Adelaide has been making headlines this year with a number of bold energy moves to reduce reliance on the National Electricity Market.

This includes the construction of state-owned hybrid diesel/gas-powered generators, a solar thermal plant and the world's largest lithium ion battery.

They are the latest in a list of bold moves by a state that was the first to give Indigenous Australian men the vote in 1856, and all women in 1896.

But for all its progressiveness, its history is also littered with big mistakes, many of which have lasting impacts today.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of the most well-known cock-ups, starting from the relatively small and stupid to the big and devastating — all in the hope the Government's electricity market intervention never ends up on a list like this.

Slippery pavers

A coating applied to bring traction to the pavers lasted less than a year. ( ABC News: Malcolm Sutton )

In December 2014, $4 million was spent by the federal and state government, as well as Adelaide City Council, to beautify Hindley Street's west end.

This included laying street paving.

But when it rained it was dangerously slippery and authorities were forced to reduce the speed limit.

In January 2015 the council paid up to $50,000 to apply a coating to improve traction.

It worked, for a while, but by January the following year the coating had deteriorated and the council had to spend another $160,000 to fix the surface.

Cock-up rating: 6/10

Burnside tree

The tree looked dead for some time before authorities finally conceded the fact. ( ABC: Spence Denny )

In 2011 the group behind a redevelopment of the upmarket Burnside Village shopping mall enclosed a giant 100-year-old redgum tree in a massive glass housing at the centre of shop fronts.

The Cohen Group had previously requested permission to remove the tree but it was denied and instead decided to incorporate the tree into their redevelopment plans so they could water-proof the mall.

The tree started dying immediately due to what an expert said was not enough light.

The centre spent $100,000 on new automated doors to prevent cold air from outside the centre drying out the leaves, $20,000 on a water misting system, and started injecting the tree with nutrients.

In 2013 a solemn press conference was held to declare what everybody already knew: the tree was dead.

It was cut down and the shopping centre now has one of the highest two-tiered roofs around.

Cock-up rating: 7/10

Burnside Village has been left with a massive atrium after its infamous inside gum tree died. ( ABC News: Malcolm Sutton )

Retractable lights

In the 1990s the South Australian Cricket Association wanted to look at ways to increase patronage at Adelaide Oval during winter months.

Injured workers were left hanging by their harnesses after a retractable light collapsed in 1998. ( ABC News )

It decided it needed lights so it could lure AFL back to the city and perhaps even hold rugby games.

But it faced an uphill battle with Adelaide City Council and residents of North Adelaide who claimed they would be a blight on the area.

It also risked disturbing the famed oval's grandeur, a cricket ground internationally regarded as among the most beautiful in the world.

After considering a number of portable lighting options, a radical solution to install retractable lights was settled upon, with the eyes of the world and other stadiums watching keenly.

The project was all but destroyed but when one of the retractable lights collapsed. ( ABC News )

Work began in 1995 but technical difficulties resulted in ongoing delays and cost blow-outs. On Saint Patrick's Day in 1998, the number two tower collapsed and two injured men were left dangling from a crane by their harnesses. At that point the lights had only been used for two day/night cricket matches in December 1997.

One year later after an inquiry and an expensive legal stoush between the light's designer and the construction company, SACA submitted new plans for permanent lights. It started a whole new battle, but with design alterations, the oval's permanent lights were finally switched on in 2000.

The entire exercise had cost an estimated $20 million.

Cock-up rating: 8/10

Le Cornu weeds

The former Le Cornu furniture business site on O'Connell Street in North Adelaide was vacated 28 years ago.

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Development plans for the site have repeatedly been announced and abandoned since its closure but ultimately there are 7,500 square metres that have produced nothing but weeds ever since.

The most recent disappointment was a $200 million residential, retail and hotel development that was promised a few years ago by the Makris Group.

In July this year the project was postponed and put in doubt after the Makris Group missed its deadline to begin work by June 30.

It led Property Council SA executive director Daniel Gannon to call the site's Adelaide's "symbol of inaction" and at least one Adelaide City councillor to call for its mandatory acquisition by government.

Cock-up rating: 7/10

The block has been vacant since the Le Cornu furniture business closed in 1989. ( ABC News: Malcolm Sutton )

One-way freeway

In 2001 the world's longest reversible one-way freeway was opened by the former state Liberal government to connect Adelaide and Noarlunga at a cost of more than $75 million.

