Almost every state and territory is under a heatwave warning today

Staying with the extreme heat in South Australia. As the state swelters there are concerns about the stability of power supply.

Transcript

00:00The electricity network is much like the human body, in a sense, when it's operating at capacity

00:08under a lot of heat, equipment can strain. So it is common to see several days into an

00:17extreme heat wave that there can be challenges for the infrastructure. That being said, at

00:22the moment, the network is holding up relatively well here in South Australia around a day

00:27into extreme heat. We have, you know, we have additional crews on hand to respond to heat

00:34related outages. And we've cancelled a number of planned maintenance jobs in order to have

00:39those crews ready to respond if we have issues with the network throughout the course of the

00:45heat wave. So you have had some blackouts already? Look, today, as I said, the network's holding up

00:50quite well today, we are not seeing outages beyond that which are usual for a typical

00:58summer's day. We've had around, I think, a cumulative total since 9am of around 4,500 customers

01:04impacted. We're down to about 600 at the moment. As I said, that's not different to an average

01:11summer's day. So, so far, things are going reasonably well. But we remain on alert as we go into those

01:18subsequent days of extreme heat. Yeah. Which days are you most concerned about?

01:23So we're looking at temperatures in the low 40s going into tomorrow. So tomorrow night, you know,

01:30two or three days into an extreme heat wave is when the network can typically come under strain

01:37and you can see some outages. Here in South Australia, I believe the forecast is to come down

01:44by late on Friday. So really tomorrow and early Friday are probably the key ones that we're focused

01:52on at the moment. You mentioned cancelling planned maintenance. How else does the power network prepare

01:58for these kinds of peak demand events? Yeah. So, I mean, we have very rigorous maintenance

02:06and inspection programs throughout the year. We also, as we come into these kinds of events,

02:12we are focused on ensuring that parts of the network that have been impacted in previous seasons

02:17have had all of the checks and balances. And as I've said, we ensure that we have crews on hand to

02:23respond safely and quickly to outages as they occur. When it comes to extreme weather events,

02:30we know that heat waves are the biggest killer. It is so important that people are not caught off guard

02:36if their air con fails or if it just gets really hot and they have no air con. What's your advice

02:41to people to make sure that they're prepared for a heat wave, including the possibility of an outage

02:46at their property? Look, we recommend that in South Australia, like other states, that people have

02:52a power outage plan ready all year round, whether that's for the impacts of a storm, whether that's for

02:57the impacts of extreme heat. That can include anything from pre-charging your devices,

03:03like your mobile phone, etc. Checking the advice of agencies like the State Emergency Service,

03:11the CFS and health agencies to ensure that you are keeping your family, your household,

03:18your business safe and as comfortable as possible. And Cecilia, I know a large proportion

03:23of South Australians have rooftop solar. Does that take some pressure off the grid?

03:28It certainly does. I mean, on a day like today and tomorrow, you'll have a lot of South Australians

03:35running their air conditioning at capacity. Here in South Australia, we have around 45% of our

03:41customers with rooftop solar. That's world leading. So really supply throughout the day

03:46is not an issue. And coming into the early evening when a lot of people are coming home and putting their

03:53air conditioning on the solar is still helping. So it absolutely does that. That renewable supply

03:59on the South Australian rooftops absolutely helps in these circumstances.