ABC still linking renewable energy to South Australia blackout

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ABC news reports continue to casually link South Australia’s large amount of renewable energy to the state’s blackout in late September, ignoring the impact of the major storms that swept across the state.

One reader, who had complained to the ABC about its coverage of the blackout, emailed RenewEconomy overnight to point out an article yesterday quoting deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce during a visit to the Hazelwood brown coal generator.

“Bloody hell, the ABC is at it again,” the reader said.

Joyce, who was one of the more prominent people blaming the blackout on wind energy, said the Hazelwood closure was a warning to Victoria not to go down the same path. But it wasn’t what Joyce had to say that riled the reader, but this statement of “fact” by the reporter.

“The South Australian Government was criticised after a statewide blackout in September that was largely blamed on its dependence on renewable energy,” the article said.

Largely blamed by who? Perhaps by ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann. By the federal government and state Coalition parties that used the blackout to attack renewable energy. And by the fossil fuel lobby.

Instead of blaming renewable energy, the blackout has now sparked reflection on the structure of Australia’ ageing grid, its inflexible market practices, and the actions and role of the market operator.

Interestingly, (as far as we can see) the ABC has yet to report on a major Bureau of Metereology report released on Monday that showed that the main transmission lines in South Australia were ripped out of the ground by a storm cell packing winds of up to 260km/h, equivalent to Cyclone Tracey and Cyclone Yasi.

The BoM identified seven different tornadoes that cut across the path of the three main transmission lines, ripping out more than 20 towers. Energy experts say it shows that the blackout would likely have occurred no matter what the source of generation – a point underlined previously by both the grid owner and the state’s main generator.

However, there are questions over the role of the Australian Energy Market Operator, which ignored multiple warnings about the threat of “destructive winds”, and put no contingency plans in place which might have reduced the impacts.

Meanwhile, the ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs division has rejected the 180 complaints about Uhlmann’s coverage.

In one letter, the ABC says Uhlmann was right to question whether the state’s “heavy reliance on wind turbines might have increased the risk of a state-wide blackout.” It said he did not suggest that renewable energy had caused the state-wide blackout.

In responding to another letter about Uhlmann’s interview with Senator Nick Xenophon, the unit said:

“Mr Uhlmann did not state that renewable energy, particularly wind power, was the cause of the blackout. Rather, he raised a series of newsworthy questions about the state’s energy mix, including about the possibilities of how the power could be out when the wind was blowing, and 40% of South Australia’s power is wind generated.

“In response Senator Xenophon made reference to the fact that wind turbines do typically shut down in extreme wind conditions; Mr Uhlmann repeated that suggestion when posing a follow-up question to the Senator. As the political editor, Mr Uhlmann ended the report with his analysis of the situation as it was understood at the time.”

Readers might wish to refer to this article for their own thoughts, his original piece and the later article that warned the whole nation faced a blackout if wind and solar continued to be deployed.

As Ben Eltham warned when also challenging Uhlmann on his reporting and analysis after the blackout, this apparent bias against wind energy was likely to filter through to mainstream ABC reporting on the event. The website Crikey on Monday noted that “Uhlmann was pivotal in driving the ABC’s coverage.” That appears to be validated.

Comments

17 responses to “ABC still linking renewable energy to South Australia blackout”

  1. wmh Avatar
    wmh

    The wind energy available to a wind turbine increases as the wind speed cubed, so 2 times the wind speed – 8 times the energy available and so on.
    The ability of a turbine to extract energy is limited by its power rating and at high wind speeds, the turbine blades have to be feathered to limit not only the power captured but also the increasing possibility of turbulence-caused torque reversal and gearbox damage. Eventually the turbine must be shut down.
    An imminent grid failure may also cause a turbine shut down since there is nowhere to otherwise dispose of the power generated.
    To maintain continuity of supply in a wind system, a wide geographic spread of generation is required so that not all turbines experience high winds. In the recent South Australian case, the distribution system failed and supply was lost regardless of the overload settings of the wind turbines.
    The eventual cost-effective solution to all this will be local energy storage.

    1. solarguy Avatar
      solarguy

      Correct, however if the turbine is charging a battery or pumped hydro that load will suffice. When it’s full, then yes it must shut down it that scenario.

  2. howardpatr Avatar
    howardpatr

    Perhaps Michelle Guthrie has become Chris Uhlmann’s editor on matters where the LNP Government thinks differently to the broader community?

  3. Les Johnston Avatar
    Les Johnston

    As “Catalyst” was terminated and its reporters sacked, maybe it is time for a similar fete for the senior political reporter.

  4. Andy Saunders Avatar
    Andy Saunders

    To be fair, for a balanced view, the wind generators should also bear some blame for their somewhat faulty disconnection algorithms.

    1. John McKeon Avatar
      John McKeon

      Alright … but No.Storm.No.Blackout. Logic 101.

      1. Andy Saunders Avatar
        Andy Saunders

        No argument there!

