Grumblebum
We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan…. That will be the case if we keep listening to the greenies and the lunatic left.
After last week’s storms, flooding rain and power outages in South Australia, we have heard from all the talking heads, the lunatic left / green alarmist global warming climate experts, politicians of all persuasions and the empty headed left-wing political commentariat. Most of the masses are just as ignorant and confused about the real cause of South Australia’s going back into blackfella mode in the 21st century.
The spectacle of SA Premier Jay Weatherill trying to bluff his way through a news conference, claiming all the problems were weather related, did not convince many (including myself) that he had a real handle on what had happened that day.
The storm was only the trigger which exposed the inherent weaknesses which successive SA governments have let slide over many years, content to focus on social engineering experiments rather that apply themselves to bringing SA up to speed with the remainder of Australia.
Saturday’s Australian Newspaper had a number of well written articles which dealt in depth with the inherent problems of the SA power grid.
Weekend Australian October 1, 2016-10- 02, Page 4, Rebecca Puddy, Electra Net was warned of transmission tower risks:
- The power transmission company was warned in 2005 that 43 of its towers could collapse in windy conditions.
- Wednesdays storm – 23 towers in SA mid north failed.
- Some were ripped out of the ground – footing failures to resist the overturning load in one case where two footings were pulled out of the ground – unable to resist the overturning moment.
- There were other pictures of tower failure by buckling at joint where structure slimmed down in cross section. (compression leg buckling)
- Tower structural age, poor condition, lack of maintenance, and foundation degradation were all contributing factors.
- Standards for wind loading were upgraded Australia wide after Cyclone Tracey in 1974.
- It’s a fair guess that the towers concerned were pre 1974 designs.
- The CEO of Electra Net did not know how old the towers were.
- More than 80% of transmission line failures in Australia are the result of high winds. Source QLD Uni spokesman.
A likely scenario of the results of a tower failure on the HV power line feeding Pt. Pirie, Port Augusta, Olympic Dam, Whyalla and Port Lincoln area is that there is an immediate short to earth, as the wires hit the ground. This in turn causes a high fault current in the HV line which is sensed in the closest substation, which then trips the circuit breakers to disconnect power flow to all these areas downstream. BANG,… big bang in the substation, as that electrical energy is dissipated.
The fault current may have even been sensed on the interconnector from Victoria, and could have also triggered a trip on this line as well. Secondary effects flow back down the feeder line after tripping and these could cause instability in power circuits in Adelaide and the interconnector from Victoria.
The power interconnector from Victoria is now forced to supply the difference between what Torrens Island Power Station (1280 MW or 8 x 160MW turbines) can produce and what Adelaide and the SE load demands, less of course the load shed when the transmission towers fell over.
Torrens Island Power Station is hit by a lightning strike, trips out and any power it is feeding into the SA grid is lost, and hence the Victorian interconnector has to allow more power to flow into the SA grid.
The interconnector from Victoria is quite a long transmission line, and it may not have had the capacity to instantaneously bring in 1000MW more power, and this causes the system frequency in Adelaide to drop off as there is more power going out into SA than is coming in from Victorian Power Stations.
This is also the signal to trip the Victorian Interconnector in order to protect the Victorian Power grid from being involved.
Having lost all power to the SA grid, there would be pandemonium at Torrens Island Power Station and the SA power control centre, as everyone woke up, and tried to get power back on to their grid.
Because of high wind speeds at the SA wind farms, the clean green renewable wind turbines are shut down as the wind speeds have passed the allowable maximum for these wonderful planet saving devices. They are bloody useless clean green wind turbines at this point in time.
Having lost all power, the next problem is that you need backup diesel generating sets to start in order to get one gas fired boiler to generate steam. This presupposes that you have a backup emergency diesel generator, even just to get some lights on. If you do not have this emergency backup power, well, its ring around and get the plant hire companies to bring equipment down to your power station, and then connect it up and start the emergency generating sets.
Once you have emergency power, then you can begin to start your ancillary plant at the power station and begin a boiler start up on one generating unit. Once you have steam, then you can begin to run up one steam turbine back up to synchronous speed, before you energise the exciter circuit and actually generate useful power. This is not a quick and easy process, and could take several hours to have a stable power supply. Then follows the restart of the remainder of the boiler / turbine units, and this is undoubtedly what was seen in Adelaide as power was gradually restored to the city centre late in the evening. With the general chaos and confusion of that day, it obviously took quite some time to get it all organised.
Fancy the bearded Port Melbourne gay boy putting in his two cents worth, claiming that we need more renewable energy to fix their problems that were all caused by climate warming. Luckily, the remainder of the green brigade had crawled back under their rocks to sit out a cold, wet and miserable night.
Try telling that to the thousands of South Australians trying to cook a meal that evening, huddled outside in the wind and driving rain, besides a gas fired barbeque, or those without candles, torches or any cooking apparatus at all.
The mind boggles.
“We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan, before the year is out.”
—
Since writing this article, much more detailed information has leaked out of South Australia and readers are referred to The Australian Newspaper of October 4, Page 10.
“The article is titled “Weatherill’s green ambitions puts state in the Dark Ages.”
“Grumblebum” is a white anglo saxon male baby boomer whose ancestors came by sailing boat from UK in the 1880’s and settled in the southern states. Some of them even took the gospel to SA. They farmed (not always successfully) and built the land, and passed onto myself their heritage of democracy and laws based on the Judeo-Christian principles. I am just wondering why I am being harangued into forfeiting this by a bunch of under-educated, historically illiterate, unwashed and unemployable knuckle-draggers from the political left.
Photo by bertknot 
