State swelters through record-breaking heatwave as Otways fire grows
Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio defended the state’s energy grid, insisting fire-damaged infrastructure, not supply shortages, left thousands of Victorians in the dark yesterday.
D’Ambrosio told radio station 3AW yesterday that the Australian energy market operator had informed him that the state “has sufficient reserves to meet the demand for our electricity supply”.
Outages peaked at more than 100,000 homes late yesterday, leaving tens of thousands of people off the grid late into the night.
“At peak yesterday, between 6pm and 6.30pm, Victorians created an electricity demand of approximately 10,800 megawatts and we had supply to accommodate 12,400 megawatts,” D’Ambrosio said on 3AW earlier today.
“We had enough electricity to meet the needs. The problem was not on the power generation side, but on the poles and cables. It’s like having plenty of gas in the car, but if your roads are destroyed you can’t really get anywhere.”
“At around 9.30pm last night, approximately 103,000 Victorians ran out of supply.” That number has dropped significantly today, he said, with about 16,000 homes still offline as of 11 a.m.
“Supply wasn’t the problem. These issues always arise during extreme weather events. The problem is we need to make sure power company crews are on the ground and get people back to power when it’s safe.”
He said many fuses had blown, lines had been damaged by falling trees, and “in some cases, power lines had been burned due to forest fires.”
“And of course heat stress was a huge factor. The physical infrastructure couldn’t cope and failed.”
D’Ambrosio said the government is telling energy companies to improve their resilience plans and be better prepared for extreme weather events.
“I’m very, very confident that over a period of time, with new technology generators, we will have enough spare electricity to keep Victorians’ lights on,” he said.
