PSA: The East Coast Is Facing Another Major Power Supply Problem Today
Energy Minister Chris Bowen says the problem is being "actively managed."
Much of Australia’s east coast is facing another major power supply threat on Tuesday, with energy shortfalls predicted in Queensland and New South Wales — just hours after the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) stepped in on Monday.
Just yesterday, AEMO tried to avoid widespread blackouts by ordering the emergency power generators online. While this avoided a total catastrophe, entire suburbs in Sydney’s north still lost power, so it was far from a perfect solution.
But the threats continue across both Queensland and New South Wales this afternoon after a perfect storm of rising energy prices and dropping temperatures wreak havoc on the system.
While AEMO is doing everything possible to improve electricity reserves, the worst case scenario here is exhausting all reserve electricity — which is not good.
“AEMO will take further actions to improve electricity reserves, including directing generators into the market, which helped meet electricity shortfalls in Queensland and New South Wales yesterday,” AEMO said in a statement on Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday afternoon, AEMO confirmed that approximately 2,000 megawatts of generation in each state can be utilised at the direction of the operator, which should help compensate for any shortfalls experienced.
According to Energy Minister Chris Bowen, the crisis is being “actively managed” and further blackouts should hopefully be avoided on Tuesday.
“That was avoided because the operator could instruct the generators to put more power into the system. It also told me that they believe we can avoid load shedding and blackouts in NSW and other states today,” said Bowen on Sunrise.
“Of course, they will continue to work very hard and actively monitor the system.:
“The system is being actively managed and we have avoided any load shedding … I believe and I am advised that we should be able to avoid that in the next 24 hours.”
Residents in impacted states are asked to minimise their power usage to reduce pressure on the system.
In particular, Queensland residents are being urged to conserve power between 5pm and 9pm tonight, while NSW should be cautious between 5:30pm and 8:30pm.
Following the news of the energy crisis — which is not a result of renewables — Nationals Senator Matt Canavan asserted that we should simply build more coal-fired power plants to fix the issue.
“What is the argument against building a coal-fired power station? Just build one – it’s not going to blow the planet up,” Canavan told Ben Fordham on 2GB on Tuesday, completely ignoring the climate crisis once again.