Power supplies will become “tight” in New South Wales and Queensland later this week as the season’s first major heatwave coincides with outages at big coal-fired power stations.
Parts of western Sydney are forecast to approach 40C on Tuesday and Wednesday during a pre-summer hot spell spanning a week of 30C-plus days. Heatwave conditions in eastern parts of NSW will be in the low- to severe-intensity range, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The Australian Energy Market Operator on Monday issued multiple so-called lack of reserve alerts for the two states, including the highest level-3 forecast for NSW on Wednesday afternoon.
That alert was later cancelled, only to be replaced by an LOR3 warning for Thursday afternoon, as one indication of the lingering heatwave.
As of Monday afternoon, NSW faced the possibility of an “interrupted supply”, or blackouts, reaching as much as 205 megawatts at 3.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday. The period when supply may not meet demand – without further market responses – was from 3pm to 4pm AEDT.
“High temperatures and strong electricity demand, combined with some generation outages, are causing tight electricity supply forecasts in NSW tomorrow and Wednesday afternoon,” Aemo said in a statement on Monday morning.
“Aemo has alerted the energy industry and is working with power station operators and transmission businesses to boost electricity availability,” it said. Should the market’s response be inadequate, Aemo would take “actions” to ensure supply.
For Queensland, the present gaps involve inadequate reserves – a buffer in case a plant drops out – for periods stretching from 3pm to 10.30pm local time.
Indications that south-eastern Australia is facing its most extensive belt of heat have been clear for days. As of this morning, almost 6 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations were unavailable because of planned and unplanned maintenance, according to Dylan McConnell, an energy specialist at the University of NSW.
McConnell said about half of the unavailable coal capacity was because of scheduled maintenance, noting that such outages were typical in the lead-up to summer.
“The period [for] maintenance windows might be getting shorter because these hot days are stretching later into March and earlier in November, and you need availability over winter as well,” he said.
Even without any blackouts, both NSW and Queensland could expect pretty volatile pricing” in the wholesale power market later this week, McConnell said.
The NSW energy minister, Penny Sharpe, said the state government was holding off any official call to reduce power to conserve supplies at this point, although “we’re obviously keeping a close eye on it”.
She said the “first thing”, though, was for people to take care of themselves in the coming heat.
“You should drink water, you should check in on neighbours and you should think about whether you need to walk out in the middle of the day in the beating hot sun.”
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The public should consider whether “every single light needed to be on” in the house or whether air-conditioners needed to be set at 19C, Sharpe added.
Separately, fire danger risks in NSW were likely to remain in the “medium” to “high” category in coming days. The likelihood of light winds and the fact the landscape hasn’t dried out – yet – will spare the state more severe fire conditions for now, according to the Rural Fire Service.
Similar moderate fire danger risks also apply for Queensland.
A few temperature records have already fallen.
Coonawarra in south-east South Australia had a November maximum temperature record, with its 37.9C on Friday eclipsing the previous high by 0.1C, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Essendon Airport, meanwhile, clocked up two days (37.1C and 37.5C) on Friday and Saturday, the first time in its 54 years of records that site had had two November days in a row above 37C.
For Melbourne, it was the city’s first back-to-back November days above 35C since 2009, BoM said.
Mount Gambier in south-east South Australia, meanwhile, was among the sites to set their highest minimum November temperatures. Its 23.4C on Saturday exceeded the previous record of 22.7C at a site with 80 years of data.
Ballarat Aerodrome, with 67 years of records, similarly set a record high minimum for November, with 22.9C about 0.8C above the previous high.
Behind the heatwave came some heavy falls. “A number of stations stretching from central South Australia to north-west Victoria had their wettest two-day rainfall total in November for at least 10 years,” a bureau spokesperson said.