    2. Ray Miller Avatar
      Ray Miller

      AEMO is the responsible party for setting the connection technical standards ( and checking they are implemented) as noted by the response by AEMO AFTER the event getting all turbine owners to check and set the “new” parameters DICTATED by AEMO. This response shows who’s responsibility it was.
      AEMO’s competency is looking very ordinary.

      1. Andy Saunders Avatar
        Andy Saunders

        I don’t believe (with respect) that you’re correct. Generators lodge their own performance standards, AEMO assesses them. The last change to the AEMO standards were in June/July – well before the September outage.

        You’ll perhaps be familiar with the “Swiss Cheese” model of fault causation? Both AEMO and the wind generators had a bubble, and both bubbles were needed to line up for the outage to be so severe. If you insist on attributing blame (although I think that is fairly futile – the effort should be on fixing the problems – both of them), then the AEMO bubble is probably bigger (because they didn’t take sufficient precautionary and reactionary steps to ameliorate).

        See https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Network_Connections/Transmission-and-Distribution/guidelines_for_assessment_of_generator_proposed_performance_standards.pdf but there are lots of relevant documents on the AEMO website.

    3. DevMac Avatar
      DevMac

      I primarily agree with John McKeon’s statement lower down, but it seemed to also be pointed out that AEMO didn’t take any contingency action upon the storm warnings of the BoM. The simplified list of causes:

      1. Storm
      2. AEMO: No contingency / plan regarding massive storm
      3. AEMO: No sanity checks on electricity generation disconnection algorithms
      4. Wind Farms: disconnection algorithms

      What is AEMO’s job if not to have contingencies for potential major incidents and sanity checks on power generation?

      Each wind farm is not responsible for the grid as-a-whole, they’re responsible for their own assets. AEMO is responsible for the grid as-a-whole (is it not?)

      1. DJR96 Avatar
        DJR96

        Quite frankly AEMO had no idea about the wind turbines settings for limited number of fault ride-through events. It is only something they learnt about after the fact.
        And I got to admit, placing a limited number of events before disconnecting does seem over protective and not helpful to the grid. After-all, it must detect presence of grid being live or not, if it’s live – feed-in power! The inverters can technically ride-through a much wider range of voltage and frequency variances than synchronous generators can.

        Next is can the wind-turbine inverters provide reactive power support as specified in the updated AS4777? If they were re-programmed to do this it would help with providing ‘inertia’ and stability.

        Point being, technology can be used to improve the grid, if only the old-school industry will let it.

  5. Vic Avatar
    Vic

    So sad to witness the ABC turning into fossil fuel pimps. It appears to coincide with the appointment of ex Murdoch operative Michelle Guthrie as Managing Director.

    I noticed they published an article yesterday stating in the headline that CO2 emissions were falling, and in the body of the text that there was a “slowdown in CO2 emissions”. Both of these statements are incorrect, yet stated as facts.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/co2-emissions-fall,-research-shows,-raising-climate-change-hopes/8023218

    Such lies are especially concerning given that atmospheric CO2 measurements are continuing to increase at record breaking rates from year to year, indicating a possible breakdown of natural CO2 sinks and/or an enhancement of feedback loops.

  6. john Avatar
    john

    Yay ABC is now the mouth of the GUment
    Well that is what the national broadcaster is supposed to be the gument mouth peace
    so help me god. /-
    How can we have such a stupid situation?
    This Climate Change is all a Hoax!; i guess is the next gasping headline from the idiots who basically run the world economy will be putting out.

    honestly each of you have written a story about what you have done for your great grand kids to read i have.

    A pitfall self absorbed life most live.

    Pathetic is my comment: no other word can explain this self absorption of self.

  7. Ray Miller Avatar
    Ray Miller

    Uhlmann’s report has a causality problem.
    Prior to the SA blackout a report by the SA government highlighting a potential grid stability issue was released and then low and behold within a short period the SA grid went black. Conclusion; warning of Grid problem then Grid went black the warning was related to the problem. Which was not strictly correct.
    Uhlmann’s report highlights the problem with the lack of science and technical understandings generally in our community, compounded by the pressure to feed the news competitive beast and the pollies seeking any faint sniff of info to justify their ideology. Not to mention the AEMO operators and Uhlmann were not in SA so really had no physical queue of the massive storm with 260km/h winds.
    Many lessons for many people in this.

  8. trackdaze Avatar
    trackdaze

    Storage.

  9. Jonathan Prendergast Avatar
    Jonathan Prendergast

    This is so disappointing. I expect more from the ABC.

    Thanks for reporting and staying on top of this issue!

  10. Vic Avatar
    Vic

    Oh FFS! Guthrie now hacking away at ABC’s Radio National…

    “Conservative commentator Tom Switzer, an adjunct fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, has been given another show in addition to Between the Lines.
    Switzer will replace Jonathan Green as the host on Sunday Extra, which is RN’s live Sunday morning broadcast of Ockham’s Razor, Background Briefing and First Dog on the Moon.
    First Dog’s Sunday morning slot Guide to Modern Living has also been dropped, the cartoonist for Guardian Australia has revealed. ”

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/16/radio-national-to-lose-eight-staff-as-abc-cuts-several-programs-from-2017-schedule

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