storm and consider the state’s plans for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

This would include the loss of about 50 embryos belonging to 12 families when a backup generator failed at Flinders Medical Centre and why a test just two days before the blackout did not identify the fault.

Mr Burns will report by the end of the year on any deficiencies and recommend changes but can issue preliminary findings beforehand, if necessary.
But he will not examine the electricity system, which will be probed by three other inquiries, including one to be triggered by an emergency national energy ministers meeting on Friday to discuss the statewide blackout.

Liberal employment spokesman Corey Wingard on Tuesday declared the Burns inquiry too narrow, saying it would not adequately deal with fundamental questions about the state’s electricity system.

Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis, in a letter to the Australian Energy Market Commission in July, warned issues were already emerging in South Australia in managing the transition to renewable energy and said this prompted the need to assess continued security of the power network.
 
listen to this on Audioboo
 
Mike Smithson was on MMM this morning and summed it up well I thought.

He said yes the storm blew down the towers but the problem is a number of wind farms then shut down afterwards. This meant we were drawing too much power from the interconnector which shut itself down to protect itself.

He also said Jay is struggling to explain this away.
 
Elite Crow said:
Mike Smithson was on MMM this morning and summed it up well I thought.

He said yes the storm blew down the towers but the problem is a number of wind farms then shut down afterwards. This meant we were drawing too much power from the interconnector which shut itself down to protect itself.

He also said Jay is struggling to explain this away.
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For all our arguing about what caused it, the general populace will look at this issue one way:

I had no power -> Weatherill is useless -> when's the election?
 
deaneus said:
For all our arguing about what caused it, the general populace will look at this issue one way:

I had no power -> Weatherill is useless -> when's the election?
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Problem is by the time of the election which is still about a year away it will all be forgotten. That's why I don't like the 4 year election term.
I don't vote liberal but sick of labor. The labor party in South Australia is well loved. I wouldn't mind betting they get in again.


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treeman said:
Problem is by the time of the election which is still about a year away it will all be forgotten. That's why I don't like the 4 year election term.
I don't vote liberal but sick of labor. The labor party in South Australia is well loved. I wouldn't mind betting they get in again.
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Did SA get to vote in a referendum, before 4-year terms were introduced?

The ACT Labor party unilaterally increased their terms from 3 years, to 4 years. No referendum. Which begs the question - what's to stop them from making their terms indefinite, and doing away with elections completely? Andrew Barr could become Dictator for Life!

I, for one, would vote against 4 year terms (even if they are fixed, so they can't change the date to suit their popularity). I like the ability to turf the government out on a regular basis if/when they're not performing.
 
treeman said:
Problem is by the time of the election which is still about a year away it will all be forgotten.
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The irony is not lost on me that we're discussing this on a forum whose existence is predicated upon our preference for bread & circuses...
 
Vader said:
Did SA get to vote in a referendum, before 4-year terms were introduced?

The ACT Labor party unilaterally increased their terms from 3 years, to 4 years. No referendum. Which begs the question - what's to stop them from making their terms indefinite, and doing away with elections completely? Andrew Barr could become Dictator for Life!

I, for one, would vote against 4 year terms (even if they are fixed, so they can't change the date to suit their popularity). I like the ability to turf the government out on a regular basis if/when they're not performing.
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No there was definitely no referendum in SA. I'm assuming it was some sort of vote in parliament.

Yeah same. The thing is when elections come around every 4 labor has done a few good bits and pieces which catch your eye, Adelaide oval looks great. They will be crossing their fingers and toes that the hospital will be done by then which will also look good. Then people think yeah, things looking pretty good, will vote them in again.

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Vader said:
You do realise that the blackout had nothing whatsoever to do with renewables?

Prices are definitely related to renewable energy, and that's a fair complaint. But not the blackout.
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I cant find the source but there was an article I read that the fact SA is largely dependent on renewables meant that the time to get the state back up and running took longer.
 
Big Crow said:
Hi all, long post but hopefully provides some clarification to some points raised within this thread.

