The disaster began with a low-pressure system building in the Great Australian Bight.
asserted
system → begin → Bight
When it tore across South Australia on September 28, 2016, it unleashed havoc that no one had anticipated.
asserted
one → tear → that
A string of supercell thunderstorms not only dumped sheets of hail and rain; tornadoes unspooled from their vast bellies.
One carved through Wilmington, a town on the route between Adelaide and Port Augusta.
asserted
One → dump → Adelaide
It tore down gum trees and caused a farm shed to collapse.
asserted
shed → tear → trees
More crucially, it cut critical transmission lines and demolished five transmission towers.
asserted
it → cut → towers
Almost 20 more of these steel giants soon went down across the state.
asserted
20 → go → state
More than 80,000 lightening strikes were recorded.
asserted
strikes → lighten → ?
By around 3.50pm, South Australia was effectively isolated from the rest of the grid and out of power.
asserted
Australia → isolate → power
For some, the power was back up within eight hours but for others, it would take days.
asserted
it → take → days
At the Flinders Medical Centre, a diesel back-up failed and 17 intensive care patients had to be moved.
asserted
patients → fail → Centre
Embryos at a fertility clinic were lost and the contents of a zinc smelter at Port Pirie cooled and solidified.
asserted
contents → lose → Pirie
Before the rain stopped falling, the blackout was fodder for Australia’s unceasing culture warfare over climate and energy policy, with Barnaby Joyce and then SA independent Senator Nick Xenophon at once blaming intermittent wind power for the blackout.
asserted
blackout → stop → blackout
SA’s then premier, Jay Weatherill, pushed back.
asserted
premier → push → ?
“For people to be saying those things without being actually appraised of all the facts demonstrates that people are using this to play politics instead of responding to what is a state emergency,” he said that night.
asserted
he → say → politics
Later he would later make the case that storms, not the state’s rapid deployment renewables caused the blackouts.
asserted
storms → make → blackouts
Over the following days, the disaster became something like a policy Rorschach test.
asserted
disaster → follow → test
Josh Frydenberg, then federal energy minister, blamed over-reliance on renewables in SA, since some wind farms had automatically shut down to protect themselves once the transmission lines went down.
asserted
lines → blame → themselves
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts called for all Australian governments to “exit all climate change policies”.
asserted
governments → call → policies
The political combat dragged on over coming months as heatwaves rolled across the continent and fears of shortages grew.
asserted
fears → drag → shortages
Then, in March 2017, Lyndon Rive, Tesla’s vice-president for energy products, at the time visiting Australia, boasted that his company could alleviate SA’s immediate problems by building a giant battery, and it could do so within 100 days of a signing a contract for less than $100 million.
The Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes saw the boast reported in the Australian Financial Review and addressed a tweet directly to Tesla’s boss, Elon Musk.
“”Holy s#%t”, he wrote.
uncertain
he → visit → s#%t
If I can make the $ happen (& politics), can you guarantee the 100MW in 100 days?”
Musk took up the challenge.
asserted
Musk → make → challenge
“Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free.
asserted
it → get → signature
That serious enough for you?” he replied.
asserted
he → reply → you
In the end, the battery was built in 63 days from the signing of the contract, and the consequences of the challenge are hard to exaggerate.
asserted
consequences → build → challenge
At the time, any grid-scale power infrastructure took years of planning and then years of construction, and cost eye-bleeding sums, but in 2017, the cost of batteries had started to fall after Tesla’s completion of its vast $US5 billion gigafactory in Nevada.
asserted
cost → take → Nevada
A big battery of the sort Musk was proposing is basically a bunch of car batteries strung together.
asserted
Musk → propose → batteries
What is now known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve proved that grid infrastructure could now be made from off-the-shelf parts at speeds previously unimaginable.
uncertain
infrastructure → know → speeds
Jean-Christophe Cheylus, chief executive of Neoen Australia and New Zealand, the French-based renewables company which built and operates Hornsdale, said the speed of the project depended on the “perfect alignment of many planets”.
asserted
speed → base → planets
Neoen happened to have a spare main transformer – a piece of kit that can take months to secure – in Australia at the time, the SA government issued planning approvals at high-speed and federal regulatory agencies backed the scheme.
asserted
agencies → happen → scheme
Having been spurred into action by a bet, Elon Musk flew Tesla packs to Australia rather than waiting on shipping.
asserted
Musk → spur → shipping
“Everyone was very, very curious and willing to do it because it was a world first,” said Cheylus.
asserted
Cheylus → do → it
Following testing, the Hornsdale big battery was officially opened next to a wind farm 200 kilometres north of Adelaide on December 1, 2017.
asserted
battery → follow → December
With a capacity of 100 MW, it was around three times the size of any other lithium-ion battery installation operating in the world at the time.
asserted
it → operate → time
Soon after the battery began operating other benefits became clear, too, explains the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood.
asserted
Wood → begin → ?
Like other storage technologies, it can soak up cheap energy during the day when renewables are abundant and sell it back into the grid during the evening peak, but Hornsdale could do far more than that.
uncertain
Hornsdale → soak → that
Traditionally, coal and gas fired power stations have not only made power, but help stabilise the frequency of electricity streaming through a grid with their vast spinning turbines.
asserted
stations → fire → turbines
Hornsdale demonstrated that big batteries could provide what is known as “virtual inertia”, detecting potentially destabilising shifts in frequency injecting stabilising electricity in the system in milliseconds, cheaper and faster than the big old spinning machines.
uncertain
what → demonstrate → machines
Early reports said Hornsdale saved consumers $40 million in 2018 and $160 million in 2019 via these so-called Frequency Control Ancillary Services.
asserted
Hornsdale → say → Services
On one occasion when the state was “islanded” from the rest of the national grid due to instability, Hornsdale’s FCAS capability saved $14 million in just five hours.
asserted
capability → islande → hours
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull recalls the SA storm as a watershed moment for Australia.
asserted
Turnbull → recall → Australia
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
