“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)
***
VICTORIA and South Australia, the two southern Australian states who have taken the most ambitious reckless and ruinous position on UNreliables – wind and solar – were put to the test yesterday as temperatures soared into the 40’s. The result was a perfect failure on the two basic metrics of ‘1st-world’ energy supply – cost and reliability.
VICTORIAN wholesale prices surged to $14,500 per megawatt hour, where prices used to average less than $40 per megawatt hour…
— LaborFAILED (delcon) (@LaborFAIL) January 24, 2019
*
SOME 200,000 Victorian’s didn’t have the ‘pleasure’ of paying $14,500 / MWh, instead they were supplied blackouts, brownouts and load-shedding as the chronic undersupply of ‘real’ power – fossil fuels – was realised…
“More than 200,000 Victorian households had their power cut off yesterday in a bid to protect the state’s energy system from shutting down, as the Andrews government was forced to admit there was not enough power to keep up with soaring demand in sweltering summer heat.”
200,000 homes go dark as heat rises, electricity cut off | The Australian
*
AFTER tens of $BILLIONS spent on symbolic ‘green energy’ – wind only managed to supply a pathetic 4.2% and solar (on a hot, sunny day) 11.4% of demand at 1:30PM as temperatures peaked at 42.8C…
Melbourne power outages: Homes still without power after grid fails in record heat | Herald Sun
*
ANDREWS government was forced to admit there was not enough power to keep up with soaring demand…
1500 MW of vital coal-fired baseload power unable to be called upon when needed most after the energy-vandals of the current Labor (socialist) government forced the shut-down of the Hazlewood coal-fired power plant in 2017.
SEE : Victorian power bills soar after Hazelwood coal plant closure | SMH
*
“DIRTY” Fossil Fuels (Diesel And Gas) To The Rescue, Again!
ONE of the twisted ironies of the insane ‘green’ energy revolution is that it’s always “dirty” fossil fuels that come to the rescue of weather-dependent UNreliables.
MORE wind and solar doesn’t fix the fatal dependency on intermittent sunshine and breezes, rather the exact thing that they are designed to replace does – “dirty” coal and gas!
UNRELIABLES advocates bang-on on about “wind and solar now cheaper than fossil fuels”. This may be true when they are generating at full capacity, when the wind is blowing just right and the sun is shining. But, as the old sailors say “the wind is free, but everything else costs money.”
“EVERYTHING else” being the energy duplication and 24/7/365 backup costs associated with hydrocarbon energy – coal and gas. Dispatchable energy that is either supplying baseload or idling while wind and sun conditions are favourable for supply. And of course the massive cost to the consumer of green energy subsidies that are necessary to keep wind and solar competitive.
*
MOTHER NATURE To The Rescue!
Mother Nature stepped in where the UNreliables-obsessed Labor government’s failed ‘green’ energy could not…
“A cool change that swept across Melbourne about 2pm dropped the temperature 12C in 30 minutes, easing demand for power and bringing an end to load-shedding outages in the ensuing hour.”
200,000 homes go dark as heat rises, electricity cut off | The Australian
***
ANDREW BOLT on yesterdays green ‘energy’ fiasco – a taste of things to come as global warming theory-obsessed Australian governments pander the U.N. climate gods and install more economy, grid and job destroying UNreliables…
VICTORIANS SWEAT THROUGH A GREAT GREEN HOAX
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s warmist Minister for Energy, in 2017 claimed Labor was helping to “deliver affordable, sustainable and renewable energy”.
Launching Renewable Energy Action Plan with @algore. Helping us deliver affordable, sustainable & reliable energy https://t.co/91TIptroyB pic.twitter.com/I08372VFcx
— Lily D'Ambrosio MP (@LilyDAmbrosioMP) July 13, 2017
All three promises were broken yesterday.
Affordable? Victoria actually had wholesale power prices hit $14,500 per megawatt hour – when prices used to average less than $40.
Sustainable? Wind power generators on Thursday delivered a feeble 3.8 per cent of the state’s power, thanks to fickle winds. They could not deliver when needed most.
Reliable? Victoria – which helped drive the giant Hazelwood coal-fired generator out of business – ran short of electricity in the heat wave, and suffered blackouts that hit 200,000 homes and premises, even after it ordered big power users like the Portland smelter to shut down.
Why does Victoria, sitting on hundreds of years of supply of coal and big gas reserves, have an electricity system that can no longer deliver enough electricity?
