Water, energy and environment

Electricity restrictions

While the electricity system is designed to minimise electricity outages, it is not possible to guarantee supply 100% of the time. Most electricity outages are caused by local failures within the distribution network - eg a transformer failure.

Electricity infrastructure in South Australia is owned by the private sector. If the distribution, transmission or generation infrastructure is damaged then operators of each system will respond to the fault to restore power.

In rare circumstances where a large failure occurs, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) can require electricity to be switched off to prevent the whole electricity system from becoming unstable and shutting down. This is known as load shedding.

Automatic load shedding occurs in rare events where multiple pieces of equipment in the National Electricity Market are lost in quick succession. Protection schemes automatically shed load to restore the system to balance.

Rotational load shedding occurs when there is time to make selective choices about which customers are shed. The AEMO will instruct network operators, ElectraNet and ETSA Utilities, to shed load on a rotational basis according to a predefined schedule. Customers affected by load shedding will generally be without power for 30-45 minutes.

Rotational load shedding spreads the inconvenience caused by outages as equitably as possible across the community.

[top of page]

Gas restrictions

Gas infrastructure in South Australia is owned by the private sector. If the distribution, transmission or production systems are damaged then the operators of each system will respond to the fault to secure gas supplies.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) operates the short term trading market. The market has trading provisions to help manage gas shortfall events.

The Minister for Energy can ration gas if the market mechanisms are not be able to manage the severity of the gas shortage. This ensures that gas is rationed fairly and equitably among the industry, power generators, essential services, and commercial and domestic gas consumers, and that the gas distribution system remains safe and, where possible, operational.

In the event of a prolonged outage, a significant quantity of gas can be made available from a reserve stored underground at Moomba. Depending on the quantity stored at the time, this facility alone could provide enough gas to maintain supply to essential services and domestic customers for a few weeks.

[top of page]

Petroleum restrictions

The liquid fuel supply chain in South Australia is owned and operated by the private sector.

The state imports most of its fuel directly from overseas as refined products. The remainder comes from interstate.

In the event of a severe supply disruption, the South Australian Government may consider declaring a fuel restriction period under terms of the Petroleum Products Regulations Act 1995.

The broad goal is to ensure that essential users - eg police, ambulance, fire services, doctors - are able to obtain fuel during a shortage, with any remaining fuel being distributed fairly and efficiently to the rest of the community.

In a national liquid fuel emergency all states and territories have agreed to follow the Australian Government's operational framework for managing the emergency. This is outlined in the National Liquid Fuel Emergency Response Plan.

[top of page]

More information

Other websites
Load shedding - ETSA Utilities