Light your candles (safely) and sit tight, South Australians
The brunt of the thunderstorms have moved through Adelaide (for now) so we’ll switch off our live coverage of the South Australian storms here.
Another bought of severe weather, that “intense and deep low pressure system” is due to hit Kangaroo Island in the early hours of Thursday morning and reach Adelaide by midday. Hopefully the power will be back on by then.
This is the situation at the moment:
- The power is still officially out across all of South Australia, although it has reportedly come back online in some small, discrete areas.
- The outage was caused by a particularly severe weather event in the mid-north region of the state that “destroyed” five or six transmission towers, causing the entire state network to “trip” and shut down around 3.48pm local time.
- This apparently occurred to isolate the problem to South Australia rather than have it affect the whole national electricity network and was “the system protecting itself,” according to SA premier, Jay Weatherill.
- South Australians have been urged to remain in their homes and off the roads until power is restored, and to take care using old power sources like candles and kerosene lamps.
- People who rely on electricity for medical equipment were urged to go to a their nearest hospital. The state’s public hospital network was running on backup power.
- The storm itself caused considerable damage and the State Emergency Service has received more than 400 calls for assistance.
- Weatherill is scheduled to provide another update at 9.30pm.
In the mean time, build your blanket fort, eat the perishable items in your fridge, and sit tight, South Australian friends. The power will be back on “in the not too distant future”.
Here’s the South Australian opposition leader.
SA emergency services doing a mighty job in extraordinary conditions.
— Steven Marshall, MP (@marshall_steven) September 28, 2016
Serious questions must now be answered by Weatherill & Koutsantonis.
And a note from the offices of the Adelaide Advertiser, who will at some point tonight try to print a paper on backup power.
Groans as the newsroom falls into total darkness. Cheers as the power comes back on in earnest #newsADL #SAStorms
— Greg Barila (@GregBarila) September 28, 2016
Bit of a weird one, this.
Police say there are people stuck in lifts because of #AdelaideStorm power outage but can't give specific details @abcnewsAdelaide
— Angelique Donnellan (@AngeDonnellan) September 28, 2016
The hoards of South Australians apparently trapped in immobile lifts was mentioned on 7.30 too but I have not been able to verify it.
Power outage more the fault of wind than wind power, says Frydenberg
Federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg, has just wrapped up an interview with the ABC’s 7.30 program, in which he was asked what impact South Australia’s reliance on wind energy - it gets 41% of its electricity from renewables - could have had on the outage.
Frydenberg’s answer was inconclusive. He appeared to suggest that the frequency of wind power as opposed to “traditional” baseload power like coal and gas could affect the stability of the system. (However SA premier Jay Weatherill, when that exact proposition was put to him earlier this evening, rejected it out of hand.)
Here’s Frydenberg:
Questions are raised by the virtue of the increasing amount of renewables. But it has to be underlined that this was a weather event which led to this occurrence. So this major storm damage had led to a number of different events across the system which presented this blackout that we now have.
Earlier in the interview, he said the full extent of the problem was not known, but:
...we do know that transmission towers were blown over in the north. We do know that there’s been a lightening strike at a power station and the combination of these events and, indeed, other events has led to a frequency surge, an electricity surge, across the inter-connector (which connects SA power to Victorian power), which then forced it to shut down as a matter of safety and to protect people and to protect the equipment.
He was asked about Weatherill’s analysis that the South Australian power network had been shut down as a result of automatic checks put in place by the national energy operator, which triggered the system to “protect itself.”
That was part of a combination of events, Frydenberg said, a perfect storm in more ways than one, that impacted the power grid across SA.
He said power had already begun to be restored in “some very small areas” and that he was “confident that the power will be restored in the not too distant future.”
Further to last: just because ‘000’ is working, doesn’t mean you should call it unless you’re in a genuine emergency.
The South Australian community is advised to only call Triple 000 for an emergency ambulance in a genuine life threatening emergency. pic.twitter.com/1zuKuHTLBQ
— SA Ambulance CEO (@jasonkillens) September 28, 2016
Also at that press conference was State Emergency Services chief officer Chris Beattie.
Beattie said emergency services had responded to 400 calls for assistance in the past 12 hours and would continue to do so, despite the power outages.
We had planned for the worst and hoped for the best... the power outage has thrown a considerable spanner in the works.
For those having trouble using their phones, he said Telstra was running its towers on batteries or back up generators and calls to Triple-0 were not affected, unless of course the caller’s mobile phone has already died, in which case he suggested heading to the nearest emergency services building.
Just on that storm damage, here are some of the images from Blyth, 150km north of Adelaide.
