Victoria exported power to NSW during rolling blackouts in extreme heat
Victoria was still exporting power to New South Wales as more than 100,000 households around Melbourne struggled through an extreme heatwave on riday without air-conditioning or fans.
As Melburnians suffered through a peak of 42 degrees there were rolling blackouts across the city, as the energy market operator instructed power distributors to start switching off electricity in a desperate bid to prevent the entire grid going down.
But Victoria was still exporting nearly 70 megawatts of power to NSW, where the residents of Sydney enjoyed a cozy maximum of 29 degrees.
The same happened on Thursday, when Melbourne sweltered through 40-degree heat.
Even as the Australian Energy Market Operator was calling on businesses to power down to ensure there was enough electricity to meet growing demand, Victoria was exporting energy to NSW.
On Thursday, Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood said for most of the day the power flowed from NSW into Victoria but a problem with the interconnector, which exchanges energy between NSW and Victoria, may have restricted this flow.
“This is an issue to do with the interconnector and how it does some odd things over the short term,” Mr Wood said.
“It’s more an anomaly than something that was planned.”
University of Melbourne energy expert Dylan McConnell disagreed saying this change of flow wasn’t particularly surprising.
“One consideration from a system security perspective - you don't want to be importing too much at once,” he said on Thursday.
“If you do and something happens in Victoria, such as another generator trips, then there might be limited ability to import more. There are sometimes limits on the interconnectors to ensure there is enough headroom to quickly transport power in case there is a contingency somewhere.”