SUMMARY:
Ever hear of a fossil fueled
electricity power plant
that produced no power
at night ?
Of course not.
How about one that failed
from a cloud drifting over
the power station ?
Of course not.
Well, welcome to the
wacky world of expensive,
intermittent solar power !
An Alice Springs,
Australia blackout
affected about
12,000 customers,
for between
30 minutes
and 10 hours.
Not from a hurricane.
Not from a tornado.
Not from heavy winds.
Caused by
a big cloud
drifting above
an Australian
$50 million solar
power station !
DETAILS:
All back up systems failed,
including an $8 million battery.
An independent report
blamed operator
incompetence for allowing
clouds to affect the solar
energy supply.
So that's the
official explanation.
New technology
= new problems.
A report from
a consultancy,
paid for by the market
regulator, tried to explain
the “system black” event
that hit Alice Springs
in October 2019.
The report was by the
consultancy Entura,
paid for by the Utilities
Commission.
The Northern Territory Labor
government read their report,
and fired the territory’s
two most senior energy chiefs.
The two men fired were
Tim Duignan, the CEO
of Territory Generation,
and Michael Thompson,
the head of network operator
and systems control company
Power and Water Corporation.
This seemed to be a problem
NOT about new technology,
but of a lack of employee
training and general
incompetence.
Entura found that staff managing
the system did not anticipate
the approaching cloud cover,
and did not know what to do
when output from the Uterne
solar farm declined, along with
output from rooftop solar panels
on area buildings and homes,
which are linked to the electric
grid.
Thermal
generators
failed,
because they
had not been
properly
maintained,
and the staff
had no idea
how to re-start
the solar power,
because procedures
had not been updated
since installation
of a big battery.
Finally, there was insufficient
spinning reserve power from
back-up natural gas turbines,
and the system was unstable.
Read more here: