SA in the dark

[Bad Scott]

Still haven't had any offers from SA yet but there is still time  .
                                    4 Sale
                                    Honda  Gen set
                                    Best Offer considered
                                                                             

1 empty VB can on offer. May even have dregs left.

[BaseCamp]

[1]
They should put that deformed and caved-over high voltage transmission tower (pic on last page); in the Melbourne Art Gallery...   Right work of art, that is!

[2]
China must be watching the SA debacle and be laughing their heads off...     Aunty abc said a couple of years ago that PRC were building 1 x coal fired power station a week; (50 ea year)...   

[speewa158]

1 empty VB can on offer. May even have dregs left.

                                          Dreaming   ,,  sadly   ,,,dreaming     


                  Goway                                    

[mrdenn1s]

I could write pages on the mistruths about how the grid works. I work for one of the country's transmission providers. Let's just sum it up by saying the grid did what it was supposed to do and protected itself by shutting down. It lost 3 X transmission circuits due to towers bring down. That's a massive hit

[Hewy54]

I could write pages on the mistruths about how the grid works. I work for one of the country's transmission providers. Let's just sum it up by saying the grid did what it was supposed to do and protected itself by shutting down. It lost 3 X transmission circuits due to towers bring down. That's a massive hit

So many playing politics and the blame game. I believe that the people in charge did an amazing job to get the power up and running within a few hours after such a catastrophic event.

[#jonesy]

Sometimes 5h17 happens. The could build extra back up systems in the off chance it happens. A couple of power stations sitting idle, extra lines from interstate, etc. but it all costs money. Then you all complain about how much more expensive your power is.

Bit like our desal plant that hasn't done anything worthwhile still costs a lot of money so our govt  will run it to show it works (not that we need the water at the moment). This exercise will cost even more. All it has done for us is to add to our water bill.


About 18 years ago Victoria lost gas supply after an explosion at the refinery. We hd no cooking, heating or hot water for a few weeks. Since then the have made a back up supply from interstate but there is always the possibility that our supply and the back up are damaged at the same time.

[chillipepperz]

China must be watching the SA debacle and be laughing their heads off...

SA Power Networks is owned by a Chinese businessman http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-power-networks-owned-by-billionaire-li-kashing-makes-four-times-more-profit-out-of-us-than-its-uk-group/story-fni6uo1m-1226943633683

[Cruiser 105Tvan]

About 18 years ago Victoria lost gas supply after an explosion at the refinery. We hd no cooking, heating or hot water for a few weeks. Since then the have made a back up supply from interstate but there is always the possibility that our supply and the back up are damaged at the same time.

As reported in the record of the Coroners verdict.  Good people DIED when that Plant went up.
The Manager of the Esso plant that blew up.  Refused/Failed to install equipment to improve the safety of supply Downstream of the plant.
Consequently, when the Plant went up, there was no bypass loop to allow flow of Nat. Gas around the damaged Plant.
I believe this has since been rectified, and Esso, just check the papers and reports covering the Coroners Hearing.

[cheif carlos]

As reported in the record of the Coroners verdict.  Good people DIED when that Plant went up.
The Manager of the Esso plant that blew up.  Refused/Failed to install equipment to improve the safety of supply Downstream of the plant.
Consequently, when the Plant went up, there was no bypass loop to allow flow of Nat. Gas around the damaged Plant.
I believe this has since been rectified, and Esso, just check the papers and reports covering the Coroners Hearing.

Cannot believe they didn't learn from the Piper Alpha accident 10 years earlier.

[speewa158]

Another good reason to be self sufficient and off grid where practical.
With waves, wind, Coal / rubbish / Gas and solar  No reason you should ever run short of power anywhere .. Except for bad management of resources and application ..

But But But this would require a Polly to have the balls to stand up to the doomsayers/tree huggers & spend/invest in our children's future . Not just getting reelected in a few years .
                                 DO  SOMETHING                   

[mrdenn1s]

So many playing politics and the blame game. I believe that the people in charge did an amazing job to get the power up and running within a few hours after such a catastrophic event.

Of course they did. All the networks nationally have sent their temporary towers to help. Still not enough. Once in a lifetime event. You could have as much power stations as you want... When the transmission network fails you can't move the power. The transmission networks nationally are all fairly similar so could have happened in any state.

[Dogsbreakfast]

This is why they blame renewable energy.

[jeffr]

We were at the Head of Bight free camp when the storms went through, and subsequently took it on the lam getting home in the resulting cluster that was rural SA.

