The great blackout of 2016

[Deaneus!]

Mind you we could arrange to have Adele & AFL... before an Ashes test.

I know, in the same year, it's cray cray

 

[DD#23]

Jay is streaming live on Facebook if anyone's interested, doesn't seem to be taking too many questions though, seems content reading out what's written down.

 

[Deaneus!]

Jay is streaming live on Facebook if anyone's interested, doesn't seem to be taking too many questions though, seems content reading out what's written down.

Somebody tell Shane Yeend

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

Somebody tell Shane Yeend

Or Josh frydenberg...

 

[Bicks]

Are they serious?.....
http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2017/03/23/govt-asks-own-corporation-to-buy-victoria-square-hq/

Govt asks own corporation to buy Victoria Square HQ

EXCLUSIVE | The State Government has asked one of its own corporations, led by former Treasurer Kevin Foley, to buy the State Administration Centre following repeated failures to sell it on the private market. InDaily can reveal that the Government has been in discussions Funds SA, whose chairman is Foley, about the potential for the state-owned corporation to buy the Victoria Square government headquarters. The Government has been trying to sell the building – which contains the Premier’s office – for almost a decade, as a means to reduce state budget debt. InDaily asked the Government whether Funds SA had been encouraged to acquire the building.
A spokesperson responded that the Government was “taking a strategic look at options for the State Administration Centre precinct (SAC)” and: “among options, the Department of Treasury and Finance has spoken to Funds SA about the possibility of them acquiring the SAC”. “Any offer, if made, would be subject to Funds SA’s own independent assessment processes.”

 

[Bicks]

 

[WCE1987]

I could be wrong but in school I learnt in the 3 stages of government that electricity is a State decision. Why does Jay keep going off at federal government?

 

[Vader]

I could be wrong but in school I learnt in the 3 stages of government that electricity is a State decision. Why does Jay keep going off at federal government?

Because many of the decisions which affect it are made at the federal level. For example, and Emissions Trading Scheme, and the National Energy Market. Neither of these are state decisions.

It's a complicated mess. Private Industry have screwed things up, by treating energy as a commodity to be traded - rather than a necessity, and failing to invest in sufficient future capacity (i.e. new generators). The SA government has stuffed up, by moving to a high percentage of renewable energy before the technology was sufficiently mature to provide a stable base load power source. The Federal Government has stuffed up, by not providing any policy guidance whatsoever, which is required if private industry is to make long term investment decisions.

None of the 3 parties come out of this looking good.

 

[Elite Crow]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...s/news-story/ca732a75640953e97e65308226ad3236

Bicks please post for Kristof, looks like he owes Malcolm an apology

 

[kirky]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...s/news-story/ca732a75640953e97e65308226ad3236

Bicks please post for Kristof, looks like he owes Malcolm an apology

Well another paper, another view. Apology not required according to this report.

http://indaily.com.au/news/local/20...report Wind farm blame down to a technicality

 

[Elite Crow]

Well another paper, another view. Apology not required according to this report.

http://indaily.com.au/news/local/2017/03/28/blackout-final-report-wind-farm-blame-down-to-a-technicality/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=28 March 2017&utm_content=28 March 2017+CID_a5d26ee2f14dbf1cf18d08262387c793&utm_source=&utm_term=Blackout final report Wind farm blame down to a technicality

So if we didn't have the wind farms we would have still been blacked out?

 

[Vader]

Reading those report summaries, it appears that the problem was not a lack of generating capacity - it was a software setting which took the wind generation systems offline due to system faults caused by the transmission towers going down.

 

[Bicks]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...s/news-story/ca732a75640953e97e65308226ad3236

Bicks please post for Kristof, looks like he owes Malcolm an apology

Final AEMO report explains how South Australian blackout happened and makes 19 recommendations

A LOSS of power from wind farms and tripping of the interconnector to Victoria combined to collapse the stability of SA’s network and deliver the statewide blackout, a new report has found. The report makes a total of 19 recommendations aimed at safeguarding the overall grid. “The generation mix now includes increased amounts of non-synchronous (wind) and inverter-connected plant,” the report states. “This generation has different characteristics to conventional plant, and uses active control systems, or complex software, to ride through disturbances. “With less synchronous generation (coal and gas) online, the system is experiencing more periods with low inertia and low available fault levels, so AEMO is working with industry on ways to use the capability of these new types of power generation to build resilience.” The report says the cascade of events began with a storm that brought winds up to 260kmh, which brought down major transmission lines in the state’s north and shook the grid. Nine wind farms out of 13 operating at the time then shut down, pulling 456MW out of the system in seven seconds and resulting in a surge in draw over the Victorian interconnector. The interconnector than failed due to huge extra demand, leaving SA to fend for itself. At that point, frequency in the SA power island collapsed and sent the state black. “Approximately 700 milliseconds after the reduction of output from the last of the wind farms, the flow on the Victoria — SA Heywood Interconnector reached such a level that it activated a special protection scheme that tripped the interconnector offline,” the report finds. “The SA power system then became separated, “islanded”, from the rest of the NEM. “The remaining generation was much less than the connected load and unable to maintain the islanded system frequency. As a result, all supply to the SA region was lost at 4.18pm (EST).”

