Another widespread power outage in SA

[mshagg]

Must be Jay caving to the diesel generator lobby again. Good luck to Marshall weather-proofing the distribution network.

[claybro]

300 power lines down and you blame the government..
maybe time to get your head out the sand.

believe it or not, other Australian states have storms with sustained winds exceeding 120km/h on an annual basis. It does not result in such widespread blackouts, or blackouts lasting for such long periods. These storms are not even unprecedented in South Australian history despite what some politicians would have you believe. Somewhere along the way, the system has been allowed to degrade to an extent where it is no longer able to withstand even "once in a decade" storms. The states industrial reputation is at stake and questions need to be asked. There are some heads in the sand yes...but probably not the ones you imagine.

[ghs]

300 power lines down and you blame the government..
maybe time to get your head out the sand.

believe it or not, other Australian states have storms with sustained winds exceeding 120km/h on an annual basis. It does not result in such widespread blackouts, or blackouts lasting for such long periods. These storms are not even unprecedented in South Australian history despite what some politicians would have you believe. Somewhere along the way, the system has been allowed to degrade to an extent where it is no longer able to withstand even "once in a decade" storms. The states industrial reputation is at stake and questions need to be asked. There are some heads in the sand yes...but probably not the ones you imagine.

Exactly right Claybro, I couldn't agree more.

Electricity is obviously very important, not only for households but also for businesses. If there are blackouts then power needs to be restored pretty quickly. Some households haven't had power for more then 24 hours. To those who have posted on here in support of the government, try turning off the power at your hours for a day or two and see how you like it.

[rev]

300 power lines down and you blame the government..
maybe time to get your head out the sand.

believe it or not, other Australian states have storms with sustained winds exceeding 120km/h on an annual basis. It does not result in such widespread blackouts, or blackouts lasting for such long periods. These storms are not even unprecedented in South Australian history despite what some politicians would have you believe. Somewhere along the way, the system has been allowed to degrade to an extent where it is no longer able to withstand even "once in a decade" storms. The states industrial reputation is at stake and questions need to be asked. There are some heads in the sand yes...but probably not the ones you imagine.

Exactly right Claybro, I couldn't agree more.

Electricity is obviously very important, not only for households but also for businesses. If there are blackouts then power needs to be restored pretty quickly. Some households haven't had power for more then 24 hours. To those who have posted on here in support of the government, try turning off the power at your hours for a day or two and see how you like it.

Hopefully a Greek Australian electrician who works for cash only comes and turns your power off, permanently.

[rev]

300 power lines down and you blame the government..
maybe time to get your head out the sand.

believe it or not, other Australian states have storms with sustained winds exceeding 120km/h on an annual basis. It does not result in such widespread blackouts, or blackouts lasting for such long periods. These storms are not even unprecedented in South Australian history despite what some politicians would have you believe. Somewhere along the way, the system has been allowed to degrade to an extent where it is no longer able to withstand even "once in a decade" storms. The states industrial reputation is at stake and questions need to be asked. There are some heads in the sand yes...but probably not the ones you imagine.

You do know that this current government is not responsible for that degradation?
You do know that it is a private company now that maintains our electricity infrastructure?

Didn't the Olsen government supposedly not go ahead with an interconnector with NSW? The same interconnector they are talking about building now.

[claybro]

You do know that this current government is not responsible for that degradation? You do know that it is a private company now that maintains our electricity infrastructure? Didn't the Olsen government supposedly not go ahead with an interconnector with NSW? The same interconnector they are talking about building now.

Oh come on Rev. Privatisation led to some of this mess, but not the whole lot. How long ago was the Olsen government in power? So the Olson government stopped a NSW interconnector what 18 years ago now? Are you really that rusted on to the Labour government that you refuse to hold them accountable for any of this after 15 years in power? I am in no way suggesting the current useless opposition in SA would fare any better, but surely that does not stop people holding the current government to account.

[mshagg]

It's not about defending or blaming a political party. What exactly would one suggest the SA Labor government do about SA Power Networks (apparently) substandard service? Seriously. What are the policy levers at government disposal that would see power restored sooner to affected properties? Given we're calling labor out on their failings I assume state libs have something in mind? Or that there is something obvious within their powers which they have failed to implement? AFAIK network operators regulated by the AER - a federal body. Shit, it was barely two years ago we were blasting the network operators for 'gold plating' the poles and wires and charging us for 'unnecessary' works.

Force them to hire more teams to respond? So, what - the rest of us pay more on our bills for technicians to sit around waiting for the 1 in x year storm that takes out power in the hills? Sounds like an efficient use of resources...

I guess the grass is always greener but the power lines weren't any more or less susceptible to having trees fall on them back in the ETSA days. ETSA also had far less incentive to respond quickly, or to triage the widest outages, given the compensation arrangements were a part of the privatisation. Having grown up in the hills in the 80s and early 90s i have a somewhat skeptical reaction to people claiming the distribution network was more resilient back in the glory days of public ownership, or that faults were responded to in a more prompt manner - it was about as much fun as trying to get telecom to fix something - they were bureaucratic government departments parading as service providers. Between dodgy power and the bushfires, it was a good enough reason for me to leave.

For those claiming cyclone-prone FNQ has more resilient infrastructure I'd have to take that on face value having never lived there, but I'd be interested in any supporting observations.

It reeks of political opportunism to suggest the premier has a case to answer to when a storm knocks out power to 150k+ homes, particularly when the opposition doesnt appear to have floated any thought bubbles on the subject.

