PLEA Network

27 August 2018, Renew Economy, On first day as PM, Morrison learns difference between Big Battery and Big Banana. On his first day as prime minister, Scott Morrison got to test his theory that the Tesla big battery in South Australia is about as useful as the Big Banana in New South Wales. It didn’t work out well. Remember this? “I mean, honestly, by all means have the world’s biggest battery, have the world’s biggest banana, have the world’s biggest prawn like we have on the roadside around the country, but that is not solving the problem,” Morrison mocked in July last year, just a few months after waving a lump of coal around parliament. Well, it turns out that the Tesla big battery is more useful than the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, or even the Big Prawn near Ballina, judging by the impacts of a dramatic loss of two transmission line on Saturday that caused major power outages in NSW and Victoria. The Tesla big battery, also known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, was able to play a key role in helping keep the grid stable and the lights on in South Australia on Saturday, in its biggest threat since the 2016 blackout. It did solve a problem. Morrison’s Big Banana, on the other hand, wasn’t able to lift a finger to help customers in NSW. Such a shame they didn’t have a battery to help them. Here’s what happened. On Saturday, a dramatic loss of two major transmission lines just after 1pm – which the Australian Energy Market Operator blamed on lightning strikes – resulted in major load shedding in NSW and Victoria, including whole suburbs in Sydney and Newcastle, and elsewhere, and even two pot lines at the Tomago smelter in the Hunter Valley. The grids in South Australia or Queensland were both “islanded” by the explosion, which meant they were cut off from the main grid, but neither state lost power. Read more here