Sydney power outage impacts thousands amid urgent warning from Dick Smith

The Labor government faces calls for heatwave disruptions across Australia – as a business icon warns nuclear power is the only solution to blackout woes.

While Energy and Climate change Minister Chris Bowen criticized opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan on Tuesday. Many Aussies were more concerned about losing power during a scorching heatwave.

More than 6,600 homes and businesses were without power in NSW on Tuesday afternoon, according to Ausgrid, as the network suffered seven unplanned outages.

The problems were concentrated in Bankstown, south-west Sydney, where 3,500 customers were affected and temperatures had reached 37 degrees Celsius by 2pm.

An Ausgrid spokesperson said the cause had yet to be identified, but “this is certainly more likely to happen on a day like today when there is more demand across the network.”

In neighboring Condell Park, 1,900 customers were without power.

And in Denistone, in northwest Sydney, where it was also 37 degrees Celsius, 1,200 places were without power.

Parts of western Sydney are expected to reach more than 40 degrees Celsius later today.

Just a day earlier, thousands of homes in Victoria also lost power.

“Extreme heat and high winds have damaged parts of our distribution network,” Victoria Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said.

‘There is sufficient power available, but due to isolated damage to local infrastructure, 10,000 homes have been temporarily disconnected from the network.’

High-profile businessman Dick Smith said hot weather power cuts have become “the new normal” for Australians as rising demand for electricity, driven by population growth and rising temperatures, continues to put pressure on the system.

‘That is why I am a big supporter of nuclear energy. “What’s happening now is going to continue to get worse,” Smith said.

‘Seventy years ago, when I was a young child, we had frequent blackouts. You came home and the power went out for an hour or two.

“Then we had the most incredible reliability because of the base load of coal.

‘We now rely too much on renewable energy sources without storage. Unfortunately, having sufficient (battery) storage would make electricity too expensive.’

Mr Smith said he was “positive” about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement on Friday about the costs of his nuclear plan.

‘I have absolutely no doubt that we will have to switch to nuclear energy. The longer we wait, the worse our grandchildren will be as they face climate change.

‘I thought it was a good announcement. Now I hope the Labor government will change their minds. It’s in the national interest.’

Since a wave of outages last month, Mr Bowen has been criticized on social media, dubbed ‘Blackout Bowen’, for the inability of the country’s energy infrastructure to cope with rising temperatures.

‘Blackout Bowen is useless! We should be able to run our air conditioning in the summer,” said one critic.

“Blackout Bowen lives up to the promise of his nickname and, unfortunately, the folly of his policies,” said another.

“What does Blackout Bowen know about energy?” shot a third.

Mr Dutton claims His $331 billion plan will be 44 percent cheaper than Labour’s program to almost replace coal and gas energy with solar and wind energy within 15 years.

The Coalition’s plan was modeled by Frontier Economics, which priced Labour’s energy transition at $594 billion, compared to $331 billion for the Coalition’s nuclear plan.

Mr Bowen debunked the figures, saying the government’s renewable energy plan would cost $122 billion and not nearly $600 billion, citing a forecast from Australia’s energy market operator.

Labor’s plan is for renewables to comprise 82 percent of Australia’s energy generation by 2030, rising to 98 percent from solar and wind by 2040.

But Dick Smith claims that goal is unrealistic.

He said while South Australia has managed to generate 70 per cent of its annual energy from renewables, exceeding that figure would be too expensive due to the battery storage required.

Both sides of politics support a net zero target by 2050, but the Coalition expects nuclear power to make up 38 percent of Australia’s electricity generation by then, while solar and wind will make up 49 percent.