Why South Australia's power blackout could happen here

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce
 has linked the SA storm to "too
 many solar panels or wind turbines".

Could the South Australian power outage repeat itself in Victoria? The answer is unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility, because extreme storms happen here too.

SA's power outage was not the result of too many solar panels or wind turbines, as suggested by our Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, but rather severe winds and lightning. In particular, several of the major transmission line towers that form the backbone of SA's power supply were bent over like matchsticks by the extreme winds.

This, and possibly lightning strikes as well, led to an imbalance in power supply that was far too rapid to be managed via adjustments in other sources of supply. In such circumstances, the entire power system had to be shut down, otherwise it would become dangerous with electricity supply exceeding the tolerances of power equipment.

If, for example, the series of power lines running between Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley coal generators were to suffer a similar fate due to storms, or maybe a severe bushfire, then our state's entire power system would also shut down. Victoria is vulnerable because it is so reliant on power from just one geographic location. But thankfully it would take something quite extreme to take out these powerlines.

Read the comment piece in today’s Melbourne Age by Tristan Edis - “Why South Australia's power blackout could happen here.”