Devastation in Blyth. Roofs ripped from homes and church. Trees down all over the place. @abcnewsAdelaide @abcnews pic.twitter.com/KgKGXSO92Y
— Tom Fedorowytsch (@tomfed) September 28, 2016
'This is the system protecting itself'
According to that update from Jay Weatherill, the power outage was caused by severe weather which essentially destroyed electricity transmission towers in five locations, mainly around the Mid North, Port Augusta, and Whyalla areas.
That sudden disruption, he said, caused the frequency across the network to drop dramatically which in turn triggered an automatic shutdown.
Had that shut down not been triggered, he said, it would have caused a massive network-wide instability, “instability which can potentially put at risk the whole system including the whole electricity market in Australia.” Which would obviously have been bad.
The system, he said, “protects itself” by “tripping all the generators” which can’t then be turned back on without going through a fairly lengthy process. He was unwilling to speculate exactly how long it would take.
Weatherill said this had nothing to do with the quality or not of SA’s electricity infrastructure, and said it would have happened the same way “anywhere in the world.”
It’s basically a dramatic event which has destroyed a piece of infrastructure which has caused a dramatic change in frequency… this is the system protecting itself.
Weatherill said comments from Xenophon and others speculating about the cause of the outage were inappropriate.
For people to be saying those things without being appraised of all the facts means that people are using this to play politics rather than engaging with the state emergency.
This would have happened with the Port Augusta Power station in place. This is a break in the electricity transmission system which happened near Port Augusta, which has tripped the system.
To my rudimentary knowledge of electricity, it sounds like SA blew a fuse and they’re going through that annoying process of trying to figure out which light it was that caused the problem before they flick all the switches back on again.
SA premier Jay Weatherill is addressing the media now. His explanation for the power outage is rather technical and involves the system being “tripped” and dramatic changes in frequency, so I’ll get to that in detail in a moment.
A number of South Australians who are still able to tweet have been sharing ideas about how to spend an electricity-less evening.
On a more serious note, authorities have warned those resorting to things like kerosene lamps and cookers that they need to ensure their rooms are properly ventilated, so they don’t knock themselves out.
Fake Christmas at my place with all our battery fairy lights in use. Sudden craving for fruit cake. #AdelaideStorm
— tiny danza (@snaxolotl) September 28, 2016
Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1816 in #Adelaide #NoPower #Stormageddon
— Melanie Usher (@mjgal) September 28, 2016
There is gonna be a mad baby boom in Adelaide 9 months from now. #AdelaideStorm
— Kristin❄Winterfjord (@LornaViking) September 28, 2016
This will all be sorted out before #TheBacheloretteAU right, @JayWeatherill?? #AdelaideStorm
— Tom Richardson (@TomRichardson) September 28, 2016
In other talkback-based power outage updates, a caller named Dennis rang in to ABC Adelaide to say that he was watching the feature on Channel Seven News about Max Walker, a cricketing great who passed away today.
This was momentarily confusing, until Dennis clarified that he was able to watch television because the power in his suburb of Elizabeth Park was back on. (“Well I wouldn’t be watching TV without power, would I?”)
“All the street lights are on,” said Dennis.
Other areas of SA that reportedly have mains power are some parts of Gawler and Kangaroo Island.
The ABC is reporting that South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, and emergency services minister, Peter Malinauskas, are currently having an emergency meeting to figure out what’s going on.
The ABC also reports that Malinauskas can’t make phone calls because his phone apparently requires constant electricity (we presume he means an office phone, not a mobile phone).
Let’s take a break from the power outages to look at some of the other damage caused by those severe thunderstorms.
ABC reporter Emma Pedler is in Cleave, a small town on the Eyre Peninsula which was one of the worst hit by hail damage earlier today.
For those of you using #AdelaideStorm forgetting 97% of #SouthAustralia is just mean. Love #EyrePeninsula this is a #Cleve roof post hail pic.twitter.com/RvG3fqMPhr
— Emma Pedler (@EmmaPeds) September 28, 2016
Julie Minge from #Cleve says, "just had a huge hail & rain storm pass through the town". This is the damage. #EyrePeninsula #50yearstorm pic.twitter.com/13uhOFIz9H
— Emma Pedler (@EmmaPeds) September 28, 2016
Sophie McInerney shared this photo of hail stones that fell near #Melrose today. #50YearStorm pic.twitter.com/EiRzTzsHp8
— Emma Pedler (@EmmaPeds) September 28, 2016
Back to Nick Xenophon, who put in a call to ABC Adelaide Drive presenter Ian Henschke a little while ago.
He told Henschke that “the press gallery at Parliament House in Canberra is transfixed by what’s happening in our state,” which must be of great comfort to South Australians currently shivering in the dark.
Henschke had a question:
We had a caller before saying that the Victorians were sort of mocking us… is that how it’s been reported outside of Australia?
No, Xenophon said. Mocking SA at this time would be a “low and pathetic act.”