The Southern Expressway used to only allow travel in one direction at a time. ( Wikimedia Commons: Adam Trevorrow )

Traffic could travel north to the city in the mornings, and south in the afternoons, an arrangement that was reversed on the weekend for those heading away from the city.

For a while Adelaide was proud of its new expressway but it was not long until questions were asked about why the extra money was not spent to make a regular freeway.

Liberal ministers at the time said there was not enough money in the budget for the extra work, with the figure later estimated to be about $68 million.

The expressway was later duplicated at the extraordinary cost of more than $400 million and opened in 2014.

The ABC asked the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure for the exact costings for both projects but the department did not respond.

Cock-up rating: 8/10

Mitsubishi's doomed 380

In the early 2000s, Japanese car-maker Mitsubishi revamped its Tonsley Plant in Adelaide's south and started building a replacement to its ailing Magna model, the six-cylinder 380 that was supposed to rival Holden's Commodore and Ford's Falcon models.

By the time it was released in 2005, however, petrol prices had skyrocketed in what was expected to be the new norm and demand for six-cylinder cars plunged.

The factory was supposed to sell 30,000 a year but barely made half that number despite it being a well-made, well-reviewed car and sales only got worse in the following years.

The company slashed prices, made redundancies, was assisted by a loan of nearly $40 million from the State Government, but high petrol prices, a strong Australian dollar, and changing consumer tastes worked against it.

In early 2008 the factory was closed, costing the city more than 900 jobs and affecting component suppliers.

Cock-up rating: 8/10

Trams ripped up for buses

Prior to 1958, Adelaide had the most comprehensive tram network in the country.

A Hackney workshop sign-writer gives an indication of the extensive nature of Adelaide's old tram network. ( Supplied: Tramway Museum St Kilda )

At its peak the network served 21 suburban routes to all corners of Adelaide and its surrounds, including remote corners such as Waterfall Gully.

Tramway Museum Saint Kilda archivist Colin Seymour said that by the end of World War II the system was run down and the track and overhead cables needed updating.

"In 1953 a new plan was adopted, in which they decided to replace the trams with diesel buses. I guess it was cheaper to rip up the tracks and put in diesel buses," he said.

Cities across the United States were making similar decisions — heavily influenced by the growing power of oil companies.

The construction of the Port Stanvac oil refinery was announced in South Australia during 1958, the same year all of Adelaide's tram lines were finally decommissioned — with the exception of the Adelaide to Glenelg line.

Mr Seymour said the plan was to keep the Glenelg line intact for another 10 years and replace it with "a freeway or something" but after former premier Don Dunstan came into power the mindset changed and the remaining tramline was retained.

"The strange thing is, at the time Melbourne kept their trams because Sydney got rid of theirs, almost to be different to Sydney," he said.

"By the time the 70s came they'd realised they'd done the right thing and started to modernise their fleet and so forth."

In 2013 the SA Government announced plans to reinstate the tram network with five new lines and a city circuit to link Adelaide's suburbs and beaches to the CBD.

Cock-up rating: 9/10

A tram travelling through the Millswood underpass on Goodwood Road during the mid 1950s. ( Supplied: Tramway Museum Saint Kilda )

Poker machines start decline of music scene

From the 1960s to 90s Adelaide grew a strong reputation for its live pub music scene and was on par with Melbourne as being both a destination for touring bands and for breeding new acts.

This included the likes of Masters Apprentices, Paul Kelly, Cold Chisel, The Angels and Redgum through to The Superjesus, Testeagles, The Mark of Cain, and in later years, the Hilltop Hoods.

In 1992, the Labor Government introduced legislation that would allow pokies in all SA pubs from 1994 — despite their own premier Lynn Arnold crossing the floor to vote against the bill.

Its impact on the pub scene was fast and ferocious, with dance floors and stages giving way to lucrative poker machine rooms where the vulnerable threw away their savings to the prospect of small winnings.

Uniting Communities manager advocacy Mark Henley said the vast majority of hotels saw them as easy money that required far less effort than putting on live music or entertainment.

"[And] it's been a huge loss to the state in terms of jobs — poker machines have a very small employment multiplier — and in particular in terms of social costs, the heartache, children going without meals, in terms of housing and homelessness," he said.

