D’Ambrosio “D’oh” moment on SA blackout

Shadow Minister for Energy, David Southwick

Background
Today the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released a preliminary report into the South Australian state-wide power outage. The report said:
“… at 16:18hrs, following multiple faults in a short period, 315 MW of wind generation disconnected, affecting the region north of Adelaide. The uncontrolled reduction in generation increased the flow on the main Victorian interconnector (Heywood) to make up the deficit and resulted in the interconnector overloading.”
Last week, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said:
“All available evidence shows that the blackout in South Australia on Wednesday night was the result of transmission outages caused by an extreme weather event that included 80,000 lightning strikes.There is no evidence that renewable energy played a part in what has occurred.”
Comments attributable to David Southwick
“Daniel Andrews and Lily D’Ambrosio have been caught out defending their Labor mates in South Australia on renewable energy, instead of worrying about how to provide cheap and secure energy in Victoria.
Whether it’s Daniel Andrews’ tax on coal, his closure of Hazelwood which provides cheap energy or his obsession with go-it-alone, expensive renewable energy scheme, Victorian families and businesses are worse off under Labor.
Victoria was once home to cheap, secure and reliable power but Daniel Andrews will put all this at risk if he continues to put ideology before people.”
Media contact: James Duncan     0457 758 018      james.duncan@opposition.vic.gov.au