A SUBSTATION upgrade and the installation of a new 1.5km feeder line in Yanchep, to help avoid power outages such as those experienced during the Christmas 2021 heatwave, have now been completed.
According to the Independent Review of Christmas 2021 Power Outages final report the power outages, many of which were caused by distribution fuses tripping due to overloading, affected about 15,596 City of Wanneroo customers with 10,593 enduring more than one outage.
During the heatwave 774 customers in the Shire of Gingin also had to deal with more than one outage.
The independent review said in total the outages affected about 107,000 Western Power customers to varying degrees.
“About 26,000 customers were without power for more than 12 hours and 40,000 experienced repeated outages over the Christmas holiday period,’’ the independent review said.
Local governments with significant semi-rural areas were particularly highly represented such as Mandurah, Wanneroo, Armadale and Greater Geraldton experienced the greatest number and duration of outages.
As well as Gingin other regional areas such as Chapman Valley, Murray, Capel and Katanning were also affected.
“During this period, Western Australia endured record-breaking high temperatures over consecutive days,’’ the independent review said.
“The extreme heat resulted in abnormally high use of air conditioners and fans by residents putting pressure on the Western Power network.”
Western Power said the upgrades at Yanchep were aimed at better managing capacity overloads, to provide additional switching and offload capability within the network and to improve reliability for homes and businesses.
Asset operations executive manager Zane Christmas said Western Power had overcome several challenges including the rocky terrain to deliver the project.
“The work is aimed at improving reliability and to enable better network management during consecutive extreme hot weather days, as well as providing capacity for future connections in this growing part of the metropolitan area,’’ he said.
“While we cannot guarantee 100 per cent reliability, we’re doing everything we can to improve network resilience to minimise the duration and number of unplanned outages.”
Network switching is the process of moving electricity from one circuit to another – essentially re-routing the flow of energy, similar to traffic management re-directing vehicles on an alternate route if a road is congested.
If faults occur, these works will help reduce response times and assist in getting homes and businesses re-connected more quickly.
“As the Bureau of Meteorology has forecasted this summer to be as hot or hotter than last year, we’re doing what we can to strengthen the network well ahead of time.”
In the section outlining the main causes of the outages the independent review said Western Power did not forecast the unusually high level of peak demand during the 2021-22 summer.
It had previously identified many of the affected areas as facing capacity risks in the future but the timing of planned investments meant the 2021 Christmas outages were not avoided.
“For example, Clarkson substation was anticipated to face capacity risks in coming years and had a project planned for 2025 to manage these risks,” the independent review said.
“During Christmas 2021, this substation experienced demand well above Western Power’s 10POE load forecast and one of its transformers experienced overloads.’’
On December 15 Western Power said it was working on upgrading 70 distribution transformers, which convert the high voltage used in transmission lines to a lower voltage that’s suitable for residential use, in 2022 as part of ongoing works by Western Power to increase the resilience of the electricity network.
Despite a global supply shortage of key components, Western Power expects to have all its planned works on distribution transformers completed by the end of December.
Transformers identified for upgrades are in the suburbs of Mandurah, Nollamara, Dianella, Port Kennedy, Spearwood, Westminster, Ocean Reef, Padbury, Muchea, Sawyers Valley, Busselton, Inglewood, Yokine, Southern River, Wanneroo, Kewdale, Lansdale, Gosnells, Yanchep, Clarkson, Forrestfield, Kalamunda, Beechboro, Northam, Mosman Park, Katanning and Padbury.