An apartment building built behind the Exeter beer garden, which once housed live bands at night. ( ABC News: Malcolm Sutton )

The music scene faced its second challenge in 2000 and 2001 when the Liberal Government gave approvals for city apartment blocks to be built nearby to popular venues.

Apartment blocks sprung up across the CBD, but an oversight in government liquor licensing laws gave incoming residents the power to shut down, or severely disable, the pre-existing venues' band areas with a single noise complaint.

It meant stand-out Rundle Street venues the Austral and Exeter hotels both had their popular beer garden venues significantly compromised, while venues like the Seven Stars Hotel stopped playing music altogether.

When Adelaide's premier live music pub The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel was threatened by the same laws, a snap rally was held that resulted in supporters marching upon Parliament House and bringing about legislative change.

Cock-up rating: 8/10.

More than 5,000 live music supporters march towards Parliament House in 2001. ( Supplied: The Governor Hindmarsh )

ETSA privatisation

It is perhaps ironic that former Liberal premier Thomas Playford was integral to the nationalisation of South Australia's electricity supply in 1946 only for it to be privatised by another Liberal Government 53 years later.

Former premier Tom Playford established the Electricity Trust of SA in 1946. ( Supplied: ETSA )

Mr Playford had sought funds from the Commonwealth in 1946 to take control of the privately owned Adelaide Electric Supply Company, which had a monopoly on Adelaide's electricity supplies at the time.

His newly established Electricity Trust of SA took over council-run power systems while Playford's other plan, to build a power station at Port Augusta, was fulfilled in 1954.

Further generation was opened at Port Augusta and the Torrens Island power station near Adelaide opened in 1968.

In 1990 ETSA was corporatised and broken down into separate businesses but it was not until 1999 that former Liberal premier John Olsen privatised ETSA in a broken election promise.

He argued that the state was broke as a result of the State Bank collapse and that it was important to enter the fledgling Australian National Electricity Market.

The second reading of the ETSA sale bill was supported by independent MLC Nick Xenophon (he opposed the privatisation in the third reading), and two Labor MLCs, Terry Cameron and Trevor Crothers, crossed the floor to vote in favour of the legislation.

Sorry, this video has expired ABC News story about Mr Crothers crossing the floor.

A Federal Parliament report shows that in the years following the country's shift towards privatisation, electricity prices skyrocketed across Australia, increasing by 72 per cent from 2003 to 2013 alone.

In 2015, electricity providers were criticised for heavy investment in infrastructure upgrades, or so-called gold-plating, which they argued were necessary to protect supplies during periods of high demand and resulted in heavy increases to bills.

It did nothing for the security of SA's power, with blackouts, shortages and load shedding reaching unprecedented levels in 2016 — a situation partially created by the adoption of renewable energy, but more so the impact of a severe storm and its reliance on interstate power following the closure of Playford's power stations.

South Australia now has the highest power prices in the world thanks to further increases on July 1 by privately owned retailers AGL, Energy Australia and Origin Energy.

Cock-up rating: 10/10.

Police direct traffic around the CBD in Adelaide after the power network stops working. ( AAP: David Mariuz )

State Bank collapse

The State Bank collapse of 1991 had a calamitous effect on SA due to the fact it was owned and its deposits underwritten by the State Government.

The State Bank collapse was worth $3.1 billion in nominal terms. ( Supplied )

Blame for the collapse, which left a debt of about $3.1 billion, largely fell upon managing director Tim Marcus Clark and the Labor government of the day — led by former premier John Bannon.

The state's auditor-general was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the cause and chiefly blamed the bank's non-performing assets in corporate and property-related loans, and its general loan portfolio, for the collapse.

A book published in 2002 by then University of Adelaide politics lecturer Doctor Greg McCarthy said the bank had been engaged in practices similar to other banks at the time by approving loans for weak projects that were all too often "doomed to fail".

He said it had started its push towards fast dealings following a merger with the Savings Bank of SA, changes in global culture, the banking market's deregulation in the 1980s.

The collapse had a significant and long-lasting effect on SA's finances right into the 21st century, with the Liberal Party, who won Government in 1993, using it to justify the privatisation of monopoly electricity provider, ETSA, in 1999.

Cock-up rating: 10/10.