Empty spin

Broken Hill's renewable energy dream is over after a fortnight of blackouts

Broken Hill's two-week experiment in fossil fuel-free living ended at 8.41 pm local time on Thursday when its connection to the East Coast grid was finally restored.

Transgrid issued a press release thanking the community for their patience and announced that the emergency diesel generators it had trucked in would remain in place.

Three years ago, Transgrid boasted that the Outback town could run on a renewable energy microgrid if the line to the outside world went down. It was so confident that it sought permission from the Australian Energy Regulator to de-commission the two diesel generators installed in the early 1980s.

The AER said no, a decision criticised as "really silly and perverse" by Chris Bowen, who held it up as an example of the antiquated energy market thinking he intended to fix.

"A little while ago TransGrid wanted and suggested that to help Broken Hill, they would put in a microgrid of renewable energy," the Energy Minister told David Speers on ABC's Insiders. "It was much more reliable, with much lower emissions, and they were told at that point, 'No, you've got to keep your old diesel generators running.'

"It wasn't the Regulator's fault… they haven't been legally able to take into account emissions reduction, and it's been ridiculous, and we've fixed it."

Bowen has yet to comment on the fortnight of rolling blackouts across the NSW far-west that began when seven transmission towers collapsed on the 260km high voltage line to Buronga.

He was not there to witness the indignity of AGL's brand new mega battery being recharged by diesel generators or watch the Silverton wind turbines sit idle because they weren't connected to the grid. He didn't see Broken Hill residents hunting for the off-switch on their rooftop solar arrays because their fluctuating output tripped the diesel generators.

To describe the Silver City's experience as a setback for Bowen's dream of turning Australia into a nuclear-free clean energy superpower would be an understatement. Broken Hill was the renewable energy industry's Potemkin Village, the recipient of $650 million of green investment and the proposed location for the world's biggest Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage plant.

In 2018, Broken Hill City Council announced its goal to become Australia's first carbon-free city by 2030. Three years ago, then mayor Darriea Turley welcomed the announcement that AGL was proceeding with plans to build a grid-scale battery, which the company claimed would be a reliable backup power source for 10,000 homes.

"This is a great opportunity for Broken Hill and renewable energies," Turley told the ABC. "What they will see is when there is an outage, the battery would click into operation."

AGL had badly misled Turley and her fellow councillors. When the storm hit at around midnight local time on Wednesday, October 16, the battery clicked offline, not on. The town sat in darkness for several hours until the single operating backup diesel generator could be turned on.

AGL was not prepared to keep a $41 million battery fully charged, primed for that just-in-case moment. The battery was dispatching power into the National Electricity Market from early evening on the day of the storm.

The battery was offline for more than eight days while it was reprogrammed to feed into the local grid and recharged with rooftop solar and diesel. Silverton and the Broken Hill solar plant did not resume operation until the region was reconnected to the grid last Thursday.

Turley's successor as Mayor, Tom Kennedy, was pictured wielding a shovel at the soil-turning photo-op for the battery in November 2022. He told the ABC that the battery was closely aligned with the council's desire to see the Silver City at the forefront of renewable energy and energy storage.

Last week, he told Chris Kenny on Sky News, "There's no way that renewables