Thousands of homes and businesses lose power in massive outage
Power has been restored to all 45,000 homes and businesses in Sydney’s east after an outage left them sweltering in 30C conditions.
Supply was interrupted shortly before 11.30am on Friday in more than a dozen suburbs, including Randwick, Bondi, Double Bay, Coogee, Point Piper and Rose Bay.
Temperatures at Sydney Airport had already nudged 37C by midday, and 34C in the CBD. They’re forecast to reach 40C before a gusty southerly change.
Ausgrid said the disruption was caused by a fault on an underground cable where it enters the Double Bay zone substation.
UPDATE | Power has been restored to 45,000 homes 🔌
The outage was caused by a fault on an underground cable at the entrance of the Double Bay zone substation.
— Samuel Hussey (@smhussey) January 31, 2019
The Australian Energy Market Operator earlier said it was working “around the clock” to keep the state’s energy system secure.
“Even with forecast temperatures in NSW hitting the high 30s today, as at 10:30am there is more than 1,000 MW of energy reserves forecast to be in place to lean on if required,” the agency tweeted on Friday.
It comes a day after two coal-fired power stations – Liddell in NSW’s Hunter Valley and Eraring at Lake Macquarie – reportedly suffered broken generators.
More to come.
