Aidan,

Got it from the media. You, of course, will believe SA Power Networks, even though are the problem and the gougers. Watch out for the Irish 'house painters' who could be offering you cheap painting soon.

Bazz,
I haven't paid a lot of attention to the problems in SA, but I'll try to hazard a guess as to what caused the problems, based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the situation on the ground.

Wind turbines have an operating range of windspeed. I suspect that the conditions in SA at the time in question were well above that, so prudent operators would have already taken steps to shut them down well before the wind hit, leaving the state dependent on imported supplies, as is the normal procedure. When the towers blew over, it took out a large amount of demand in a great rush, leaving the network with an oversupply of input power and causing the current and voltage to move well out of phase, probably well beyond the planned capacity of the network to deal with it. As a result, circuit breakers tripped in order to prevent damage to the network caused by trying to deal with very high transient power.

In other words, the network didn't fail because there was too little power, but because there was too much for the reduced demand. The Whyalla and Port Augusta industrial works, which were cut off, are more than likely a significant part of the power-conditioning system as well, causing a double whammy for the network.

The gas turbines are only there to provide top-up power when there are short-term shortfalls in renewable output and to help to stabilise the network. They are not and cannot be effective at replacing the entire grid supply.

I suggest that those who can't bear the thought of ever having to go without power to install their own power supplies, such as solar PV with a good backup generator. I'd be happy to recommend an excellent supplier if you live in Brisbane. Large scale grids can and do fail and unless people wish to pay exorbitant amounts for "gold-plating" the networks, that will always be the case.

Aidan,

I overlooked your 'unremarkable' weather. Yes, it was for all except people defending renewables. But, if the weather was unremarkable, how do you explain the toppling of pylons supposed to withstand 200kph winds, when we had winds not topping 100kph?

Have you lowered your bet on wind power, now that they have been stopped dead by unremarkable weather, immediately taking 900MW out of the system?

How do you explain the fact that Qld regularly has true cyclones, but the entire state isn't blacked out like SA was - under unremarkable circumstances?

No, Craig. The windmills are not there to provide "top up power". In Green/Labor SA they are their to provide 40% of our power - all the time because we only have a bit of gas and charity from Victoria for the rest. The reason for the blackout was that the outhouse rat expected to get near the maximum of one Vic power station. He was told time and time again that this couldn't happen, and it didn't.

Wind power is now reality in SA - not a fad toy we can play with and retreat to coal. The maniacs are even going to close down two more gas-fired plants next year, and coal is only a memory.

Craig,
Thanks for the reply. Contrary from what you said I have read/heard
that the wind turbines were on line at the time and producing power.
When the towers went over the line would have been dead within a few cycles.
Load in the network on the supply side of the towers must have been
increased by something going wrong and the load on the interconnector
increased above rating so it disconnected.
It raises a question what happens when the Victorians close their Hazelwood plant.

All this is guesswork and we must wait to see what the control centre
computers logged timewise.
It is to be hoped that politicians have no input.

That's interesting Bazz, I'd have thought that sort of wind would be a definite overspeed problem. The turbines down there must be well designed.

You're tight that everything would have happened in just a couple of cycles. As I said though, it's not too much load but too rapid a drop in demand that was probably the issue. All that energy has to go somewhere and you don't want it going places it's going to cause trouble.