I'm no expert on power grids, but I did witness first hand the p1ss poor condition of the power line infrastructure within SA. The power poles are rusty relics where even the concrete webbing they use in those stovey(?) poles is brittle and falling out, and the main trunk lines don't look particularly sturdy either; especially when compared to the powerlines we saw on re-entering NSW and later in Victoria. Irrespective of the mix of power generation, I'd say the SA government is besotted with shiny new "renewable power" generators that look and feel good, but it ignores the boring, not sexy belts and braces of proper infrastructure maintenance of the supporting grid.

BTW, on our way over to Head of Bight a few weeks back, Rural SA was just recovering from another major blackout that lasted days and extended just West of Port Augusta all the way out to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. That black-out didn't make the news, but talking to locals along the way, and witnessing the number of businesses who now have, or are about to buy a generator, I'd surmise the SA power grid is the least reliable in the country, despite being the most expensive in Australia and close to the most expensive in the (industrialised) world.

Wife and I went on this trip looking to move into SA in our retirement (we love the Flinders Ranges region, and we extended our house-hunting trip to Head of Bight to see some whales). I seriously doubt we will give moving to SA much further consideration now. SA, as much as we love it, has becoming an expensive, idealogically driven rust-belt.

Final observation from Ceduna where power and communication was restored, but lost again after a few hours; civialisation is a veneer just 1.5 days thick....

[jclures]

SA Power Networks is owned by a Chinese businessman http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-power-networks-owned-by-billionaire-li-kashing-makes-four-times-more-profit-out-of-us-than-its-uk-group/story-fni6uo1m-1226943633683

I have to ask, as a outsider to the problem, who owns the network, is it tax payers or privately owned.
If it is privately owned as suggested, why all the finger pointing by politicians. Unless you look back and see who sold the network and blame them, or maybe just blame the current owners.
On a side note we have lived through power loss through mother nature, Cyclone Larry 2 weeks, and Yasi from memory around a week just to name a couple.

[prodigyrf]

OK mini tornados associated with a 1 in 50 yr weather event can always knock out well engineered transmission assets unless we as consumers are prepared to gold plate them at unaffordable overall cost. However with built in protection that doesn't/shouldn't knock out a whole state. If you're interested in more than political spin and emotional fluff here's a couple of discussions for you to get your teeth into the cascading blackout problem, albeit you have to sort the wheat from the chaff and be prepared to follow their arguments and further links-
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/09/the-south-australian-black-out-a-state-running-without-enough-thermal-reserve-to-cope-with-contingencies/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/01/south-australias-blackout-apparently-triggered-by-the-violent-fluctuations-from-the-snowtown-wind-farms/
These guys get their rocks off on this stuff-
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/

Try and understand grid complexity, despatchability and the critical problems of synchronisation and maintaining frequency and voltage and try this discussion for a bit of a head spin to appreciate the factors impacting grid design and costs-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU6izpryqqw&feature=youtu.be
Even a quick skate over that lot should make you appreciate one simple truism - We're trying to make a reliable system from unreliable energy sources

[mrdenn1s]

SA has the peakiest network in the country. ie the gap between maximum demand and lowest demand is huge. When the grid was built it was built for the 1 or 2 maximum demand events per year. Every state is the same. The transmission towers that collapsed are a similar design to every other tower in the country at that voltage. The Stobey towers normally only go to 132kV. The larger steel ones go to 275kV. They are the ones that failed. When they fall, it's been a big wind day 😂. They also lost towers on 3 key circuits. Do that in any state grid and AEMO will shut it down. Too risky with overloads and power frequency, irrespective of the generation mix. Leave it on and things go pop that can take 18 months to replace like 275kV transformers

[Rumpig]

I don't get the fuss myself, they lost power for what, 12 hours?...big deal, it's called a black out
We had a flood here in Btisbane that had our house without power for well over 24hrs and my neighbours who must be on a different grid to us for several days, and our houses were nowhere near getting flooded.....maybe we should have jumped up and down and complained about the inconvenience of it all whilst others lost everything under water. The uproar over a few hours of no power in a situation like what occurred there is rediculous, especially when you look at the fact people die in events like these, or people's houses get flooded or trees through them, or vehicles crushed by trees etc etc

[cruiser 91]

Wife and I went on this trip looking to move into SA in our retirement (we love the Flinders Ranges region, and we extended our house-hunting trip to Head of Bight to see some whales). I seriously doubt we will give moving to SA much further consideration now. SA, as much as we love it, has becoming an expensive, idealogically driven rust-belt.

