❓ Mr. Love questions the Minister for Energy about recent power outages in the Midwest, specifically regarding the effectiveness of blackout reviews. The Minister apologises and explains the outages were due to faults in privately owned wind farms and AEMO instructions, not Western Power or Synergy.
AnsweredQoN 196Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ELECTRICITY
SUPPLY — MIDWEST
196. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Energy:
I refer to the more than 24 000 residents of the midwest who
awoke to six hours without power on Tuesday, 14
March, and again for seven hours on the following Friday and the failing of
backup systems in towns such as Dongara.
(1) Does the minister now concede that his blackout
review has failed to improve the power supplies to these communities?
(2) Will the minister
conduct a review of this blackout to ensure such a preventable event does not
occur again?
SUPPLY — MIDWEST
196. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Energy:
I refer to the more than 24 000 residents of the midwest who
awoke to six hours without power on Tuesday, 14
March, and again for seven hours on the following Friday and the failing of
backup systems in towns such as Dongara.
(1) Does the minister now concede that his blackout
review has failed to improve the power supplies to these communities?
(2) Will the minister
conduct a review of this blackout to ensure such a preventable event does not
occur again?
AnswerView source ↗
(1)–(2)
I am pleased to answer these questions. I begin by apologising to all the
residents impacted by these two outages. It is clearly not acceptable and very
difficult when the power is out. Therefore, I apologise for that, but it is also important to understand why it occurred. On 14
March, Western Power was conducting planned improvements to the
transmission system, and therefore islanded the area north of Three Springs so
that it was not connected to the larger grid at the time. It was being operated
from the Mungarra power station. The electricity being used north of Three
Springs was not coming, as normal, from the south west of the state but rather
from the Mungarra power station. This is why the member for Cottesloe was so
wrong the other day when he said that there was a problem getting the power
station to start; in fact, the station was
running. Unfortunately, a privately owned wind farm had a fault. That fault had
nothing to do with the operations of Western Power, nor did it have
anything to do with the operations of Synergy. Unfortunately, that fault caused
the Mungarra power station to trip off. The system had been isolated because of
the need to do the improvement works to make the system more reliable. The
backup generator was in use but unfortunately this privately owned power
station caused a problem that led to the backup power station ceasing to
operate. That is how we could not reconnect the backup power station—because
it was already in use. I know that this is of no benefit to the community
because they still suffered from that outage but I think it is important for
people to understand that it did not relate to anything under the control of
either Western Power or Synergy.
On
17 March, Western Power went back to do the works to improve the reliability of
the system north of Three Springs. Unfortunately, a separate problem
occurred. What happened was, even though the privately owned wind farm was not
connected to the broader grid and therefore should not have been called into
action, the Australian Energy Market Operator sent an instruction to Walkaway
wind farm to restart. Unfortunately, because electricity must be in balance all
the time and because the system at that time again was being supplied by the
Mungarra power station, when Walkaway power station restarted under the
instructions of the Australian Energy Market Operator, it meant there was an
overpower situation. As a security measure, as it is supposed to do, the system
shutdown. The reason it is supposed to do that is it is very dangerous and
there can be electrocutions and other problems if an oversupply of electricity into the system is allowed. Again, it
is one of these unfortunate situations, not because of anything Western
Power did and not because of anything Synergy did but because of other people,
there was a problem in the system.
Of
course, if you are without power, none of this makes a difference, but the
point I make to the community is very important. The government is
investing millions of dollars to assist people in this area. We are spending
over $5 000 on average for each of the connections north of Eneabba because we
know we can do better and that is what we are doing.
I am pleased to answer these questions. I begin by apologising to all the
residents impacted by these two outages. It is clearly not acceptable and very
difficult when the power is out. Therefore, I apologise for that, but it is also important to understand why it occurred. On 14
March, Western Power was conducting planned improvements to the
transmission system, and therefore islanded the area north of Three Springs so
that it was not connected to the larger grid at the time. It was being operated
from the Mungarra power station. The electricity being used north of Three
Springs was not coming, as normal, from the south west of the state but rather
from the Mungarra power station. This is why the member for Cottesloe was so
wrong the other day when he said that there was a problem getting the power
station to start; in fact, the station was
running. Unfortunately, a privately owned wind farm had a fault. That fault had
nothing to do with the operations of Western Power, nor did it have
anything to do with the operations of Synergy. Unfortunately, that fault caused
the Mungarra power station to trip off. The system had been isolated because of
the need to do the improvement works to make the system more reliable. The
backup generator was in use but unfortunately this privately owned power
station caused a problem that led to the backup power station ceasing to
operate. That is how we could not reconnect the backup power station—because
it was already in use. I know that this is of no benefit to the community
because they still suffered from that outage but I think it is important for
people to understand that it did not relate to anything under the control of
either Western Power or Synergy.
On
17 March, Western Power went back to do the works to improve the reliability of
the system north of Three Springs. Unfortunately, a separate problem
occurred. What happened was, even though the privately owned wind farm was not
connected to the broader grid and therefore should not have been called into
action, the Australian Energy Market Operator sent an instruction to Walkaway
wind farm to restart. Unfortunately, because electricity must be in balance all
the time and because the system at that time again was being supplied by the
Mungarra power station, when Walkaway power station restarted under the
instructions of the Australian Energy Market Operator, it meant there was an
overpower situation. As a security measure, as it is supposed to do, the system
shutdown. The reason it is supposed to do that is it is very dangerous and
there can be electrocutions and other problems if an oversupply of electricity into the system is allowed. Again, it
is one of these unfortunate situations, not because of anything Western
Power did and not because of anything Synergy did but because of other people,
there was a problem in the system.
Of
course, if you are without power, none of this makes a difference, but the
point I make to the community is very important. The government is
investing millions of dollars to assist people in this area. We are spending
over $5 000 on average for each of the connections north of Eneabba because we
know we can do better and that is what we are doing.
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