Valley plunges into darkness

POWER outages continue to cause havoc across the shire, leaving
Hidden Valley residents without electricity yet again.

At the height of a four-day heatwave that brought with it thunderstorms and fires earlier this month, Hidden Valley lost power three times, with one outage lasting almost three hours.

Though Victorians can expect more power outages on catastrophic fire danger rating and Total Fire Ban days—the issuing of which mandates that powerlines operate on sensitive settings to prevent bushfires if contact with vegetation occurs—neither was declared during the heatwave.

While an AusNet spokesperson informed the Review that the outages were due to ‘stress on the network and storm and lightening activity,’ a Department of Energy, Environment, and Clime Action (DEECA) spokesperson revealed conflicting information, stating that the outages were solely caused by storm damage, and that there was ‘enough reserve capacity to meet increased demand over the summer.’

The community’s response on Facebook to the outages reflected a growing sense of frustration, with many expressing a feeling of hopelessness over an issue that has become all too familiar.

While some users joked about its untimely outage—‘Right in the middle of [Married At First Sight]’ one user said—others voiced a more critical stance, shaming the State Government for an energy system that is proving insufficient and incapable of withstanding the current, let alone the growing, demand.

“Just remember this government wants to get rid of gas,” one user commented.

“These reliable and affordable renewables strike again,” commented another.

“It really isn’t good enough,” a local told the Review.

“We get no discounts for the inconvenience, prices keep going up, and the service or lack of continues to get worse.”

DEECA’s spokesperson sympathised with the concerns, blaming the current system for its affordability and reliability issues.

“Our aging coal-fired generators are becoming increasingly unreliable,” they said.

“That’s why we’re building renewable energy for our future. It’s the cheapest form of new build energy generation and will help to lower energy prices for households and businesses while making the grid more resilient to disruptions like load shedding.”

While AusNet has explored several demand management options such as embedded generation, mobile generation, and customer demand response, there are currently no plans to upgrade the network in the state’s north.