Why? Because it bought the great global warming scare, and spent billions on unreliable green power instead of on a steady generator that would pump out all the power we need – and when we need it. It made coal-fired generators unprofitable, and told vast untruths about the great future of green power.
And for what? For pure symbolism. No cuts Australia makes to emissions will affect global warming, which has turned out to be nothing like the catastrophe that was predicted.
Global warming politicians are causing far more damage than global warming is every likely to. Yet who dares call them out?
VICTORIANS SWEAT THROUGH A GREAT GREEN HOAX | Herald Sun
***
“For forty years Australia had cheaper and more reliable energy than this, and it was powered by what four letter word?” –JoanneNova
BUT, here is the ultimate craziness – all the money, all the wrecking of views, all the lost jobs through higher electricity prices and all the blackouts – all the pain for nothing. The apparent effect on global temperatures so incredibly small, nobody would notice.
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“IN the summer-time lead up to the state election in March this year, Jay Weatherill shipped in 276 MW diesel-fuelled Open Cycle Turbines (that chew up 80,000 litres of diesel every hour).
“Over $815,000,000 was squandered in all: $610,000,000 on Jay’s jets and a large chunk of the balance on Elon Musk’s 100 MW mega-battery (at the time our insiders told us the full cost was over $150,000,000, now it looks like being closer to $200m).
With the highest power prices in the world, South Australia’s economic fortunes look more like a train wreck than anything worth writing home about. Its unemployment rate is rising and already tops the nation.”
WELCOME to the world of energy poverty, care of #unreliables – wind and solar ‘power’…
STOP THESE THINGS
Jay’s jets: generate whopping $610,000,000 bill for SA’s taxpayers.
South Australians can thank their former Labor government’s obsession with wind and solar power for their status as an international joke.
Paying the highest retail power prices in the world (with worse to come), routine load shedding and statewide blackouts, and a grid on the brink of collapse, is all the inevitable consequence of attempting to run an economy on sunshine and breezes.
One of the reasons things got this way (and it happened in a bit over 16 years) is the manner in which the useful idiots in the mainstream press pumped wind power, as if it was a sacred gift delivered by some magical and benevolent deity.
In South Australia, the wind cult kicked off around 2002 when its then Labor Premier, Mike Rann started tilting at windmills – encouraged by the boys from Babcock & Brown…
Australian Power Project chief executive Nathan Vass said taxpayers would be forced to effectively “pay twice” for the program — once when they pay their electricity bill and again through government support of the companies running the solar and wind farms. “Australian industry won’t get much of a benefit from this deal,” Mr Vass told The Australian. “This will only help manufacturing jobs in China, Europe or the US where most wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers are based.”
Foreign Wind Companies Vs One Australian!
NOT only are jobs, industry and “emissions” going offshore thanks to skyrocketing ‘green’ energy bills, but now income from energy bills will be going to overseas multi-nationals who build and control Australia’s planned mega wind parks.
JUST when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse! Insanity on steroids….
STOP THESE THINGS
For Australian households and businesses being crushed by out-of-control power prices the Paris Climate Agreement is a maniac’s suicide note.
With nothing else to justify the $60 billion being thrown in subsidies at chaotically intermittent wind and solar, renewable energy rent seekers are clinging to the notion that the deal done in the City of Light will forever hold them harmless from both political and commercial reality.
The more insane aspects of the Paris agreement are yet to bite in Australia: agriculture and transport will eventually suffer the same self-inflicted destruction that has been meted out in the power generation sector.
Australia’s cattle and sheep herds currently number in the tens of millions: 26 million beef cattle and 2.8 million milkers; sheep number around 74 million. Under the Paris deal sheep and cattle numbers will need to be slashed by more than 26% to meet its target for…
“HOWEVER, it turns out that Reneweconomy, in its zeal to promote new power sources, shifted the goalposts so that the battery output was exaggerated over one hundred fold. The correct measure is as follows with the battery contribution comprising the almost invisible yellow at the bottom of the following chart.
A mixture of mainly fossil fuel stations expanded output and filled the gap within one minute.
Morals of the story: (i) batteries may have a role but they are dear; (ii) always seek verification of assertions made by propagandists!”
A must read post by Alan Moran and STT…
STOP THESE THINGS
Four parts snake-oil, three parts urban myth.
With Australia’s renewable energy crisis running totally out of control, whenever you hear the word ‘battery’ you know you’re being conned.