(A note from your correspondent: I have seen a bit of mocking, of the lighthearted have-you-tried-turning-South-Australia-off-and-on-again kind, on the social medias. But that is presumably not the low and pathetic mocking that Xenophon is concerned about.)
Xenophon said he wanted a “full and independent inquiry” into this incident, saying “there doesn’t seem to be enough redundancies built into the system.”
He also expressed concern about “millions of dollars worth of spoiled frozen food,” but said that was a secondary concern to people with health problems who relied on electricity.
This is just staggering that South Australia, in Australia, in 2016, is out of power. I’m really quite shocked by this.
On other potential causes for the power outage, Paul Karp has pointed out this Facebook post from the Australian Services Union, which pointed the finger at the privatisation of state power assets.
From Paul:
The Australian Services Union has coverage of energy and utilities workers, and it has been quick to blame privatisation for degradation of services: “Privatisation of the energy sector leaves governments as toothless tigers, unable to manage change, transition or emergency.”
“Just last year as Alinta headed towards closure, our energy members warned the Government and SA Energy Minister that this would happen at our Energy Roundtable in June last year.
“Alinta Port Augusta power station had black star capacity - that is, it could start up by itself & generate from a full black out. Government officials believed modelling had been done and the State’s energy supply was secure.”
“Governments must heed the warnings and advice of workers, the experts in the field.”
South Australia is likely to remain out of power for "several hours"
That time frame of “several hours” mentioned by Jay Weatherill and electricity providers has been narrowed down to three to five hours by the ABC.
.@SAPowerNetworks says 3-5 hours before power back online in SA. Repairs to network begin. Towers down and lightning strikes caused issues.
— ABC Emergency (@ABCemergency) September 28, 2016
Keep in mind that timeframe is how long it will take for power to start to come back online. Some areas of the state could be in the dark for much longer.
SA senator Nick Xenophon said he had heard the power could be out until 5am. He also blamed the outage on the state’s “reckless” reliance on wind power. I’ll have a bit more from Xenophon soon.
The South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill, has told the ABC the power disruption is linked to an “incident” at Port Augusta earlier this afternoon.
This from AAP:
An incident involving infrastructure near Port Augusta at 3.48pm on Wednesday prompted the failure of the entire SA network, Premier Jay Weatherill says.
The premier says the state’s energy generation assets remain intact and there does not appear to be any damage to the interconnector with Victoria.
The Australian energy market operator has taken control of the system and restoration has begun.
But Mr Weatherill says that could take several hours.
According to the SA Power Networks website about 200,000 properties were without power.
“What we have is essentially a weather event which has damaged some infrastructure,” the premier told ABC radio.
“The system protects itself and protects the assets by closing down because of the sudden surge in the system.”
That accords with a statement from SA power provider ElectraNet, which released a statement at 5.30pm local time saying the storm had “damaged parts of the transmission network” and that it would take “at least several hours” for the power to come back online.
My colleague, Paul Karp, caught Josh Frydenberg’s comments on Sky News. He has provided this report:
Energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, has appeared on Sky News and reassured Australians that hospitals are operating on backup power, according to South Australian energy minister Tom Koutsantonis.
“We’re working together to ensure that all the emergency measures are put in place, so that electricity can be restored to South Australians as soon as possible,” Frydenberg said.
The federal energy minister said there was no estimate yet for how long it would take to get energy re-connected.
“Clearly this extreme weather event has had a dramatic and unfortunate impact on electricity supply into South Australia,” he said, adding “it appears weather events have impacted the inter-connector” to the Victorian network.
It’s not clear at this stage exactly why the power has gone out. Josh Frydenberg, the federal energy minister, has reportedly told Sky News that the outage was caused by “weather events” impacting on the inter-connector between South Australia and Victoria.
.@JoshFrydenbergsays says the weather events have impacted on the inter-connector.
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) September 28, 2016
But ABC Radio has reported that it’s not connected to the inter-connector and that it could possibly be traced back to a severe wind which brought down six high-voltage power lines north of Adelaide, and possibly a lightning strike on another transmission line.
A number of people have commented that it’s the result of SA’s reliance on wind turbines and renewable energy, which was a rather contentious issue recently, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support that.
To sum up: the power is out, we don’t know why, and we don’t know for how long.
SA Power Networks has issued this warning to people who rely on electric medical equipment.
If you rely on power supply for medical equipment be prepared to action your back up plan.
— SA Power Networks (@SAPowerNetworks) September 28, 2016
Severe thunderstorms in the southern half of South Australia have caused the entire state - that’s the entire 984,377km sq area, plus connected islands - to lose power.
SA Power Networks, which manages electricity distribution in the state, said it would be “some time” until the power will be restored. The premier, Jay Weatherill, has urged people not to panic and to remain tethered to their battery-operated radio.
Join us for rolling coverage of the incident.
