On the afternoon of one of the hottest days this year so far, Sydney’s inner west has just gone dark. 11,000 homes are without power, and salvation isn’t expected until later tonight. It’s not a planned outage caused by excess load, though — the problem is with the local network in the area.
Power out to about 11,000 customers in parts of #Strathfield, #Burwood, after a fault on local network, not load shedding. Crews are on way pic.twitter.com/55zXSjUdgB
— Ausgrid (@Ausgrid) February 10, 2017
Ausgrid says power won’t be restored in the Inner West until around 9PM tonight, around four hours after the fault was officially recorded at 4:40PM. The issue has cut power to around 11,000 homes around Concord, Strathfield, Burwood, Concord West, North Strathfield, Strathfield South, Enfield, Rookwood, Lidcombe, and Chullora.
The outage wasn’t implemented on purpose by AusGrid to help deal with currently phenomenally high power usage levels across the state as Sydneysiders get home from work and switch on their air conditioning; it’s apparently a fault with local power distribution hardware.
Update: Ausgrid has revised its estimate down to just 750 homes in the area after completing some very quick repair work; work to fix up those remaining homes without power is ongoing.
Power back to most customers in Strathfield & Burwood, crews working to reconnect 750 around Burwood Rd & Queen St, reports of wires down
— Ausgrid (@Ausgrid) February 10, 2017
Don’t count your chickens, though: power demand is on the way up , tracking towards a record peak level reached in 2011.
Energy demand rising in parts of Sydney, C Coast & Hunter as temps soar – tracking on par with record peak day on Ausgrid network in 2011 pic.twitter.com/izVI0QiL4v
— Ausgrid (@Ausgrid) February 10, 2017
Update: well shit
Sydney (Observatory Hill) has recorded 10 days above 35C this summer, breaking the previous record (9 days) set in the summer of 1895-96.
— BOM New South Wales (@BOM_NSW) February 10, 2017