Fairfax joins media hysteria over post-Hazelwood “blackouts”

age hysteriaThe warnings of blackouts provoked by the imminent closure of the Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria– already so prevalent on right wing blogs, the Murdoch media and the ABC – reached fever pitched proportions on Thursday.

Fairfax Media led the front page of The Age newspaper (see image right) with an “exclusive” story that warned of 72 days of potential blackouts across the state over the next two summers.

“Victoria’s energy security has been thrown into question, with the state facing an unprecedented 72 days of possible power supply shortfalls over the next two years following the shutdown of the Hazelwood plant next week,” the story by Josh Gordon begins.

And how does it come to this breathless conclusion? Fairfax, like other media, such as the ABC’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, is basing the forecasts of blackouts on this graph that appears on the website of the Australian Energy Market Operator.

It purports to show – in the light red at the top – the periods when Victoria could face a shortfall of supply. The graph for South Australia is even more dramatic. But is that really what is says? Blackouts all summer?

aemo-vic-medium-prices-data

Not at all, says the AEMO – a reply they would happily give anyone who bothered to ask.

It actually shows the most extreme demand scenarios that it can think of – a one in ten year likelihood in this case – and graphs that over and above what it considers to be the “average” supply. Repeat. That is average supply, not total supply available.

Assuming this would lead to blackouts is a bit like saying that someone who walks to the ocean edge at low tide risks getting wet when the tide comes in, and they don’t move.

There is plenty of excess capacity that can meet that demand. This graph, is a section known as its Mtpasa forecasts, is basically a heads up that the tide will come in, and generator owners might want to think about maintenance planning, switching them on etc etc, to take it into account.

One source, who said he talked to Fairfax journalists “at length” trying to explain the graph, described the news story as “unbelievable”. But he also criticised AEMO for publishing a graph without any explanation of what it might mean.

Here is what the AEMO’s 50% demand scenario looks like for the same period. It shows a significant reduction in expected demand, which would be easily covered, even by “average” supply.

victoria 10 and 50 demand

And here is an historical look at the last two months, plotting its 10 per cent probability demand with its 50 per cent probability demand, and what actually occurred.

results

AEMO says its “bible” on actual predictions of supply shortfalls is its Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO), last released in November 2016, after the announced closure of Hazelwood, which can supply up to 20 per cent of the state’s demand.

It said then that some issues may arise, if the rest of the market did absolutely nothing. But if they walked back from ocean edge at low tide, or in this case actually increase generation from existing plants, as they would be expected to do, then there would be no issues.

As this graph shows, the forecasts of supply adequacy, with a market response, remains well within the guidelines.

ESOO november

 

Does this guarantee that there will be no blackouts? Not at all, because there’s no telling what sort of storms may occur that could bring down networks, or yet more failures of baseload fossil fuel plants.

Nor can we predict what the big generation companies will do, given that the market rules effectively allow them to manipulate prices by withdrawing capacity and playing what Spark Infrastructure – the owner of two of Victoria’s electricity networks – calls the “scarcity game”.

In its submission to the Finkel Review, Spark accuses fossil fuel generators of deliberately withholding capacity to push prices up. This puts the grid at risk. Often times, in NSW and in South Australia, the gas generators have failed when needed.

South Australia knows this well. In the recent heat wave, Engie, the company that also owns Hazelwood, chose not to fire up its Pelican Point gas plant, leaving tens of thousands of households and businesses, including many of its own customers, without power.

This is what is frustrating the South Australian government. The decision to put “profits before people” as premier Jay Weatherill described it last week, is behind their decision to build an emergency back up generator to fill in the gaps when the private sector refuses to do so.

Meanwhile, the idiotic and ignorant reporting in the mainstream media is allowing the fossil fuel generators and their protectors in the Coalition to blind public perceptions with complete nonsense. Fake news indeed.


For further reading about media’s recent performance..

How The Australian distorted S.A. renewables advice

ABC’s Uhlmann gets it wrong on renewables. Again

When will ABC stop parroting fossil fuel lobbyist lines?

 

 

Comments

10 responses to “Fairfax joins media hysteria over post-Hazelwood “blackouts””

  1. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Dont worry – this is quite obviously an early edition of their April 1st paper. How can I tell? Easily. The other headline on the page: “Tigers for the flag”.

    1. Giles Avatar

      Well, I’m a long suffering Tigers fan. I’m going to keep that bit!

  2. Chris Fraser Avatar
    Chris Fraser

    Did Australia make a strategic error in promising to sell ‘every molecule of gas’ in a locked contract overseas ? It seems all the gas generators are letting their maintenance slip, not wanting to generate, and due to international prices, not wanting a reserve of gas for domestic use.Into this scenario comes AEMO who happily assume all plant is primed ready for generation, and the NEM is a buyers market for themselves.Clearly the SA Government doesn’t believe this because their State has been forsaken for easterners, they have to build (not simply buy back) their own peaking plant, and they have to find and store gas from the SA south-east.Now there would be few people who could convince me all this doesn’t represent an energy market failure. Oh, I think the ACCC has just gone back to sleep …

  3. MG Avatar
    MG

    The Age article was just awful. It’s basically fake news and is deliberately alarmist. Worst part is average punters will never be exposed to sober explanations like the one in this article. It’s all my colleagues were talking about this morning… “there’s going to be blackouts”. Another part of the story is that AEMO’s MT PASA and ESOO exist in order to point out to market participants where and when they should be investing in building new generation capacity. Years ago an MT PASA like that would have everyone racing to build peakers, but with today’s policy vacuum and gas market… nothing.

  4. Rod Avatar
    Rod

    Great, tomorrow I’ll expect to see both the SA graph and a story about only one hour of battery storage in our local Murdoch rag. Groan

  5. Cooma Doug Avatar
    Cooma Doug

    I would think from some experience, reliance on a huge old coal ps is more dangerous in a security aspect than reliance on a despersed allocation.

  6. Russell Yann Avatar
    Russell Yann

    Thank you for bringing this to our attention @reneweconomy Giles. Always appreciate your hard work.

  7. RobSa Avatar
    RobSa

    The author should stop paying attention to the myth-making on right wing blogs, the Murdoch media and the ABC. Let the fools who read that stuff be mislead.

  8. Just_Chris Avatar
    Just_Chris

    The ocean analogy works very well on some levels but it assumes that the failure to act results in a negative outcome. What we have in reality in the Australian energy market is a shed full of pigs and a trough full of money. Every time the trough is filled the pigs will fight and squabble pushing out their competitors taking as much of the riches as possible.

    Next year (month!) what we will see is a market that is more easily controlled by fewer players, I don’t think there will be blackouts but I do think that there will be a significant jump in price. Especially since the gas companies have only said that they will increase supply on “hot” days.

  9. lin Avatar
    lin

    A scare article yesterday followed by an industry call for taxpayer money to subsidise Hazelwood to stay open today. Sounds like a scam to me.
    The question is whether Fairfax are dumb bunnies being manipulated to run this propaganda or whether they are part of the scam.

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