Final observation from Ceduna where power and communication was restored, but lost again after a few hours; civialisation is a veneer just 1.5 days thick....

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, some people eh, 
You must of missed the 5 acre blocks in the area with 5 year old self sufficient off grid old 4 bedrooms for $215K.
Makes me wonder why such a harsh comment............................must be the the retirement thing, high rural expectations and wait for it.................................ideologically driven rust-belt thinking.
Best you stay where you come from, i'm sure there's plenty to complain about there.

My Oldest son is a Linee for SA Power Networks........................Let you know what really happened when he gets back from rural SA. 

[jeffr]

Indeed, didn't see one self sufficient block for $215K...not one. did see and hear though, first hand, what a crock the states power supply was. My guess is, wait a while and watch those cheap self sustaining blocks of land prices tumble as people choose to live where there is reliable 1st world power and employment available.

You don't know me from squat: keep your judgements of my intelligence and temperament to yourself.

[cruiser 91]

Indeed, didn't see one self sufficient block for $215K...not one. did see and hear though, first hand, what a crock the states power supply was. My guess is, wait a while and watch those cheap self sustaining blocks of land prices tumble as people choose to live where there is reliable 1st world power and employment available.

You don't know me from squat: keep your judgements of my intelligence and temperament to yourself.

I rest my case.

[UIZ733]

I'm no expert on power grids, but I did witness first hand the p1ss poor condition of the power line infrastructure within SA. The power poles are rusty relics where even the concrete webbing they use in those stovey(?) poles is brittle and falling out, and the main trunk lines don't look particularly sturdy either; especially when compared to the powerlines we saw on re-entering NSW and later in Victoria. Irrespective of the mix of power generation, I'd say the SA government is besotted with shiny new "renewable power" generators that look and feel good, but it ignores the boring, not sexy belts and braces of proper infrastructure maintenance of the supporting grid.

Wife and I went on this trip looking to move into SA in our retirement (we love the Flinders Ranges region, and we extended our house-hunting trip to Head of Bight to see some whales). I seriously doubt we will give moving to SA much further consideration now. SA, as much as we love it, has becoming an expensive, idealogically driven rust-belt.

Final observation from Ceduna where power and communication was restored, but lost again after a few hours; civialisation is a veneer just 1.5 days thick....

Some rather emotive language to justify a decision you have or are about to make.
Electricity infrastructure is in dire need of renewal Australia wide. That is an indisputable fact. It is coming to the end of its intended or designed lifespan.
'Ideologically driven rust belt'. Where politicians are in charge there will be idealism. This is an unfortunate a fact.
Not sure that your statement about S.A. ideology is correct though. Perhaps you don't like whatever their 'idealism' is.
Localisation being a 1.5 day veneer seems to me to be an absurd statement. If Brisbane's traffic light system alone were to fail, I believe civilisation would be less than an eight hour veneer.
As stated by many, all States have power supply problems at times. We were without power in Brisbane's West (less than 10K from CBD) some years ago for 9 days. Our 'coal driven' ideology was of little consequence when that event occurred unfortunately.

[Big Damo]

Not sure what's going on but I drove past 50 or so wind turbines this weekend on the way up to Broken Hill and only 1 of the turbines were turning.
Now possibly no wind up on the hill but I was driving through what felt like 100 kay head winds so I imagine there was a breeze up there
I guess they don't work with no wind and don't work with too much wind

[Cruiser 105Tvan]

The wind Turbines are very picky.
Not enough wind and they won't turn, obvious ok.
Too much wind, (and there's not a lot of difference to no wind at all) they turn too fast and destroy the gearbox that turns the generator in the head of the Mast.
The blades of the setup can also be adjusted, feathered, pitch changed to control the situation also.
As well as the head of the set up being turnable.

[prodigyrf]

At the same time as we were trying to form a reliable output system from unreliable inputs the warning bells had already sounded about that-
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/02/south-australias-wind-energy-crisis-state-wide-blackout-were-foreseeable-and-foreseen/
unfortunately the whole power environment experienced some seismic shifts-
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2016/10/the-new-energy-ecosystem/
and now it's spiralling out of anyone's ability to oversee or control it all. Complexity is like that sometimes, as much as human hubris likes to think we're always in control of these things. Just Google the right answers and apply them eh?

[Bird]

Could this be another option... I'm sure theres enough waves off the aussie coast to do some good?

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/hydro/wave-power/