Pumping power into and then taking it out of a battery results in inevitable exchange losses, power gets chewed up during that process and is dissipated as heat energy. And then there’s the enormous capital cost of the battery: SA’s 100 MW tiddler cost taxpayers $150 million. Even if renewable electricity delivered from batteries were available, retailers would be paying north of $600 per MWh to get it.
But still the hapless Federal Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg plugs it; head of the AEMO, Audrey Zibelman plugs it; and so does Anne Pearson of the Australian Energy Market Commission.
And so do the wind and sun worshippers over at Ruin-economy. Here’s Alan Moran unplugging some of their more exuberant hype.
WELCOME to the Australia! The lucky country with the world’s cheapest energy sources that now boasts the world’s highest electricity prices!
ENERGY rationing has always been a key feature of the Left’s misanthropic agenda of depopulation deindustrialisation, enforced through punitive emissions controls, protected under the guise of anthropogenic ‘climate change’ – the emotionally driven eco-cause engineered by the environmental movement in the 1970’s who realised that doing something about supposed catastrophic man-made global warming would play to quite a number of the Left’s social agendas.
STANFORD University and Royal Society’s resident global warming alarmist and population freak Paul R. Ehrlich spelled out the deindustrialisation objective with this attack on energy in 1976:
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the
equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University/Royal Society
EHRLICH also wanted to poison black African’s in order to fight climate change. But, we’ll leave that conversation for another day. Ahem.
Paul R. Ehrlich | Center for Conservation Biology | Stanford
*
FORMER Australian PM Julia Gillard, who implemented Australia’s ill-fated 2011 carbon tax, was open in expressing its core function to ‘drive substantial changes in patterns of energy production and energy use.’
Barry girl (aka PM of Australia Julia Gillard) kisses Obama – Wales Online
GILLARD’S ideology synonymous with another well known eco-doomsayer and the creator, fabricator and proponent of global warming – UNEP’s founding father Maurice Strong:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.
The Creator, Fabricator And Proponent Of Global Warming – Maurice Strong | Climatism
*
IN 2016, Victoria’s premier Dan Andrews took his State one step closer to Ehrlich and U.N. Strong’s energy-free utopia, with the closure of Hazelwood coal-fired power station, culling 22% of Victoria’s cheap, reliable energy supply and flipping the state from a power exporter to an importer.
COAL-fired power plant closures have become the order of the day for Australia’s virtue-signalling and global warming theory-obsessed political class who think that destroying the country’s industrial heartland, and imposing crippling energy-poverty on its citizens is a worthwhile price to pay for “saving the planet”.
SUCH an important and informative weekly piece of (hard) work! Aside from the excellent information provided on the breakdown of energy sources used to power the Australian electrical grid, the main figure in contention is highlighted in red – the percentage of coal-fired power used per day versus all other sources of generation. Not surprising that of a day, coal-fired power generates more than 75% of all energy with wind and solar only ever supplying between 5 and 20% max of intermittent, expensive, unreliable and grid destabilising ‘power’. This despite unreliable-energy states having upwards of 50% capacity installed. It’s no wonder Australia’s electricity prices are among the highest in the world. South Australia officially ‘the highest’ with the highest penetration of highly subsidised unreliables – wind, solar….and a giant battery.
PA Pundits - International
By Anton Lang~
Week 38
This is the continuing Post, where each Saturday, I will detail the power consumption for the Base Load in Australia for the previous week. This will show what is actually meant by the term Base Load, and that is the minimum daily power consumption at its lowest point. Power consumption never falls below this point.
Here in Australia, that level of power is 18,000MW. (See data for the Running Weekly Average For Base Load below)
The Bayswater Coal Fired Power Plant In New South Wales
This data I have collated below is for this last week, and is for the five States connected to the Australian grids, every State east of the Western Australian border, and here I will show that data for each of those five States, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
Bill shock debacle: Solar rooftop subsidies in Australia doubling, will cost $1.3 billion this year, $160 per household
AUSTRALIA has entered the realm of third world countries with residential power disconnections rising by as much as 140 per cent in six years.
THE mad rush into unreliable ‘energy’ – wind and solar – created by virtue signalling politicians aiming to appease the UN climate gods has resulted in the average household paying more than double to keep the lights on, unprecedented statewide blackouts and now for South Australia, officially, the most expensive power prices in the world.
