6 days ago
Record power outages for Canberra as winter demand skyrockets
Energy companies are being urged to step up their planning as Canberra faces a winter with record outages amid skyrocketing demand.
The ACT government's push to phase out gas appliances and increase electrification has seen demand for electricity rise to record levels, sometimes outstripping supply.
The result has been intermittent blackouts, sometimes coinciding with freezing temperatures.
But for some, the problem is far more serious than cold feet, with businesses dependent on electricity facing large financial losses from blackouts.
For cafe owner and cheesemonger Alex Royds, a loss of power can be a costly disaster.
Mr Royds said his day-to-day stock was about $20,000, so any power outage could cause a significant loss, especially since everything had to be kept below 4 degrees Celsius.
"It's a big loss, especially if you're just a new business … to lose a full week's worth of stock is pretty scary and might be hard to come back from," Mr Royds said.
"It's really sad to throw out that much food.
For power supplier Evoenergy, it has been somewhat of a nightmare winter.
The company said the outages for June this year increased by 20 per cent on outages for the same period last year.
It was attributed to a growth in power demand caused by a colder winter, a growing population, and increased electrification.
The worst-affected areas have been the Molonglo Valley and Gungahlin, two of the fastest-growing areas.
In May, the company began trialling six new community-scale batteries in Denman Prospect to help improve electricity reliability during Canberra's high-demand winter season.
In a statement, Evoenergy said the batteries were designed to "store energy from the grid during off-peak periods — like overnight or midday — and release it when demand is highest, especially in the evenings when heating use peaks".
Evoenergy acting general manager Tim Juhasz said the problems in the system usually emerged during peak times when people got up in the morning and when they got home in the evening.
"The more load you have going through your network and when it starts to get close to the network's capacity and if there are any underlying issues with the network, they start to show up and might trip the feeder and cause outages for the community," he said.
Mr Juhasz said there were other stressors on the system, too, from bad weather, falling trees, and other disasters.
Tony Wood, an energy and climate change senior fellow at the Grattan Institute, agreed unpredictable weather, particularly caused by climate change, was a problem.
But he said he would have expected better planning from energy companies that needed to be on top of the demand from a growing population.
"It does mean we put much greater value on the reliability of our electricity system than we ever have before.
"As some of our cities and regional areas are growing, we need to deal with that by putting in more infrastructure.
"That's the role of the energy companies."
Evoenergy said that in addition to the trial batteries, before next winter, it also expected to have completed the construction of the Molonglo Zone Substation, which would power thousands of homes.
In the meantime, Mr Royds is still pleased he has gone all electric with the help of a government grant.
"It's actually made things a hell of a lot easier," he said.
That is while the fridges stay on.
