Failing to heed the warnings

22nd January 2024

This month power outages were experienced across the Perth hills, Wheatbelt and Goldfields as the result of a storm that hit on January 16th and 17th .

Some 7,000 homes and businesses were impacted, many of whom were out for four to five days following the significant damage done to the distribution lines.

The Western Power response started immediately, and those workers should be congratulated for their efforts to get the WA community reconnected.

Of course, it is not the Government’s fault that the lines went down, unless they are now claiming to control the weather.

But the Government does have to take responsibility for is ignoring the warning signs that the electricity system was not ready.

One of these warning signs occurred two years ago in February 2022 when another severe storm cut the Kalgoorlie power line and left residents without power.

There were already backup generators in place, but they didn’t come on as expected because of what the Government described as “technical difficulties”.

The shortfall was embarrassing, and at that time the Government the former energy Bill Johnston told the media “we would love to see more investment into generators in the Goldfields”.

Given the Government was in the biggest fiscal boom in our state’s history, with annual $5 billion to $6 billion surpluses, it had the greatest opportunity in history to do exactly that.

The budget papers that announced those massive surpluses also warned about the lack of preparedness to keep the lights on, with the 2023 budget saying “The distribution network is facing both reliability and safety challenges in the regions”.

Yet the lessons that should have been learnt appear to have completely lost on the Labor Government.

While there were some maintenance work committed, the system is obviously yet to be made fit for purpose when the power goes out. 

As recently as November 2023 Western Power announced it was doing maintenance work on the Kalgoorlie backup generators, which should have seen the current failure managed far better.

According to the Western Power release at the time “The generation can be used as a backup power supply for unplanned outages on Western Power’s 220kV network.”

But another storm hit the Kalgoorlie power line this month, and again the backup generator systems failed.

Kalgoorlie is a major regional city, and it deserves a better level of service than this.

And while Reece Whitby has asked for another investigation into the mess, this just reinforces that fact that the Government is ignoring the history and failing to learn from it.

The time has come for action to make the backup system work, not another long winded enquiry asking why history has repeated itself.

This repetition of failure comes at a time when the Government is attempting to transition our energy system for the future, and the performance to date leaves us with little confidence they can deliver.

The current plan to transition is massively underfunded and massively short of generation capacity (including back up generation), transmission and storage.

A Government report last year suggested the need for an additional 4,000km of transmission lines, and that will cost billions.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has reported that Western Australia may run out of both electricity and domestic gas in coming years.

There have been plenty of indicators that all is not right and more needs to be done to keep the lights on and the air conditioners running in WA, but there is a lack of commitment from the State Government to fix it.

In this sense, the Kalgoorlie blackouts are simply a litmus test for the rest of the state, especially the regions, showing how the future looks for electricity supply.

It has to be said that right now that future looks dark.