IF that wasn’t bad enough, Australian taxpayers, namely the poorest in the community, are set to add another $160 to their annual power bill thanks to a further $1.3bn in government solar subsidies.
ALL this extra pain to make zero difference to the climate.
“A generation system that throws 2,000 MW into the grid over the space of minutes, without warning, and collapses by the same margin over the same time-frame, again without warning, and irrespective of the demands of users, is not a system, at all. It’s chaos.
Now that that chaos is repaying wind and sun worshippers with mass blackouts and forced load shedding across two States, slowly but surely the proletariat is reaching the same conclusion.”
SPOT-on STT.
“Never before in our recent history have we seen on this scale governmental incompetence and arrogant disregard for the well being of communities in the quest for green votes.”
YES Robert Gottliebsen.
STOP THESE THINGS
Alcoholics call it a ‘moment of clarity’. In wind powered South Australia and Victoria, hitherto fans of renewables call it a ‘mass blackout’.
In 1919, after Engineer/Soldier, Sir John Monash returned to his home town of Melbourne from the Western Front, to a hero’s welcome, he set about establishing an electricity grid that would serve his home State, and the coal-fired power plants located in the Latrobe Valley that would power it.
Immediately after the Armistice was struck with the Germans on 11 November 1918, Monash sent officers to infiltrate German coalmines near Cologne and elsewhere to get an understanding of how the Germans managed to achieve the successful use of their brown coal reserves, similar to those found in the Latrobe Valley. Armed with knowledge of the German’s techniques and engineering, Monash drove the development of those reserves and their exploitation, and Melbourne and Victoria never looked back: the…
“Even the most virulent supporter of renewable energy can, after enough waterboarding, admit the link between more renewables and increased power prices.
“…and bring in diesel-powered generators to stop the lights turning off. It is surely the biggest admission that our renewables experiment has been a failure when you have to call in generators to burn pure fossil fuels.”
EXCELLENT read on the unreliable-energy fiasco that is wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of Victoria and South Australian taxpayers…
STOP THESE THINGS
Comparing 2016 (red) and 2017 (blue) average
wholesale prices of electricity by state
South Australians have a Labor government and its deranged, ideological obsession with wind and solar power to thank for their status as an international joke.
Paying the highest retail power prices in the world (with much worse to come – see above), routine load shedding and statewide blackouts, and a grid on the brink of collapse, is all the inevitable consequence of attempting to run an economy on sunshine and breezes.
One of the reasons things got this way (and it happened in a bit over 16 years) is the manner in which the useful idiots in the mainstream press pumped wind power, as if it was a sacred gift delivered by some magical and benevolent deity.
In South Australia, the wind cult kicked off around 2002 when its then Premier, Mike Rann started tilting at…
Power outages across Victoria have left tens of thousands in the dark. Picture: Powercor
Via Herald Sun :
MORE than 437,000[Climatism correction. See below ‘Update’] homes across Victoria are without power.
The number has skyrocketed since about 6.15pm amid oppressive heat and humidity.
The tally just before 9pm stood at 37,585, which included Citipower, Powercor and United customers, plus figures from AusNet.
Melbourne’s west has been hit hard, with homes in Sunshine, Seddon, St Albans and Altona North affected.
The outages stretch from Truganina and Hoppers Crossing down to the suburbs surrounding inner Geelong.
The Bellarine Peninsula is one of the hardest hit by outages, with more than 15,000 households in the beachside towns of Ocean Grove, St Leonards, Indented Head, Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff left sweating in the heat.
A Citipower spokeswoman said 35,000 customers across the supplier’s three networks were without power as of 8pm.
It’s sparked outcry among customers, who have taken to social media to vent frustrations…
Memo to government. It’s your responsibility to provide basic services like energy to households who pay heavily for it. On days like today pedal power ain’t going to cut it.
— Stephen Quartermain (@Quartermain10) January 28, 2018
Quite right-Power came back on for 1.5hrs in Bellarine last night. Bet that was just enough to boost fridges to avoid food spoilage claims.
Power companies & Govt blaming everything else but themselves for failing to provide an essential service when it’s needed the most @#auspol https://t.co/NyA5k5Ivac
— Greg Smith (@Ausmentor) January 28, 2018
The power has gone out in our suburb, one of a few across the inner west. I’m melting. pic.twitter.com/Ykx2G3byhw
— Michelle Ainsworth (@mlainsworth) January 28, 2018
Estimated time to power restore has gone up to four fricken AM
— Tiger Bailey, Werewolf Boy (@HyperTigerXT) January 28, 2018
“Most of the problems today have been fuses blowing basically because of hot weather and very high demand,” the spokesman said.