Structural and Electrical Engineer here. I have no skin in the game regarding renewable energy, nor politics. It does however piss me off to see misunderstanding peddled as fact, or people just plain making things up, which perpetuates further misunderstanding. People falling over themselves to score political points from an emergency excasserbates this tenfold.

Anyway, let's set a few things straight.

1. The blackout was caused by an issue with transmission. Namely a series of towers falling over in a significant wind event. This has nothing to do with generation, or wind farms, or any other conspiracies.

2. If you want greater reliability then you have to pay for it. Most of these towers are very old, around 50-60 years. To put it simply, the wind event that occurred exceeded the design wind speed for many of these towers, and they failed. Sure, we could strengthen them or even replace the line, but we're talking about hundreds of towers in one feeder and we'd have to pay for that. Regardless of who's in power at North Terrace, there just isn't the public appetite to incur that kind of cost (see point 3). It also wouldn't be worth it for a 1 in 50 year event - in some cases winds may have actually been higher than 1 in 50 levels locally at the site of the towers.

3. If you want greater reliability you have to pay for it (v2.0). Another thing which might help is an extra interconnector to Victoria or NSW. We currently have two - Murraylink and Heywood. Some very clever people have been looking at how best to go about installing another one for a while now, but for now haven't figured out the best way to make it work yet. Once we figure it out, it's probably worth it for better power security.

4. We pay high electricity prices in SA primarily because of the large spread of our transmission network, and comparatively low population. Compare that situation to other states which require less transmission lines to serve more customers. Of course our cost per consumer is higher. No conspiracy here.

5. The power went across the state because the system acted exactly as it is designed to do. Every other state's network is designed the same way, to protect the larger system for damage. Now, getting power back on did take a long time. Remember the interconnectors from point 3? One of them is a DC link, up near Berri. To restart the DC link you need the circuit within to have power, and in our case this comes from the Heywood interconnector. To get the power there, the network has to be turned on again gradually, working around to the DC interconnector. Doing so too quickly results in further outages. Put simply, it's a long way and takes a long time to do safely.

6. Temporary poles/towers. No state has a large amount of emergency infrastructure just sitting around gathering dust. It would be uneconomical and not useful. Western Power (ElectraNet's WA equivalent) are sending us some of theirs, and I believe there are some from Queensland also. ElectraNet would do the same for other utilities if the situation was reversed.
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On point (5) - how do other large states like WA and QLD who experience cyclones avoid this issue? I can understand that steady wins the race but I dont recall such a big and extended outage in other states. Do they just have better redundancy? Would towers being knocked out in these states have the same impact?
 
Realslimshady2 said:
On point (5) - how do other large states like WA and QLD who experience cyclones avoid this issue? I can understand that steady wins the race but I dont recall such a big and extended outage in other states. Do they just have better redundancy? Would towers being knocked out in these states have the same impact?
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They lose power, but they only lose it locally. Helps that their power network (i.e. the users) are more decentralised - there's no individual line (or set of lines) carrying 40% of the state's entire load.
 
Realslimshady2 said:
On point (5) - how do other large states like WA and QLD who experience cyclones avoid this issue? I can understand that steady wins the race but I dont recall such a big and extended outage in other states. Do they just have better redundancy? Would towers being knocked out in these states have the same impact?
Click to expand...
From a network point of view, this:
Vader said:
They lose power, but they only lose it locally. Helps that their power network (i.e. the users) are more decentralised - there's no individual line (or set of lines) carrying 40% of the state's entire load.
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I would also hazard a guess to add that mining activity in some remote areas of these two states has resulted in significant investment in power infrastructure upgrades to these places, lessening the effect of the network spread.

Regarding the structural side of things, towers in a cyclonic zone would be designed against significantly higher wind speeds. These structures would see significant wind events much more often, so it makes sense to build them to withstand higher wind speeds. Because we would rarely see those type of speeds here, it is not economical to design for them.

I've heard some people complaining (I don't mean you) about how Queensland doesn't have the same issues and they have these kind of wind speeds all the time, so why SA? Ironically the answer is in their question.
 
