{"id":350218,"date":"2024-11-05T13:17:24","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=350218"},"modified":"2024-11-05T13:17:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:17:26","slug":"the-town-in-australia-run-entirely-on-renewable-energy-where-a-single-storm-left-the-population-without-power-for-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=350218","title":{"rendered":"The Town in Australia Run Entirely on Renewable Energy Where a Single Storm Left the Population Without Power for Days"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Sallust<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You might have heard of Broken Hill. It\u2019s a lonely town in New South Wales and it nearly just became a lot lonelier. Transgrid<\/a>, one of Australia\u2019s power companies that is \u201cleading the transition to a clean energy future\u201d, decided that Broken Hill could showcase operating on its own microgrid. In a display of monumental eco-hubris, Transgrid even tried to shut down and decommission the town\u2019s two emergency diesel generators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experiment lasted just two weeks. According to the ABC<\/a>, a windstorm \u2013 one of those normal events that Net Zero planning typically fails to foresee \u2013 brought down seven supporting transmission towers. Although Broken Hill had held on to its backup generators, one was being serviced and the other failed under the sudden demand. According to the mayor Tom Kennedy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThere was only one generator that was put under extreme amount of load,\u201d Mayor Kennedy told 7.30<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce that was put under load, that also tripped out and we were in a situation where some people in town were without power for 48 hours, others just over 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really lack of maintenance on generators that are worth probably $50 million each.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The upshot was that 20,000 people were left without power and the mines that are the basis of the local economy had to be shut down too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the Guardian<\/a> <\/em>covered the story but dodged commenting on the implications for Net Zero:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The outages have followed severe thunderstorms on October 17th that damaged power lines, with dodgy backup generators leaving 20,000 locals with on-and-off power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repeated brownouts, particularly throughout the evening peak, occurred when electricity supplied by multiple generators was unable to meet demand.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There was more concern in the Guardian <\/em>about consumers\u2019 bills:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Two power companies \u2013 Origin and EnergyAustralia \u2013 have agreed to defer bills to those who have been affected by the outages that crippled the region for the better part of a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers won\u2019t receive free electricity, but won\u2019t be hit with a bill for a minimum of 30 days and the companies will not chase outstanding debts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nick Cater provides more of the complex background in the Australian<\/a> <\/em>to how this scenario arose at Broken Hill, pointing out that unfortunately the expensive backup battery hadn\u2019t clicked in as it was supposed to, either. It seems that the plan had been that in a situation like this Broken Hill should be self-sufficient:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Three years ago, Transgrid boasted that the outback town could run on a renewable energy microgrid if the line to the outside world went down. It was so confident that it sought permission from the Australian Energy Regulator to decommission the two diesel generators installed in the early 1980s. The AER said no, a decision criticised as \u201creally silly and perverse\u201d by Chris Bowen [Australia\u2019s Minister for Climate Change], who held it up as an example of the antiquated energy market thinking he intended to fix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowen has yet to comment on the fortnight of rolling blackouts across the NSW far west that began when seven transmission towers collapsed on the 260km high-voltage line to Buronga.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The power company concerned is AGL, \u201cAustralian Gas Light Company\u201d. Pity it didn\u2019t stick to its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Bowen was not there to witness the indignity of AGL\u2019s new mega battery being recharged by diesel generators or watch the Silverton wind turbines sit idle because they weren\u2019t connected to the grid. He didn\u2019t see Broken Hill residents hunting for the off switch on their rooftop solar arrays because their fluctuating output tripped the diesel generators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To describe the Silver City\u2019s experience as a setback for Bowen\u2019s dream of turning Australia into a nuclear-free clean energy superpower would be an understatement. Broken Hill was the renewable energy industry\u2019s Potemkin Village, the recipient of $650m of green investment and the proposed location for the world\u2019s biggest advanced compressed-air energy storage plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Broken Hill City Council announced its goal to become Australia\u2019s first carbon-free city by 2030. Three years ago the Mayor at the time, Darriea Turley, welcomed the announcement that AGL was proceeding with plans to build a grid-scale battery, which the company claimed would be a reliable backup power source for 10,000 homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a great opportunity for Broken Hill and renewable energies,\u201d Turley told the ABC. \u201cWhat they will see is when there is an outage, the battery would click into operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AGL had badly misled Turley and her fellow councillors. When the storm hit at about midnight local time on Wednesday, October 16th, the battery clicked offline, not on. The town sat in darkness for several hours until the single operating backup diesel generator could be turned on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A $41 million battery!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