[bits]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... er_outages

http://www.electricalsolutions.net.au/c ... -616016902

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/02/ho ... used-them/

http://www.smh.com.au/national/mass-pow ... -7u7g.html

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-0 ... fmredir=sm

Just to scratch the surface of links.

The list is endless of major power outages affecting other cities including Australian cities.
You are talking utter nonsense when you say other states have storms and they don't have massive blackouts.

You honestly need to stop making up facts about SA being the only state that suffers blackouts. You are making up facts to try and make a political point. Are you paid to make these lies or are you just that rusted on to a party you need to make up lies to support them?

Blackouts are common all over the world. Storms and general failures, these things happen.

[rev]

You do know that this current government is not responsible for that degradation? You do know that it is a private company now that maintains our electricity infrastructure? Didn't the Olsen government supposedly not go ahead with an interconnector with NSW? The same interconnector they are talking about building now.

Oh come on Rev. Privatisation led to some of this mess, but not the whole lot. How long ago was the Olsen government in power? So the Olson government stopped a NSW interconnector what 18 years ago now? Are you really that rusted on to the Labour government that you refuse to hold them accountable for any of this after 15 years in power? I am in no way suggesting the current useless opposition in SA would fare any better, but surely that does not stop people holding the current government to account.

Far from it, I'm just not going to blame the current state government and leadership for issues that are starting to come to a head now because of a few unfortunate natural incidents from Mother Nature.

[bits]

mshagg spells it out perfectly.
What exactly do people want to change to improve things? Give valid ideas.

One idea is that my house never lost power during this latest storm. I suspect the fact all the power lines are underground in my area helps prevent wind pushing trees in to the power lines.
Also cars can not crash in to the poles either.
My house has an extremely reliable power feed, I think the state wide outage is the only unscheduled outage I have had in about a decade.

Maybe we retrofit all old suburbs with underground power lines? The cost will be insane and if we called previous work gold plating what would this be referred to, diamond plating?

We could force all land owners of the older suburbs to pay for upgrading their street.

I would assume each house might be up for about $10,000 each, we could just create a compulsory levy to raise the money.

[mshagg]

Charging people who live in damage prone areas would actually be a valid strategy for making the necessary investments in the network but I dont see the idea going down well.

Here's some pictures of what SAPN found when they arrived at a fault in Mylor:

https://twitter.com/SAPowerNetworks/sta ... 67136?s=04

Stupid premier, why dun he do sumthink about it.

[bits]

Charging people who live in damage prone areas would actually be a valid strategy for making the necessary investments in the network but I dont see the idea going down well

Yes it will not go down well because people like to complain nothing is being done for the zero money they are willing to contribute to improve their own problem.

Don't like losing power in high wind storms? Move to a newer suburb with underground power lines and more modern infrastructure.
Where is the responsibility of people to choose wise locations to live?

If you bought a house in an area with overhead power, at some point a tree will fall on to them or a car will knock them over.
If you bought a house on a flood plain, it will flood.
If you bought a house in a bush fire area, it will burn.
All unless the home owners of that area can agree to invest likely large amounts of money to correct the issues of the area.

Get your head out of the sand and actually do something to help your own problem.


PS do not think moving to NSW overcomes the limitations of your SA home.
NSW suffers about 10x as many significant power outages as Adelaide does while having only 4.5x more population.
So your house is more than twice as likely to be involved in a significant power outage in NSW vs SA.
ghs and claybro need to actually go do some basic research, as making things up is not how things get improved.

[ghs]

The Councils do a pathetic job when it comes to cutting the street trees away from Power lines.

The work is done very much with a short term viewpoint. The workers simply cut back the branches so that there won't be any interference with the trees in the short term. There's no respect given to the overall health, shape and long term future of the trees.

There's one well known Horticulturalist on radio who is very negative about the way in which this work
is done in Adelaide. Obviously the process is not so easy up in the hills due to the fact that there's so much
vegetation, but if you look at the way in which the street trees are cut back in metropolitan Adelaide, it's nothing
short of disgraceful.

[mshagg]

Yes and there are 'friends of' types who are problematic and ample bureaucracy around the removal of trees which pose a risk - although on the latter im somewhat sympathetic; if we let everyone in the hills fell whatever they want there wont be a lot of native vegetation left.

The fact remains that the lifestyle choice of large blocks adorned with white gums and stringy barks brings with it inferior and infrastructure which is more prone to failure.

[claybro]

Charging people who live in damage prone areas would actually be a valid strategy for making the necessary investments in the network but I dont see the idea going down well

Yes it will not go down well because people like to complain nothing is being done for the zero money they are willing to contribute to improve their own problem.

Don't like losing power in high wind storms? Move to a newer suburb with underground power lines and more modern infrastructure.
Where is the responsibility of people to choose wise locations to live?

If you bought a house in an area with overhead power, at some point a tree will fall on to them or a car will knock them over.
If you bought a house on a flood plain, it will flood.
If you bought a house in a bush fire area, it will burn.
All unless the home owners of that area can agree to invest likely large amounts of money to correct the issues of the area.

Get your head out of the sand and actually do something to help your own problem.


PS do not think moving to NSW overcomes the limitations of your SA home.
NSW suffers about 10x as many significant power outages as Adelaide does while having only 4.5x more population.
So your house is more than twice as likely to be involved in a significant power outage in NSW vs SA.
ghs and claybro need to actually go do some basic research, as making things up is not how things get improved.