Ten South Australian wind farms told to limit generation after statewide electricity blackout

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TEN South Australian wind farms have been ordered to limit generation in the wake of the disastrous statewide power blackout because the national electricity market operator has declared they have not performed properly.

The state’s biggest wind farm, at Snowtown, is among those which the Australian Energy Market Operator has targeted in its “management and analysis” of last Wednesday’s unprecedented power outage as it gradually restores the power network. The move will prompt further questions over whether renewable energy jeopardised electricity grid stability and triggered the cascading blackout, which started when fierce winds damaged 23 Mid North transmission towers and severed three high-voltage lines. –Paul Starick, The Advertiser, 4 October 2016

This comes on the heels of a damning report that says that the power instability of wind farms dropping out caused the grid to collapse. The report, by the AEMO, said:

Event The predicted weather front moved through SA on the afternoon of Wednesday 28 September 2016, including high winds, thunderstorms, lightning strikes, hail, and heavy rainfall. The weather resulted in multiple transmission system faults. In the short time between 16:16 and 16:18, system faults included the loss of three major 275 kV transmission lines north of Adelaide. Generation initially rode through the faults, but at 16:18, following an extensive number of faults in a short period, 315 MW of wind generation disconnected (one group at 16:18:09, a second group at 16:18:15), also affecting the region north of Adelaide. The uncontrolled reduction in generation resulted in increased flow on the main Victorian interconnector (Heywood) to make up the deficit. This resulted in the Heywood Interconnector overloading. To avoid damage to the interconnector, the automatic-protection mechanism activated, tripping the interconnector. In this event, this resulted in the remaining customer load and electricity generation in SA being lost (referred to as a Black System). This automatic-protection operated in less than half a second at 16:18. The event resulted in the SA regional electricity market being suspended.

Source: https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/-/media/BE174B1732CB4B3ABB74BD507664B270.ashx

For those having trouble reading ASHX files, a local copy f the report is here as a PDF file aemo-sa-preliminary-report-at-900am-3-october

Here is the notice (h/t to WUWT reader observa):

From the AEMO ‘Market Notices’ site-

‘55242 05 Oct 2016 19:52 Heywood interconnector dynamic constraint AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE Heywood interconnector dynamic constraint Under the market suspension in South Australia, AEMO will limit the flow from South Australia to Victoria to prevent the accumulation of negative residues, which cannot be accommodated under the suspension pricing regime. The following constraint set has been invoked at 20:00 hrs to manage the above outcome. Constraint set: I-SV_000_DYN which includes constraint equation: S_V_000_HY_DYN. Spot prices and ancillary services prices in South Australia continue to be determined by the relevant market suspension pricing schedule developed and published in accordance with clause 3.24.5(l) of the NER. The schedule is available on AEMO’s website at https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data/Market-Management-System-MMS/Market-Suspension-Default-Pricing-Schedule and summarised for South Australia at https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/Prices-in-South-Australia Manager NEM Real Time Operations’

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