❓ A parliamentary question addresses delays in power restoration during high fire danger periods following the 2021 Christmas outages. The Minister acknowledges the issue, outlines collaborative efforts with DFES and WALGA, and details improvements in communication and infrastructure resilience, but fails to provide the name of the independent expert initially.
AnsweredQoN 700Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
M c GOWAN
GOVERNMENT — ENERGY PERFORMANCE
700. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Energy:
I refer the minister to the
recommendations of the Independent review of Christmas 2021 power outages report,
concerning the unnecessarily delays in repairing faults and restoring power
supply on days of high fire danger.
(1) Who was the independent expert
appointed by the minister, as mentioned by the minister in Parliament?
(2) Has this
person completed the work; and, if so, was a report prepared; and, if there was
a report prepared, will the minister table it?
(3) What changes
are proposed to ensure a quicker restoration of power for communities
experiencing a blackout?
GOVERNMENT — ENERGY PERFORMANCE
700. Dr D.J. HONEY to the Minister for Energy:
I refer the minister to the
recommendations of the Independent review of Christmas 2021 power outages report,
concerning the unnecessarily delays in repairing faults and restoring power
supply on days of high fire danger.
(1) Who was the independent expert
appointed by the minister, as mentioned by the minister in Parliament?
(2) Has this
person completed the work; and, if so, was a report prepared; and, if there was
a report prepared, will the minister table it?
(3) What changes
are proposed to ensure a quicker restoration of power for communities
experiencing a blackout?
AnswerView source ↗
I am just trying to find the name of
the independent organisation that was appointed. I am sorry; I do not have that
name in front of me. I do not know why.
(1)–(3) It
was a professional organisation that works in the bushfire management area. It
has completed its work. Western Power engaged with the Department of Fire and
Emergency Services and the Western Australian Local
Government Association to go through the processes that are used for restoring
power during high bushfire danger areas. We have to understand that this is a really
critical issue because the challenge is that if there is an outage on a line through an area of bush and we
re-energise the line but the disruption of the line is continual—it is not just
transitory—we can actually start a fire. Therefore, it is absolutely
incumbent— I know that everybody in
this chamber agrees—that Western Power not start bushfires. Can members
imagine what would occur if we had a bushfire
created by electrical infrastructure on a day of high bushfire danger?
One
of the challenges that has been highlighted by this process is that sometimes
DFES asks Western Power to apply the
high bushfire danger processes because DFES is dealing with existing bushfires.
DFES actually asks Western Power to delay the re-energising of lines not
because of the specific bushfire risk in that location, but because the
resources and the volunteers have already been allocated to active bushfires.
Therefore, there are no simple solutions for the management of electrical
infrastructure.
We do not take the approach that is
used in other parts of the world that have high bushfire risk—for
example, in California where the entire network in the high bushfire area was
switched off for three weeks this summer. The approach used in other parts of
the world is to have no electricity supply at times of high bushfire risk. We
do not do that in Western Australia. I am pleased that Western Power, DFES and
WALGA have been working through these issues. There is still some more work to
be completed. They are changing their practices and that was one of the
commitments that has been made.
Another advance that has come out of
the report by Michelle Shepherd is that Western Power was told to upgrade its
communications. It has written to all regional councils in the south west
interconnected system and asked for a single
point of contact. That way, when there is an outage in any location in the
south west interconnected system, Western Power can communicate directly
with the person chosen by the council so that the information about the
circumstances of that particular outage can be better understood. One of the problems that we had, which was highlighted in
Michelle Shepherd's report, was that often the c hallenge was not
in Western Power's control; for example, the overwhelming majority of
the outages at Christmas time were actually
about external impacts on the network, not the network infrastructure itself.
This is going to be a significant advance so that people can understand
what is needed.
Also,
this year Western Power has been implementing 37 engineering projects to make
sure that the resilience of the network is improved. Again, one of the
challenges that was highlighted in Michelle Shepherd's report is the
question of planning criteria. Some people think that when they talk about
planning criteria, it means that on 15 December they will talk about what they
are going to do on 25 December—that is not the case. Planning criteria
is about in this year saying what you are going to do in 2025. Therefore, what
Michelle Shepherd asked Western Power to do, which it has done, is review its
planning criteria. The good news here is that because of this government's
investment into advanced metering infrastructure, Western Power now has a much granular understanding of how the
distribution network operates. Previously, there was only the monitoring
of the transmission and high-voltage system and not of the low-voltage system,
but because of this government's investment, we now have a much clearer
understanding of what is happening on individual feeders. We are able to have a
much better, more granular, planning process, and that has been a good outcome.
