There was no way Victorian households could have been warned their power would be cut during Friday’s heatwave, the energy market operator has said.
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As Melbourne sweltered through a 42-degree day, more than 200,000 people had their electricity switched off during the afternoon.
While services were restored to most of these households within a few hours, some Victorians are questioning why they didn't receive a warning before their power went off.
A spokesman for the Australian Energy Market Operator said the rolling blackouts, which impacted people in more than 50 suburbs and townships, were an “emergency mechanism” in response to a depletion in power reserves.
“It was to balance the system in real time and to protect the security of the wider system,” he explained.
On Wednesday, the energy market operator raised the possibility of a power supply shortfall in Victoria and South Australia.
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said Victoria’s “old, dirty, brown coal power plants” had failed and the situation highlighted the need to shift to renewables.
“We know it was frustrating and uncomfortable for those who lost power,” she said.
Chandra Ojha said he would have liked to receive a warning that power would be cut to his Ormond home.
This would have given his family time to make alternative arrangements, he said.
“They could at least inform us half an hour before that your power is going to go out," he said.
Soon after his house was plunged into darkness and the airconditioning ground to a halt at 1.30pm, his five-year-old daughter started feeling unwell.
She began vomiting. His wife tried to cool her down by putting her in a cold shower.
“She had heat stroke,” Mr Ojha said.
While his daughter has recovered, Mr Ojha said the situation was incredibly stressful.
Friday’s power failure was the result of a perfect storm of events. Two of the state’s three coal-fired power plants failed, stripping 1800 megawatts of capacity from the system.
Part of Yallourn Power Station went offline due to tube leaks in a boiler tube, while a unit of Loy Yang also had a leak and was running below capacity. These tubes are used to produce steam, which powers turbines.
As this unfolded, demand for electricity hit record highs.
Fires in NSW didn't help, tripping the NSW transmission line twice, although it’s understood this had a limited impact on the state’s power supply.
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said on Friday that the blackouts highlighted the need for new, reliable sources of power generation and conceded Victoria's energy grid had let people down.
But Greens energy and climate change spokesman Adam Bandt said the Liberals were to blame because they had repealed the carbon price, which would have paved the way for "bucketloads" of new renewables and storage.
"This summer shows we can’t leave our energy transition to the denialism of the Liberals or the chaos of the market," he said.
Chris Bluett, who lives in Buninyong, south of Ballarat, lost power for more than five hours on Friday.
He relies on electricity to pump water from his tank and said it was incredibly fortunate that he had a five litre container of filtered water sitting in his kitchen.
“We were really lucky,” Mr Bluett said.
“Otherwise I would’ve been getting it out of the tank and hoping for the best.”
Once the airconditioning stopped working, his house quickly heated up.
He filled a paddle pool with water to keep his two-year-old granddaughter Charlotte cool.
Cooking dinner presented another challenge.
The family uses an electric stove and had to resort to a $12 gas burner to cook the child's meal of chicken and rice.
“It was a bit like camping at home,” he said.
“But we are from the country. We are resourceful. You just cope and manage.”