“In many places, people may have put air-conditioners in that we’re not aware of, so it’s higher demand than we expect in a few areas.”
Melbourne weather: Power out at thousands of homes as heatwave continues | Herald Sun
*
OUR friends over at Stop These Things (STT) analyse the dire power issues faced by Victoria and South Australia whose socialist state governments have embraced the unreliable-energy ‘de-evolution’ with predictably devastating results…
Tom Koutsantonis reckons his state’s wind farms were delivering the goods for South Australians and Victorians, as well.
So, always ready to rain on Kouta’s parade, let’s drill down a little closer to see what SA’s whirling wonders were actually doing on 18 and 19 January (when South Australians needed power most).
Looking more like the profile of a terrifying Swiss ski run, that’s the entire output from SA’s wind farms on 18 January.
With a promising start, delivering almost 1,100 MW for a brief spurt, the team determined to down tools after breakfast, with a precipitous 500 MW collapse in less than 90 minutes. (To put that in perspective, Weatherill, Koutsantonis & Co have been cheering about the demolition of SA’s last coal-fired plant, which had a solid and reliably delivered capacity of 520 MW.)
Thereafter, output collapses 650 MW – from 700MW to 50 MW – over the course of the afternoon; precisely as demand for power peaked.
Weatherill, Koutsantonis and their wind worshipping cronies keep pointing to his $150 million mega-battery as some kind of miraculous saviour. Maths is clearly not among their strongest points. 100 MW (the notional capacity of the battery) fits five times into the margin of the first collapse, and 6½ times into the final post-lunch collapse on 18 January.
Here’s their combined effort on the following day, 19 January:
Having put in an almost respectable effort before morning tea – topping out at 1,000 MW – again, as the day warmed up and power demand surged, output plummets: a full 700 MW – from 1,000 MW to 300 MW – by mid-afternoon, where it bobbed along until 6pm.
At $150 million to get 100 MW worth of Tesla’s battery storage (said by its boosters to deliver 129 MWh), the cost of tooling up to accommodate 700-1,000 MW wind power output collapses every other day would pretty soon add up to $billions.
As pointed out by The Australian, the yawning gaps in SA’s wind power output weren’t back-filled by wind power lovingly stored in Musk’s Marvel, but by the trusty and reliable coal-fired plants still merrily chugging away in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. But that fact wouldn’t fit their narrative now, would it?
With a deranged and delusional leadership in charge, South Australians can look forward to rocketing power prices and rolling blackouts for years to come.
Welcome to your wind powered future!
Pointless & Pathetic: South Australia’s Wind Power Output Repeatedly Plummets During Summer Heatwave (Again) – STOP THESE THINGS
EXPECT more skyrocketing electricity prices, blackouts and load-shedding as Australia’s virtue-signalling, climate theory-obsessed politicians continue their jihad against what was Australia’s once proud boast – cheap, reliable, efficient baseload power.
THE latest attack on Australia’s energy security as noted on my twitter feed…
THE destruction of South Australia’s last coal-fired power station today. The world now has the message: #SouthAustralia is closed for investment in heavy industry, and so, soon, will be the rest of Australia if we don’t learn from the new era of #EnergyPoverty insanity! #Auspol pic.twitter.com/BhU7pybXkB
— JWSpry (@JWSpry) January 25, 2018
Jo Nova with more…
South Australia blows up cheap electricity, jobs, wealth, in ideological anti-coal quest
Today the South Australian government destroyed the smoke stack of the Playford B Plant, one more part of what’s left of the cheapest base-load electricity generators in the state.
For about $8 million a year over three years, they could have kept some coal power going and wouldn’t have needed to spend $400 million on emergency diesel generators they don’t want to use, and over $100 million on a battery that can supply 4% of the state for one hour. They also would’ve paid less than $120 million for two days of electricity last week.
On the upside, they can feel good and pretend to be “world leaders”. Virtue signalling is expensive, eh?
….
The plant employed 185 people, the coal mine 200. Other businesses in the town, who knows? People are leaving.
SA, a star in the race away from being a competitive, powerhouse rich state. Creating wealth and jobs in China.
