Christmas power outages inquiry finds ‘none caused by lack of maintenance’

An inquiry into a spate of power outages across metropolitan and regional WA has revealed most were caused by an “unusually high” demand on the network and “none related to a lack of maintenance”. The Christmas 2021 Power Outages Review, released last Wednesday, investigated blackouts affecting 107,000 Western Power customers in the Perth, Peel, South-West and Mid-West regions between December 24 and 28. WA experienced a record-breaking heatwave during the four-day period, sending air conditioners and fans into overdrive. Australian Energy Market commissioner Michelle Shepherd, who carried out the independent review, said the outages were “largely caused by parts of the network not having the capacity to meet the unusually high electricity demand”. “While the severity of the heatwave is historically rare, it’s expected similar events may occur more frequently in the future due to the impacts of climate change,” she said. WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston, who instigated the review, said a lack of maintenance was not to blame for any of the outages. “Some of the outages were caused by external impact on the network, for example, cars crashing into power poles, or branches and other wind-borne debris hitting equipment,” he said. “(The report) also showed there were other outages caused by equipment failure, that is mechanical failure. “Importantly, the report noted that over the past five years, the State Government had approved all funding requests made by Western Power towards capital improvements to the network.” The inquiry only looked at outages within the South West Interconnected System, which provides energy to most of WA’s population — from Kalbarri in the north to Albany in the south, and east to the Kalgoorlie-Goldfields region. It did not investigate the North West Interconnected System, which is serviced by Horizon Power, nor any cuts that occurred outside the four-day period in December. Ms Shepherd’s report contained six recommendations, all of which the Government has ordered Western Power to implement. Mr Johnston said while the energy provider’s network “exceeds current legislative requirements” and its planning processes “were to industry standard”, improvements could still be made. “The report sets out a blueprint for improved services from Western Power by improving the way they do their planning, by improving the way they communicate with the community, and by the way they handle faults,” he said. “Because climate change is leading to much higher temperatures across the SWIS, it shows that we need to review the way we manage bushfire risks when there’s an outage.” Western Power has repeatedly come under fire for its strict regulations governing how and when electricity can be restored on high fire risk days. Critics, including WA Nationals member for Moore Shane Love, have argued the regulations frequently leave regional communities without electricity for extended periods when there are safe ways to restore power. Mr Love also welcomed the recommendation that Western Power improve information on its reliability performance, including revealing which communities experienced the worst power reliability. “At the moment, Western Power reports its performance on the whole of the State average, so a good performance in certain areas masks towns like Horrocks, Perenjori or Dongara, where the power supplies are much worse than average,” he said. “Now they’ll have to publish those bad results and name and shame, so that’s a good thing.” The results will be released annually and will also include the causes of reliability issues and plans to address them in the future. According to the report, while Western Power “generally meets its reliability performance standards (with the exclusion of extreme weather events)… there are a number of communities across the SWIS whose reliability falls below these benchmarks”. “Improved transparency about which communities are regularly experiencing reliability materially below standards, and the impact of Major Event Days on network performance, would improve stakeholder engagement on what Western Power can do to address reliability in the future (noting the trade-off between cost and reliability),” the report stated. “This is particularly important for many rural communities which experienced outages during the Christmas 2021 period, as well as throughout the year.” Farming communities were among those worst hit by last summer’s outages, which forced the closure of Perenjori’s local CBH bin for two days during a record harvest, and left families and businesses with no choice but to fire up generators. Mr Love and WA Nationals member for the Agricultural Region Martin Aldridge recently called for a second, more wide-ranging review to investigate ongoing outages that have plagued regional WA for decades. The pair this month presented a petition to Parliament with more than 2000 signatures from disgruntled residents who felt a comprehensive inquiry was “long overdue”. Mr Aldridge said there were “still unresolved matters” requiring further investigation, however, Mr Love was satisfied another enquiry was no longer needed. “I thought the report, in the end, came out a much wider look at the power system in WA than what the Minister first announced,” Mr Love said. “In the end, I think it was a fairly wide-ranging and fair overview of the situation.” Mr Johnston said Western Power was preparing for future blackouts by rolling out batteries, microgrids, standalone power systems and other network improvements. RECOMMENDATIONS Western Power should: 1. Continue to improve its forecasting of the distribution network to account for: the rapidly changing way electricity is produced and consumed by customers in parts of the network; and the increased likelihood of extreme weather events reducing the relevance of previous peaks. 2. Review its approach to network planning, particularly the ongoing appropriateness of its application of distribution network planning criteria, to identify improvements. 3. Continue existing strategies and consider improved ways to prepare for and manage outages. Strategies to be considered include: a) batteries, microgrids, network undergrounding and standalone power systems; and b) demand response, including asking customers to voluntarily reduce demand. 4. Work with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and Local Government Authorities to review Western Power’s fire risk management approach with regard to the restoration of electricity supply on higher fire risk days. 5. Consult with stakeholders on improvements to customer and stakeholder communications in the lead up to, and during outage events. 6. Improve information on its reliability performance for communities experiencing performance well below prescribed reliability standards and the network during extreme events.