Still doesn't explain the subsequent power outage events that happened after the major September 28 blackout.

 

[DD#23]

Still doesn't explain the subsequent power outage events that happened after the major September 28 blackout.

two completely unrelated scenarios as far as I've been able to tell.

the subsequent power outages earlier this year were due to supply shortages, unlike the state wide one, which was essentially a case of blowing a fuse.

its no secret that SA alone is not self-sufficient when it comes to power supply, but the murky aspect is that the grid is setup so that energy can be shifted all over the place - so our shortfall can be "made up" by Victoria as you know, and similarly NSW can send power to Victoria and so on - back to the murky part though, all this trading of energy is manipulated by the private energy sector to drive prices up when their number one priority should be to keep the lights on for everyone.

 

[Bicks]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/wind-farm-settings-to-blame-for-sa-blackout-aemo-says/8389920

Well my read on it is if the Port Augusta Power Station and gas powered Power Stations [Baseload] were still operating this may have been averted.

AEMO said unforeseen separation and complete loss of the Heywood Interconnector has occurred six times in the past 17 years.

PHOTO: SA's generation mix before the blackout. (Supplied: AEMO Black System SA report)


But in every other instance, the system stayed alive.
"The key differentiator between the 28 September 2016 event and the other three events is that there was significantly lower inertia in SA in the most recent event, due to a lower number of on-line synchronous generators," the report said.
"This resulted in a substantially faster rate of change of frequency compared to the other events, exceeding the ability of the under-frequency load-shedding scheme to arrest the frequency fall before it dropped below 47Hz."
Synchronous generators include coal, gas and hydro.
The state's last coal generator, at Port Augusta, closed last year.
Some gas generators have been mothballed, or used sparingly, especially in circumstances when the state's wind and solar power output is high.
Immediately before the blackout, wind had been producing almost half of South Australia's power needs, with much of the remainder being imported from Victoria.
South Australia's thermal generators (gas and diesel) had only been outputting about 18 per cent of the state's power needs.

 

[DD#23]

do we have a number for the maximum capacity of the Heywood Interconnector?

almost need a bloody wiki page to keep track of all this.

 

[Bicks]

do we have a number for the maximum capacity of the Heywood Interconnector?

almost need a bloody wiki page to keep track of all this.

Reading the ABC article there had been similar events [6] in the previous 17 years and the state had been able to ride through them because of SA based baseload [Port Augusta PS and Torrens Island Gas PS etc]. Least that's my take on it.

 

[Vader]

Reading the ABC article there had been similar events [6] in the previous 17 years and the state had been able to ride through them because of SA based baseload [Port Augusta PS and Torrens Island Gas PS etc]. Least that's my take on it.

And if it happened again, the state would probably now be able to ride through it. The problem was that AEMO wasn't aware of the software trip settings installed in the wind generators' software. They're now aware of it, and have changed the settings to prevent a recurrence.

 

[Bicks]

And if it happened again, the state would probably now be able to ride through it. The problem was that AEMO wasn't aware of the software trip settings installed in the wind generators' software. They're now aware of it, and have changed the settings to prevent a recurrence.

Please not February 2016 Weatherill was warned before the September 28 event...

 

[Vader]

do we have a number for the maximum capacity of the Heywood Interconnector?

almost need a bloody wiki page to keep track of all this.

I think I've seen 600MW mentioned somewhere.

 

[Bicks]

I think I've seen 600MW mentioned somewhere.

Hazelwood PS final shut down this Friday...

 

[Bicks]

 

[Bicks]

And this, re September 28 2016 Total Blackout...Forewarned is Forearmed unless you're Jay & Tom..

 

[DD#23]

I think I've seen 600MW mentioned somewhere.

that's what I though too, so based on Bicks' pie chart that means we were essentially at max capacity for assistance right?

so Weatherill's claim that we could have avoided load shedding if only they switched on another generator in NSW is bullshit, because we were unable to receive any extra power anyway...

going a bit early here, hope I haven't missed anything.

 

[Bicks]

Meanwhile, whilst all this is happening the one inevitable certain outcome for consumers...