Last South Australian coal-fired power station demolition nears completion
The Australian, Luke Griffiths:
The concrete and brick structure at the 240MW Playford B power station, named after long-serving South Australian premier Sir Thomas Playford and mothballed in 2012, leaves only the 200-metre high stack at the nearby Northern power station standing in Port Augusta, 280km north of Adelaide.
That is expected to be demolished in April or May as part of a decommissioning process undertaken by Flinders Power, an offshoot of former power station operator Alinta Energy.
Before announcing the closure of Northern in mid-2015, Alinta unsuccessfully sought $25 million in subsidies over three years from the South Australian Labor government to keep it operating until this year, to ensure an effective transition occurred, after a rapid rise in renewable energy made it unviable.
However, the Weatherill government, which is ideologically opposed to coal, rejected the offer.
It’s wrecking the town too:
Locals in Port Augusta this week expressed frustration…
Deirdre McKerlie, who works at KD’s Hair Flair, told The Australian that not having a transition plan was “just stupid”. She said Port Augusta hit “rock bottom”, with many businesses unviable and residents moving away.
Premier Jay Weatherill said “Port Augusta is a symbol of South Australia’s transition from old to new…”
Exactly our point.
The boilers were blown up in November.
The rest will be demolished in April or May. SA, living standards thereafter.
SA had two coal power plants: Playford B, built in 1963, 240MW and newer Northern Power Station (1985) and 520MW.
Comment from RB555 2018/01/22 at 12:22 pm
This ETSA PR film from 1954 may be of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMKPz-kVgcc
Shows the opening of Playford A power station, the first of three powered by Lee Creek coal.
Tom Playford himself appears briefly in the film.
A brief history of the complex is here.
South Australia blows up cheap electricity, jobs, wealth, in ideological anti-coal quest « JoNova
“Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences” – Robert Louis Stevenson
•••
UPDATE
Jo Nova on the “secret” air conditioners that one power company (Ausnet) is blaming for Melbourne’s blackout…
Melbourne: 42,000 homes in dark, no fans left at Kmart. Power outages due to “secret” air conditioners?
Melbourne Skyline at night…Image: Alfred Glickman
The temperature reached 38C in Melbourne (100F) on Sunday — something it has probably done most summers since 10,000BC.
CitiPower, Powercor and the United Energy spokeswoman Emma Tyner said that as of 9.25pm, about 41,190 homes were without power across those three networks. – Sydney Morning Herald
Now why would that be? Ms Tyner puts a lack of supply in the nicest possible way:
“The extreme heat has significantly increased electricity use and this has resulted in localised power outages,” Ms Tyner said.
It’s not that governments didn’t plan energy policy — it’s the users who wanted too much (i.e your fault.) Though Victorians used to use more power than this. On Sunday, peak electricity demand was 9,124MW, about 13% less than the all time peak of 10,496MW in 2009. (In case you are wondering, Hazelwood (now closed) produced 1600MW or about 25% of Victorian baseload power.)
Mr Armstrong from Ausnet Services (another power company) blamed unreported air conditioners:
“There are a lot fuses blowing in the hot weather and a significant power pull with people having put in air-conditioners they didn’t tell us about,” Mr Armstrong said. — The Age
Who knew you needed to tell your power company when you put in an air conditioner?
Gone are the days when people could willy-nilly run down to Retrovision and just buy an air con.
Ms Tyner and Mr Armstrong may have inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. Perhaps they will get quiet reeducation tomorrow on how to phrase the cause of blackouts. (Aren’t they due to old coal turbines breaking?)
Next, expect people to start saying how normal it is to have blackouts on hot days. “It’s just a part of life.”
If only the same people would say that about hot days.
You know things are serious when Kmart runs out of fans.
A Kmart in Northcote on Sunday was completely sold out of all cooling devices, from fans to air-conditioning units, its duty manager said.
So no willy-nilly fan buying either.
Tonight some people have fans, but no electricity. Others have electricity but no fans.
Others have electricity and fans, but no money. Luckily electricity “only” reached a peak of $3,125 per MWh briefly in Victoria. (Only a few million extra).
Pollies play blackout roulette
Robert Gottleibsen, a week ago:
Welcome to Australia’s deadly game of Melbourne and Sydney blackout roulette. The stakes involve hundreds of millions of dollars of refrigerated food and the operations of thousands of factories and offices who don’t have emergency power contingencies in place.
