Why do we have load shedding

Our outage application will show the location and timeframe of the areas affected. No one region is targeted specifically for load shedding. Instead, we spread the disruption across the network. We avoid interrupting sensitive loads such as major hospitals, central business districts and public transport where the loss of electricity would present a serious risk to public safety. Please note we are unable to exclude individual customers from load shedding.

If you have medical equipment at home which requires electricity to operate, act on your back-up plan which should include suitable alternative arrangements for the times you are without power. To help save electricity and help avoid load shedding, customers should turn off non-essential appliances like pool pumps, clothes driers and dishwashers or delay their use until after 8 pm when demand for electricity reduces across the network. Use fans to keep your home cool instead of the air conditioner.

The NSW Food Authority advises freezers will usually not defrost and allow food to spoil for at least 24 hours, provided the door is kept shut. Please enable it for the best user experience. Load-shedding All load-shedding suspended from on Friday, 12 November. Outage tips Switch off and unplug all electronics and appliances when the power is due to go off as it may come back with a spike in the voltage, which can damage electronic devices such as computers, television sets, DVD players, etc.

Be prepared Cash: Keep some cash on you as ATMs cannot operate without electricity Communication: Ensure that your cell phone, laptop, tablet and radio are always fully charged when power is available. This will allow you to be able to communicate with friends and family during load-shedding Eating: If you do not have a gas stove, prepare meals before the power is scheduled to be switched off. Living near a big industrial energy user is unlikely to have any bearing on whether you lose power.

Victoria's biggest energy user, Alcoa's Portland smelter, is served by its own dedicated transmission lines. When load shedding was ordered in Victoria in January , the rapidly moving situation seemed to take even the state's Energy Minister, Lily D'Ambrosio, by surprise.

On the morning of January 25, Ms D'Ambrosio told a media conference she didn't anticipate load shedding being necessary. South Australia publishes a list of which feeders are next in line for load shedding , based on which areas were shut off last time. Michael Brear, the director of the Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne said if other jurisdictions were as transparent as South Australia about their plans, it might help reassure people that load shedding was being implemented fairly.

Professor Brear says the alternative to manual load shedding would be more widespread and longer-lasting interruptions to power supply.

It's to minimise the inconvenience and share this inconvenience across the whole population so that collectively we don't experience much worse. AEMO's summer readiness plan, released in December , warned of a risk of blackouts across the national market but particularly in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, due to a combination of extreme weather, bushfires and plan outages. The market operator and Victoria secured extra power reserves ahead of summer to reduce the blackout risk, but Ms D'Ambrosio was not giving any guarantees this week.

Professor Brear said since the closure of Victoria's Hazelwood coal-fired power station in , which removed 1, megawatts of generation capacity, the state did not generate enough power to meet demand at its peak. As for whether load shedding will be necessary this summer, he said it would largely depend on the weather, as well as the preparedness of coal and gas-fired generators. Weather conditions influence demand for electricity as well as how much wind and solar energy is generated, and how reliably the state's remaining coal-fired power plants operate.

Longer term, he said Victoria needed more capacity to generate dispatchable power — power that can be turned on when it's needed, even if the wind isn't blowing and the sun has set. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. This is called load shedding. Here's how it works. What is load shedding? Energy market operator warns 1.

When the lights go out and the fridge stops humming, here's what to do. Most companies try to do it on the basis of load-shedding schedules to enable their customers to be better prepared in the event of load shedding, which is called rotational load shedding. Rotational load shedding is more common in developing countries, because the electricity grid is underfunded, outdated or the infrastructure is not properly managed. However, it can happen in developed countries as well.

This rotational load shedding was caused by extreme cold weather and a high demand for the power at the time. The blackouts were rolled fairly rapidly so that no area had to spend more than one hour without power. The Consequences of Load Shedding Even though load shedding happens to stop the entire country from experiencing a permanent blackout by the collapsing of the whole electricity supply grid load shedding still has major negative effects on the economy in a country.