Over 40,000 South Australian households endured a blackout yesterday evening for about half an hour during an extreme heatwave. AEMO ordered the loadshedding, but questions remain why the Pelican Point 2nd gas turbine wasn't fired up.
Quick Summary Wednesday 8 February SA Heatwave Blackouts
10:31am BOM SA advise an extreme heat warning issued by the SES based on BOM heatwave forecasting
1:30pm Briefing for media on heatwave conditions
2:17pm NEM watch reported the lack of online reserve in South Australia.
5:17pm Actual lack of Reserve (Level 1) , Actual Lack of Reserve (Level 2) at 6:17pm.
6:03pm AEMO ordered 100MW of load shedding to last to 7:30pm.
8:32pm SA Power networks tweeted that it was an "upstream generation issue managed by AEMO the Australian Energy Market Operator, not SA Power Networks".
9:16pm SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis says that "Power shedding tonight was avoidable. There was sufficient local generation to meet our demand tonight, but AEMO didn't instruct it on! Why?"
10:23pm Tom Koutsantonis says to a question "Yes gas, South Australian Gas fired generation that should have been told to be on & wasnt!"
11:27pm SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis says that "AEMO have informed the SA Government they got their demand forecast for SA wrong."
