9 July

Last Thursday one of the big generating units at the Loy Yang coal power station tripped, just before 2am. This caused a frequency collapse in the national grid (red line). That's a very bad thing, it can stop electrical equipment from working and even damage or destroy it. But what happened next is fun. The coal power station in Gladstone Queensland was supposed to be the backup. But within MILLIseconds the Tesla big battery in South Australia had fired up to restore the grid frequency - red line going up. So much for 'baseload' power. The renewables infrastructure sat it on its arse.