Australians were all warned about gas shortages and soaring power prices this winter and now people are already experiencing power outages as supply of fossil fuels fails to meet demand.
Power outages affected about 3500 residents in suburbs across Sydney’s Northern Beaches on Monday night, including parts of Beacon Hill, Frenchs Forest, Narraweena, Cromer and Dee Why.
Provider Ausgrid also urged millions of its customers to conserve electricity earlier on Monday evening by turning off appliances …and I guess heating in the middle of winter. Being cold is normal now.
Power was restored late on Monday night.
Power has been restored to Beacon Hill, Cromer, Dee Why and surrounding suburbs. Thank you for your patience.
— Ausgrid (@Ausgrid) June 13, 2022
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) warned of outages in NSW and Queensland on Monday night. On Tuesday morning AEMO flagged that more outages were possible on Tuesday evening between 5 and 9pm.
It confirmed in a statement price caps were in place in east-coast states for Tuesday due to wholesale electricity prices reaching the cumulative high price threshold. Price caps are automatically triggered under the National Electricity Law when the threshold is reached.
The price cap will remain in place at least until 4am Wednesday, or longer if the cumulative price threshold is still exceeded.
Price caps are now in place in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. AEMO also forecasts some supply shortfalls in QLD and NSW this evening and will work with the industry to improve electricity reserves. Our latest statement: https://t.co/b2ai7EsFjb pic.twitter.com/wNOGalE4KL
— AEMO (@AEMO_Energy) June 13, 2022
But unfortunately this means some generators revised their market availability in NSW and Queensland on Tuesday, which AEMO said contributed to forecast supply shortfalls.
It also blamed the outage warnings on some power generation units being offline for planned maintenance and repairs.
If you live in the affected areas maybe it could be useful to do a sweep of your house and turn off any random appliances you didn’t realise were on — if for no other reason than to save money on your power bill.
Meanwhile it’s too expensive for me to heat my house to my desired 27ºC and it’s too expensive for me to drive to work so I guess I just have to stay here, eat cookies and hibernate.