These are all methodologies that Western Power is using, following on from the
Shepherd inquiry, that will improve the service now.
I often get asked by journalists: can
I guarantee that there will not be outages? There can be no guarantee. You
cannot have a 100 per cent reliable electricity system. There is no possibility
of that ever occurring. We have a system that is 99.91 per cent reliable, and
that is extraordinary. Of course, that is the average, and there will be
different experiences on individual feeders. Again, we are trying to provide
better reporting to people so they can have an understanding of the performance
at that lower level. In the past, the problem was that because Western Power
was being rewarded on the basis of averages, it encouraged Western Power to
work in larger communities rather than smaller communities. But by working on
these details, feeder by feeder, it means that the individual experiences that
people have will improve over time because we will be able to respond to
individual outages rather than on the averages.
the independent organisation that was appointed. I am sorry; I do not have that
name in front of me. I do not know why.
(1)–(3) It
was a professional organisation that works in the bushfire management area. It
has completed its work. Western Power engaged with the Department of Fire and
Emergency Services and the Western Australian Local
Government Association to go through the processes that are used for restoring
power during high bushfire danger areas. We have to understand that this is a really
critical issue because the challenge is that if there is an outage on a line through an area of bush and we
re-energise the line but the disruption of the line is continual—it is not just
transitory—we can actually start a fire. Therefore, it is absolutely
incumbent— I know that everybody in
this chamber agrees—that Western Power not start bushfires. Can members
imagine what would occur if we had a bushfire
created by electrical infrastructure on a day of high bushfire danger?
One
of the challenges that has been highlighted by this process is that sometimes
DFES asks Western Power to apply the
high bushfire danger processes because DFES is dealing with existing bushfires.
DFES actually asks Western Power to delay the re-energising of lines not
because of the specific bushfire risk in that location, but because the
resources and the volunteers have already been allocated to active bushfires.
Therefore, there are no simple solutions for the management of electrical
infrastructure.
We do not take the approach that is
used in other parts of the world that have high bushfire risk—for
example, in California where the entire network in the high bushfire area was
switched off for three weeks this summer. The approach used in other parts of
the world is to have no electricity supply at times of high bushfire risk. We
do not do that in Western Australia. I am pleased that Western Power, DFES and
WALGA have been working through these issues. There is still some more work to
be completed. They are changing their practices and that was one of the
commitments that has been made.
Another advance that has come out of
the report by Michelle Shepherd is that Western Power was told to upgrade its
communications. It has written to all regional councils in the south west
interconnected system and asked for a single
point of contact. That way, when there is an outage in any location in the
south west interconnected system, Western Power can communicate directly
with the person chosen by the council so that the information about the
circumstances of that particular outage can be better understood. One of the problems that we had, which was highlighted in
Michelle Shepherd's report, was that often the c hallenge was not
in Western Power's control; for example, the overwhelming majority of
the outages at Christmas time were actually
about external impacts on the network, not the network infrastructure itself.
This is going to be a significant advance so that people can understand
what is needed.
Also,
this year Western Power has been implementing 37 engineering projects to make
sure that the resilience of the network is improved. Again, one of the
challenges that was highlighted in Michelle Shepherd's report is the
question of planning criteria. Some people think that when they talk about
planning criteria, it means that on 15 December they will talk about what they
are going to do on 25 December—that is not the case. Planning criteria
is about in this year saying what you are going to do in 2025. Therefore, what
Michelle Shepherd asked Western Power to do, which it has done, is review its
planning criteria. The good news here is that because of this government's
investment into advanced metering infrastructure, Western Power now has a much granular understanding of how the
distribution network operates. Previously, there was only the monitoring
of the transmission and high-voltage system and not of the low-voltage system,
but because of this government's investment, we now have a much clearer
understanding of what is happening on individual feeders. We are able to have a
much better, more granular, planning process, and that has been a good outcome.
These are all methodologies that Western Power is using, following on from the
Shepherd inquiry, that will improve the service now.
I often get asked by journalists: can
I guarantee that there will not be outages? There can be no guarantee. You
cannot have a 100 per cent reliable electricity system. There is no possibility
of that ever occurring. We have a system that is 99.91 per cent reliable, and
that is extraordinary. Of course, that is the average, and there will be
different experiences on individual feeders. Again, we are trying to provide
better reporting to people so they can have an understanding of the performance
at that lower level. In the past, the problem was that because Western Power
was being rewarded on the basis of averages, it encouraged Western Power to
work in larger communities rather than smaller communities. But by working on
these details, feeder by feeder, it means that the individual experiences that
people have will improve over time because we will be able to respond to
individual outages rather than on the averages.
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