Over the past decade, there has been no major load shedding event on the Ausgrid electricity network. On February 3, 2011, power was switched off on a rotating basis to about 1,000 customers for one hour intervals during the evening peak periods in parts of Enfield in Sydney’s Inner West. This was required because cable faults limited supply from the local Enfield Zone Substation at a time when demand for power hit record levels for consecutive days during extreme hot weather.
Other examples of power sharing, rotating outages or load shedding around the world include:
Texas: In February 2011, customers in Texas and New Mexico were affected by load shedding following unexpected problems on more than 50 power plants across Texas during a period of record cold temperatures. Each blackout was experienced by 330,000 people for on average less than 45 minutes at a time.
In April 2006, customers in Middle and South Texas experienced load shedding after unexpected high temperatures.
California: In August 2005, more than 500,000 customers in Southern California experienced rotating outages following a transmission line failure which coincided with higher than expected temperatures leading to high demand for power.
France: In December 2009, two million people in south east France experienced load shedding following network problems which coincided with lower than average temperatures.
Adelaide, Australia: Power was interrupted to 95,000 customers in Adelaide on a rotating basis on January 29, 2009 because of a lack of supply on a 43 degree day. The electricity transmission network operator was ordered to shed load by the electricity market operator because a transmission link between Tasmania and Victoria shut down.
NSW South Coast: Load shedding has also occurred on the NSW South Coast in 2006.
Ausgrid undertakes accurate load forecasting and invests efficiently in its network. This includes an $8 billion investment program and the delivery of about 1,000 maintenance tasks every day.
As a result load shedding is a very rare occurrence.