By Jo Nova
On October 17th a storm blew seven transmission towers over, disconnecting the Broken Hill area [in Australia] from the national grid. About 19,000 people live there, and with a 200MW wind plant, a 53MW solar array and a big battery, plus diesel generators it was assumed they’d be OK for a while without the connection to the big baseload plants.
But instead it’s been a debacle. They had nearly a week of blackouts with intermittent bursts of power, barely long enough to charge the phone.
The fridges in the pharmacies failed, so all medications had to be destroyed and emergency replacements sent in. Schools closed. Freezers of meat are long gone… Emergency trucks finally brought in food and eventually the schools reopened. Full reconnection did will not happen until November 6th.
We all need a separate solar panel, battery regulator, car battery, and inverter as a stand-alone off grid system for any power emergencies. The systems connected to the power grid have an ‘anti-islanding’ function. They switch off when the mains power sytem is switched off during a disaster or during electrical work. This is to prevent linesmen being electrocuted by someone’s home solar system. If the mains system is switched off for long periods (days or months), then the mains-connected systems are useless. If we have an independent system, we can ration our power for required appliances and only need to endure minor inconveniences.