On Sunday11 February temperatures across most of Victoria are in a low intensity heatwave. Heatwaves are classified as 3 consecutive days of extreme heat.
Vic Emergency declared a Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating for Tuesday, 13 February 2024, in the Wimmera district. Fire Bans were declared across the state. The Catastrophic Fire risk in the Wimmera was the first use of this rating since the 2019/2020 bushfire season.
On Monday Vic Emergency held a press conference, but the focus was entirely focussed on the bushfire / grass fire risk. No attention was paid to the heat health risk, that extreme heat is a silent killer.
At 3pm Tuesday there were 5 active fires burning, including two in the Grampians National Park. There are also thunderstorms with dry lightning and high winds.
One of the Grampians National Park out-of-control bushfires has injured five firefighters and is reported to have destroyed a church, and 25 to 30 houses, as the fire reached the town of Pomonal.
All fires were started by lightning strike said Emergency Management Comissioner Rick Nugent at the Press Conference on Wednesday.
Thunderstorms, high winds damage transmission, trip Loy Yang A Power Station
Wind speeds up to 120km per hour at Avalon were measured.
Six high transmission electricity towers were blown down in the wind north of Anakie, near Geelong.This caused the Loy Yang A coal fired power station to trip and shut down, throwing over 500,000 households out of power across the state.
The Department of Climate Change and Energy released a statement on X in which they said:
Extreme weather has resulted in the physical collapse of six transmission towers near Anakie this afternoon, leading to widespread power outages across the State. This event resulted in the Loy Yang A power station disconnecting from the grid, while storm damage has led to further localised power outages. To keep the power system secure, the Australian Energy Market Operator directed AusNet Services to enact load shedding, impacting 90,000 customers across the state. This has now been cancelled and all 90,000 customers impacted have had their power restored. Currently, more than 530,000 customers are off power across the State. The Loy Yang A power station is in the process of being reconnected to the grid, and the number of power outages are expected to fall throughout the evening. In areas with localised power outages impacted by the storm, crews are actively working to restore power to these areas, clearing vegetation to make the areas safe before replacing poles and mending fallen powerlines.
Suburban Trains have also been disrupted across metropolitan Melbourne. According to The Guardian report, half of the Melbourne’s 16 metropolitan train lines were partly suspended as commuters began to make their way home from the CBD.
AEMO said the loss of the high transmission lines west of Melbourne caused the Loy Yang A Power station to trip, closing down all 4 generator units, removing 2.3 gigawatts of generation from the network.
This caused the spot price of electricity in the state to soar above $16,000 per megawatt hour – with Victoria forced to import electricity from other states.
This highlights our vulnerability of our electricity grid to extreme weather, and our reliance on aging large coal fired power plants, rather than decentralised renewables generation with storage. We still need more community batteries and microgrids to build resilience in our electricity network.
Premier highlights increase in timing and extremity of extreme weather events
Addressing a press conference from the State Emergency Centre at 11am, Wednesday 14 February, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said as of 10.30am on Wednesday around 220,000 homes and businesses were without power.
She also highlighted that there is ‘no doubt’ there’s been a change in the timing of extreme weather events, but also their extremity.
“It’s February 14 today and already, just six weeks into 2024, we’ve had that extensive flood damage in central and northern Victoria, we’ve had the fires in the west of the state yesterday and the storm damage across the state, but again, largely impacting to the east of the Hume freeway. And then it was only in … October and November of last year, where in the space of a week, the commissioner was briefing me on fires in Gippsland, and then floods in Gippsland.
So there is no doubt that we are seeing not just a change in the timing of these extreme weather events but also the extremity of these weather events. And so that absolutely is being factored into the work that is particularly being led by the energy minister in terms of both addressing those issues around energy security, which is why that work on renewables is so critically important, but also the broader resilience of the system.
… The events of yesterday didn’t so much come from a supply challenge, it came from the fact that you’ve got, across large parts of the state, trees across local roads and power poles, and that is going to take time. That street by street work that is happening right now to get people connected back to the power.”
Current power outages due to trees down on roads, not transmission lines, AEMO says
According to the Guadian Live page, An AEMO spokesperson has provided an update on the energy connectivity situation:
I believe that at least half of the [Loy Yang A power stations] are already connected and I’ll just also add that the destroyed towers in between Melbourne and Geelong are not having any impact on customer supply at the moment either.
… these were absolutely destructive and catastrophic winds. I understand that the wind speed nearby was 122km/h. There were six high voltage transmission lines that folded but at the end of the day, the impact on … those customers that have power out at the moment, this is not about the transmission line. This is about trees down on roads, trees down on power lines, and our thoughts absolutely are with the emergency services people getting these power lines restored back to customers right now.
At the press conference Victorian energy and resources minister Lily D’Ambrosio called for a national conversation on transmission and power-line resilience.
I’ve also put on the agenda, nationally, the need for us to actually have a system-wide understanding, appreciation and a set of solutions [on] what is a national system.
Poles and wires just don’t stop at the borders. Transmission lines don’t stop at the borders. There was mention of climate change and more frequent and extreme weather events. It sadly means that we’re going to see more of that happening. What are the resilient measures that we need to embed in the system to ensure that we are better prepared, communities are better prepared, for such events.
References
Vic Emergency – Media Conference 12 Feb 2024 – Heat and Fire Danger Update https://www.facebook.com/vicemergency/videos/921060993004932
Benita Kolovos and Peter Hannam, 13 February 2024, The Guardian, Half a million Victorian homes without power and trains cancelled as storm causes outage at state’s largest coal-fired plant, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/13/victorias-electricity-spot-prices-soar-as-states-largest-coal-generator-suffers-outage
Lachlan Abbott and Alex Crowe, The Age, 13 February 2024, Historic church lost, firefighters injured as Grampians blaze reaches township, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/catastrophic-fire-danger-in-victoria-s-west-as-worst-conditions-since-black-summer-loom-20240209-p5f3p1.html
Renew Economy, 13 February 2024, Grid drama and power cuts as multiple coal units and lines trip in midst of heatwave, https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-drama-as-multiple-coal-units-and-lines-trip-in-midst-of-heatwave/
Roger Dargaville, The Conversation, 14 February 2024, A major blackout left 500,000 Victorians without power – but it shows our energy system is resilient, https://theconversation.com/a-major-blackout-left-500-000-victorians-without-power-but-it-shows-our-energy-system-is-resilient-223494
ABC Melbourne, Facebook, 14 February 2024, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is holding a press conference with Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and Emergency Management Comissioner Rick Nugent. https://www.facebook.com/abcmelbourne/videos/288063274026830
The Guardian Australia News Live, 14 February 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2024/feb/14/australia-news-live-homes-lost-thousands-without-power-after-storms-and-bushfires-hit-victoria
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