Almost exactly a decade on from a disastrous statewide power blackout, the grid’s fragility is again exposed by an outage in the heart of the capital’s central business and commercial district.
Just like in 2016, a freak event on Friday morning triggered a power outage across the Adelaide CBD’s northern edge – the state’s business, retail and political hub.
A burst water main under Rundle Mall flooded a multi-level SA Power Networks substation in nearby Coromandel Plc, blacking out an estimated 500 CBD buildings.
Prolonged supply disruption forced work-from-home advice for the affected area. Given this was a Friday, when the CBD is often devoid of people because they are working from home, this advice probably had limited impact.
But a burst water main shutting down a substation and blacking out crucial parts of the CBD should not be excused merely because it is a bizarre occurrence.
Nor should it be dismissed lightly because blackouts of this scale occur relatively frequently in other parts of the state.
Clearly, this was not a disaster on the scale of the calamity on September 28, 2016, when the entire state was blacked out for hours and South Australia’s reputation trashed on a national, even global, scale.
But it is precisely because of this devastation – and the sorry history of associated infrastructure failures in SA – that important questions are raised.
Friday morning’s incident was not without consequence. It demonstrates the critical importance of a reliable electricity supply for every aspect of modern life.
Scheduled morning surgeries were cancelled at Angas St’s Calvary Adelaide Hospital, before power was restored at 8.10am.
Near the Adelaide Zoo on Frome Rd, Adelaide Botanic High School was closed and parents were urged to keep their children at home.
Surely the impact of pandemic stay-at-home orders – thankfully limited in SA – demonstrate the necessity of making every possible effort to keep children at school to study.
Even if blackboards are generally a thing of the past as schools rely on projection screens, surely teachers could have worked around the issue, rather than head for home.
Hindmarsh Square’s CitiCentre building was said to be inaccessible without power. Is it too unfair to suggest this likely had limited impact, given many Health and Wellbeing Department staff were unlikely to be there on a Friday in the first place?
More seriously, the confluence of electricity and water infrastructure failures in the most prominent part of the CBD revive dismal memories and undermine confidence.
About the time of the statewide blackout, The Advertiser was waging a concerted campaign to hold the-then water minister Ian Hunter accountable for the impact of burst water mains and his refusal to meet people affected by them.
This featured a cardboard cutout of Mr Hunter, which journalists placed strategically near leaking mains, until SA Water in 2017 hired 28 workers and created an afternoon shift in a bid to slash the number of burst mains and replace ageing pipes.
A decade on, one unfortunately placed and timed burst water main has shut down the city’s heart.
The CBD is necessarily more resistant to blackouts because it has more substations and high-voltage transmission lines than suburbs or regions.
Making the CBD, or any other area, blackout-proof by further bolstering the network would be prohibitively expensive – likely running into the billions.
This is true for any CBD or downtown across the globe. That’s why hospitals and other critical places have backup generators.
But Friday morning is yet another warning bell as society becomes evermore dependent on electricity to power almost every aspect of modern life.
SA has become a world leader in the green energy transition with a grid that is still, largely, designed for the era of coal and gas baseload generation. Reliable supply is critical yet it cannot be guaranteed, even in crucial places.
Paul StarickEditor at large
Read related topics:Value Vault | Money Saving Tips & Cost of Living NewsPeter Malinauskas