…Victoria took longer than NSW to wake up but it too has been working hard to reduce the risk of blackouts. For the most part, both states are borrowing ideas from third world countries by getting industry and consumers to cut back on power usage when days are hot. In addition, those organisations with back up power (like phone companies) are being asked to use it so as to cut demand and, if possible, put power back into the grid. Accordingly, highly polluting diesel becomes the saviour.
Could someone teach editors what “record-breaking” means?
Last night the minimum was 22.8C in Melbourne. Tonight was forecast to be 28C. If the Bureau are right, it won’t be close to breaking the record.
–The Sydney Morning Herald
Close to record-breaking heat
While it is not quite a record, Melbourne has come close to the hottest-ever January overnight temperature of 30.6 degrees.
Melbourne has reached that record twice since records began, once in 1902 and again in 2010.
The good news is that the other 1.5 million homes still have electricity. Though the United Energy Outage Map keeps going out itself.
The Ausnet Outage Map has a popup note: due to the large number of outages power may not get restored til Monday morning.
Melbourne: 42,000 homes in dark, no fans left at Kmart. Power outages due to “secret” air conditioners? « JoNova
•••
UPDATE
THE amount of homes affected by the latest Victorian blackouts varies wildly from news org to news org. The original Herald Sun article which this post is based reported “MORE than 437,000 homes across Victoria are without power.” The article has been updated and overwritten.
Via sister paper Daily Telegraph:
HERE are a few other agencies reporting housing numbers affected:
Melbourne weather: Power cuts in Victoria as heatwave hits | Daily Mail Online
Tens of thousands of Victorian homes affected by widespread power outages | 3AW
Thousands still without power after blackout cripples Victoria | 9 NEWS
•••
Australia Unreliable-Energy Debacle Related :
THE Insane Result Of The Mad Switch To Costly, Symbolic, Unreliable Energy – Wind and Solar | Climatism
CHEAP ENERGY – Australia’s Greatest Economic Advantage Sacrificed At The Altar Of Climate Change | Climatism
A Totally Idiot Made Electricity Disaster | Climatism
Australian Summer Forecast: More Blackouts & Rocketing Power Prices | Climatism
IT’S OFFICIAL : South Australia Has The World’s Highest Power Prices! | Climatism
POLITICIANS Mad With Global Warming Theory Are Destroying The Economy And Hurting The Poor | Climatism
DIESEL – Keeping South Australia’s Lights On Til The Next Election! | Climatism
LIFE In A Fossil-Fuel-Free Utopia | Climatism
THE Twisted Irony of Deep-Green Energy Policy (RET) | Climatism
Simon Holmes à Court – Wind Weasel | Climatism
Survey: South Australians Fed Up with Unreliable Expensive Green Power | Climatism
STABLE and Reliable Coal-Fired Power Still the Cheapest By a Country Mile | Climatism
Unreliables Related :
UNRELIABLE Energy – Wind and Solar – A Climate Of Communism | Climatism
TRULY GREEN? How Germany’s #Energiewende Is Destroying Nature | Climatism
German Pols Now Demanding Energy Welfare For Its Citizens – 800,000 Have Had Their Electricity Cut Off!
WIND TURBINES Are Neither Clean Nor Green And They Provide Zero Global Energy | Climatism
Adding More Solar And Wind Power ‘Doubles’ CO2 Emissions | Climatism
THE $Trillion Windmill Industry Is The Greatest Scam Of Our Age | Climatism
Over 100,000 People in Green Energy South Australia Now Receive Food Donations | Climatism
Green Power is Part Time Power | Climatism
America’s Top Green – Michael Shellenberger – Pushes Nuclear Future & Calls Wind & Solar ‘The Worst for the Enviroment’ | Climatism
Back In The Real World…
World Coal-Fired Power Surge Related :
GREEN ENERGY FAIL – World Coal Power Development Up 43% | Climatism
Japan Infuriating Enviros By Building 45 New Coal Power Plants | Climatism
$7.5bn worth of coal-fired power plants planned for Vietnam | Climatism
Coal To Remain India’s Main Energy Source For At Least 30 Years, Govt Confirms | Climatism
China’s Production Of Electricity From Coal Surges To Record Levels | Climatism
STOP THESE THINGS
Jay’s jets: generate whopping $610,000,000 bill for SA’s taxpayers.
Four parts snake-oil, three parts urban myth.
PA Pundits - International
By Anton Lang ~
Comparing 2016 (red) and 2017 (blue) average
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