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http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...k=933a29f7d258d407dd9a65530f6409b5-1475973099

Chris Kenny: Jay Weatherill is ignoring the practical for the delusional with South Australia’s energy crisis
Chris Kenny, Sunday Mail (SA)
October 8, 2016 10:30pm
Subscriber only
Jay Weatherill is hellbent on an ideological crusade to lead the world in wind power – and bugger the consequences. His mission from Gaia is paid for by all South Australians.

In order for Weatherill to strut his renewable energy stuff in Paris and accept the plaudits of the green-left crowd he has to impose the highest electricity prices in the nation.

And worst of all, as everyone now can see, he has jeopardised supply by undermining the state’s energy security.

This is delusional and ideological. It is not practical or rational.

Because of its small population, the state cannot have an impact on the planet’s atmosphere. Global carbon emissions are still rising and even if SA shut down permanently, it would not reverse the trend.

The emissions saved over a full year by SA’s 40 per cent renewable energy share are dwarfed within weeks by just the growth in emissions from China – whose carbon emissions are about 300 times greater than SA’s and rising.
Weatherill’s renewable plan is therefore – on any rational basis – a Green-Left gesture that cannot help the planet.

It is not a plan to save the planet, it is a plan to make people feel good by pretending they are saving the planet.

While China, India and the United States burn coal and gas, we fiddle.

One of Australia’s great natural advantages has been its abundant and cheap energy. Our coal, gas and uranium resources are the envy of the world.

Yet people like Weatherill, Bill Shorten, Richard Di Natale, and far too many Liberals as well, want us to pay more to have virtuous but unreliable wind energy while we export our coal and gas to give others cheap and reliable power.

Plenty of other politicians in western liberal democracies play the same silly game – including many from right-of-centre parties – because to point out the absurdity is to risk being called climate deniers.


But these realities are equally true whether you assess climate change as the greatest threat to the world or the greatest beat-up.

Weatherill has become a world leader in this game of environmental cant. He has made SA one of the world’s most renewable-reliant economies, forced coal and gas power stations to shut down, pushed up prices and plunged his state into darkness.

Let’s hope it makes him feel warm inside.

There were clear reasons anyone who has followed this issue was able to apportion some of the blame for the statewide blackout to the Labor government as soon as it happened.

The renewable push has mothballed the coal-fired baseload generators and much of the gas generation, making SA more reliant than ever on the interconnector to Victoria.

So as soon as the whole state was hit by the interconnector failing, the state’s poor energy planning was under the gun.
Anatomy of a statewide blackout
Before it closed its coal-fired plants at Port Augusta, Alinta approached the State Government to ask whether they might offer incentives to keep the stations in operation to maintain security of supply. The government brushed them off.

It would have been laughable to be subsidising generators that were being forced out by renewable subsidies but, still, this offer demonstrates the government’s failure to adequately consider energy security.

It gets worse. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s initial report shows the impact of renewables on the blackout might have been much greater than just pushing reliance onto the interconnector.

The sudden loss of 315MW of wind energy – not the collapse of transmission towers in the Mid North - actually triggered the interconnector’s failure. (Indeed, 14 of the 22 felled transmission towers came down after the blackout.)

And following the unprecedented statewide blackout, wind energy was next to useless when it came to restarting the system.
Wind energy doesn’t provide the stable synchronous power required to re-energise the system, so that was left to one generator – gas-fired Torrens Island.

Labor was warned about all this 13 years ago when then Essential Services Commissioner Lew Owens warned about the “acceptable amount of wind energy that we can tolerate within the electricity system without causing major operational problems” in the network. But Mike Rann and his successor, Weatherill, ploughed on.

Now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a renewables enthusiast, is warning other states not to charge down this path. Shorten’s policy is to take the nation to 50 per cent renewable energy.

Imagine the shambles. Imagine the cost.

The sobering facts cannot be denied: if SA had no wind energy and had stayed with its existing coal and gas-fired plants, electricity would be cheaper and more reliable – and the planet would not be the slightest bit worse off.
 
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