Victoria’s power supply was plunged into chaos after a storm triggered the South Australian interconnector to shut down, cutting electricity to the state’s giant Portland aluminium smelter and forcing the national power operator to find emergency supplies to keep the lights on amid heatwave conditions.
The summer’s biggest power crisis started after six major transmission towers in western Victoria fell over in a storm early on Friday afternoon during extreme weather that knocked out the electricity interconnector and left South Australia separated from the national power market.
Electricity demand in Victoria and NSW soared near record levels as temperatures remained high throughout Friday night, leading to an emergency hunt for extra power supplies in both states to avoid blackouts.
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The loss of any more generation or further transmission outages may lead to load shedding in both states, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator, as part of a process that deliberately shuts down power to parts of the network.
NSW’s Tomago aluminium smelter outside Newcastle, which consumes 10 per cent of the state’s power each year, shut down one of its potlines on Friday night in response to the tight conditions and lamented the fragility of the market during peak conditions.
“We are just seeing the lack of supply in the market,” Tomago chief executive Matt Howell said. “We desperately need more baseload power so we’re not in this situation going forward.”
In Victoria the Alcoa-owned Portland smelter managed to resume operations after securing an urgent supply fix with Origin Energy and ElectraNet, avoiding a potentially catastrophic shutdown of the plant that relies on an around-the-clock supply of electricity.
The state’s damaged transmission lines are expected to be out of service until February 14, AEMO said, although the extent of damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed.
Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Queensland gained access to 1500 megawatts of power reserves to cover the risk of high temperatures and unplanned generation outages and ensure compulsory load shedding is avoided during periods of peak demand.
Two-thirds of the supply is for Victoria and South Australia and the remainder covering NSW and Queensland to cover risks to the grid.
AEMO had earlier on Friday called for households to reduce their electricity usage between 1pm and 8pm in a bid to avert forced outages.
Electricity demand is forecast to hit its highest levels since January 2014 due to the combination of heat and humidity.
Consumers have been urged to use air conditioners only at higher temperatures, avoid running dishwashers and switching off pool pumps.
“As a result of damage to multiple transmission towers in Western Victoria, extremely high demand levels caused by high temperatures across southeast Australia, and multiple generation outages, both NSW and Victoria are in an actual lack of reserve 2 condition and emergency reserves have been activated in both states,” AEMO said on Friday night.
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