Power outage in Western Australia (incl Kalgoorlie) from Wed 17th Jan 2024

The main focus of our company (Global-Roam Pty Ltd) is Australia’s National Electricity Market … although:

1)  Our NEMreview v7 tool does contain some basic data for the South-West Interconnected System in south-western WA

… and perhaps we might do more in future?

2)  We also have a fair number of readers watching in on the NEM from different parts of WA.

But it’s worth a quick note to highlight two ABC articles pertaining to loss of load in parts of the SWIS starting on Thursday 18th January 2024, and continuing currently:

Article 1 on Thu 18th Jan 2024

On Thursday morning 18th January 2024 various journalists (Emily JB Smith, Chris Edmondson, Andrew Collins, Natasha Harradine, and Giulia Bertoglio) contributed to the article ‘No fuel in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, as tens of thousands of customers remain without power across WA’s Goldfields, Wheatbelt’:

That first article noted:

‘Thousands of residents who have spent the day sweltering in 41C temperatures now have no access to fuel, and have been told to prepare for ongoing blackouts to last up to a week.

Western Power said it was working to restore electricity to about 15,000 homes and businesses in Merredin, Kellerberrin, Kalgoorlie and surrounding areas after storms caused significant damage to local infrastructure.

But the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) is warning residents to prepare for the outages to last up to seven days.’

… and (quoting a Western Power spokesperson)  …

‘”There are currently five towers down, with repairs expected to take some time.

“Current restoration times are unknown.”’

Article 2 on Fri 19th Jan 2024

Then on Friday morning 19th January 2024 various journalists (David Weber, Greig Johnston, and Emily Jane Smith) published the article ‘Power being restored to Kalgoorlie-Boulder after outages ground the Goldfields city to a halt’ … which includes:

‘Power is starting to return to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, in Western Australia’s Goldfields, after widespread outages hit the city’s water supply, fuel stations, internet connections and communications services.

About 1,600 people in the outback city, about 600 kilometres east of Perth, were still without power on Friday morning after a summer storm knocked out essential services on Wednesday.’

Nothing further, at this point.