AGL was not prepared to keep a $41m battery fully charged, primed for that just-in-case moment. The battery was dispatching power into the national electricity market from early evening on the day of the storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battery was offline for more than eight days while it was reprogrammed to feed into the local grid and recharged with rooftop solar and diesel. Silverton and the Broken Hill solar plant did not resume operation until the region was reconnected to the grid last Thursday. Turley\u2019s successor as Mayor, Tom Kennedy, was pictured wielding a shovel at the soil-turning photo-op for the battery in November 2022. He told the ABC the battery closely aligned with the council\u2019s desire to see the Silver City at the forefront of renewable energy and energy storage.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Tom Kennedy\u2019s changed his tune now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Last week he told Chris Kenny on Sky News, \u201cThere\u2019s no way that renewables at this time are capable of supplying Broken Hill\u2026 The reality is it\u2019s not consistent power. You don\u2019t have that baseload power, so for Broken Hill it\u2019s almost useless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principal lesson from Broken Hill is that a stable, consistent baseload supply produced by rotating turbines is essential for stabilising the grid\u2019s frequency and underwriting fluctuating demand. Converting DC power from wind and solar to synchronised AC current becomes harder the more renewable energy is put into the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone has been as quick as Kennedy to wise up to the monstrous deception the renewable energy industry practised. Last Monday, Australia Institute Research Director Rod Campbell appeared before a Parliamentary committee on nuclear power to argue for the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels, \u201cwhich is what climate science demands\u201d. Nuclear power was a distraction, he claimed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Campbell\u2019s testimony involved insisting nuclear power was too expensive while admitting he had no idea how much a renewables-only plan would cost. \u201cI haven\u2019t researched that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Tellingly, the Australia Institute posted a video of Campbell\u2019s testimony on YouTube<\/a>, suggesting it wasn\u2019t aware that he\u2019d made a clown of himself. The anti-nuclear left is immune to contrary facts, paying homage to \u201cthe science\u201d while disregarding the laws of physics, urging us to abandon fossil fuels by this time tomorrow while never once considering the constraints of engineering.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Is this a sign of things to come for Britain? Yes, but with the proviso that the costs will be astronomically higher, the consequences and complications of the engineering issues magnified, and the political fallout utterly catastrophic when people start discovering they have to sit in the dark, eat cold food out of lifeless refrigerators and shiver through a winter\u2019s night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Broken Hill experiment shows that Net Zero is pie in the sky where pigs fly. We can make plenty of use of renewables but 100% will never happen bar some unforeseen technological revolution. Certainly not by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might have heard of Broken Hill. It\u2019s a lonely town in New South Wales and it nearly just became a lot lonelier. Transgrid, one of Australia\u2019s power companies that is \u201cleading the transition to a clean energy future\u201d, decided that Broken Hill could showcase operating on its own microgrid. In a display of monumental eco-hubris, Transgrid even tried to shut down and decommission the town\u2019s two emergency diesel generators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":350223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818216,691819134,691818154,691818206,691819379,691818181],"class_list":{"0":"post-350218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-climate-alarmism","10":"tag-net-zero","11":"tag-nuclear-power","12":"tag-propaganda","13":"tag-renewable-energy","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/00image-147-1024x453-1.webp?fit=1024%2C453&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1t6G","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":349369,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=349369","url_meta":{"origin":350218,"position":0},"title":"$650m in renewable energy didn\u2019t save Broken Hill from days of blackouts after a storm islanded it","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"29\/10\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The lights went out in Broken Hill. A storm blew seven transmission towers over disconnecting the area from the national grid on October 17th. 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Now it\u2019s\u00a0expensive devices\u00a0such as this which merely store power that are supposed to guarantee the lights stay on, with the obvious problem that the power still has to be generated somewhere,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-972.png?fit=1200%2C803&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-972.png?fit=1200%2C803&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-972.png?fit=1200%2C803&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-972.png?fit=1200%2C803&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-972.png?fit=1200%2C803&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":393341,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=393341","url_meta":{"origin":350218,"position":5},"title":"If Global Warming is a Problem, Why is there So Much Snow in Australia?","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/08\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Former national's leader Barnaby Joyce stirring the greens.","rel":"","context":"In \"Global warming\"","block_context":{"text":"Global warming","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=global-warming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/528335396_745561178639916_7259476222275848154_n.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/528335396_745561178639916_7259476222275848154_n.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/528335396_745561178639916_7259476222275848154_n.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/528335396_745561178639916_7259476222275848154_n.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/528335396_745561178639916_7259476222275848154_n.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350225,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350218\/revisions\/350225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/350223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}