Mystery blackouts in Australia

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Power blackouts put the heat on city shops

By ANDREA CARSON Wednesday 3 January 2001

Searing heat and the return of many holidaymakers to work yesterday led to power blackouts across the city, affecting about 17,000 electricity customers, and forcing stores to close and traffic lights to fail.

Demand for power exceeded supply as office workers arrived at work early yesterday and switched on lights, computers and air- conditioners. The first of two blackouts, at 8.06am, included Bourke, Little Bourke, King, William and Spencer Streets.

Angry city retailers demanded an explanation from Citipower after many were forced to evacuate customers and close their doors.

The Victorian executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, Tim Piper, said city businesses had lost tens of thousands of dollars and demanded that they be guaranteed power supplies would not fail in future hot weather.

Citipower, which distributes electricity to the central business district and city fringe, had restored power within 20 minutes of the first failure.

Spokesman Ross Gilmour said about 2000 customers were affected by the first blackout, which was blamed on an “equipment malfunction and system overload” .

“Everyone switching on their computers at the same time and everyone putting on their air-conditioners in a concentrated area took a big gulp of our supply and exposed the flaws in our system,” he said. “Hot weather contributed to the severity of the blackouts.”

The second blackout, which affected 15,000 customers, was believed to be unrelated to the first shortage and was “highly unusual”, he said.

“It was caused by the failure of a high voltage underground cable that carries supply from the West Melbourne terminal station.”

The reasons for the cable failure, which blacked out the city from LaTrobe Street to Collins Street and some homes in Carlton, West Melbourne and North Melbourne, were unclear last night.

Mr Gilmour said the company relied on two power stations, West Melbourne and Richmond, to supply its customers, and used the unaffected station to restore the city's supply for the second time by 11.30am.

Mr Gilmour said power shortages were unlikely in the event of more hot weather.

Myer spokeswoman Lisa Amor said that when the power failed staff escorted hundreds of customers out of the store for security and safety reasons and closed the doors for about 90 minutes until 1pm. David Jones also closed its doors for about an hour.

Mr Piper said many other Bourke Street stores were also forced to close.

“We are not a Third World country. We should be able to rely on our power supplies,” he said.

Mr Piper said shoplifting and customer safety were two big issues for retailers yesterday.

City hospitals were also hit by power cuts but were unaffected because of back-up generators that took over their electricity supply.

A VicRoads traffic control room officer said traffic lights failed and flashed amber for about an hour along King Street, La Trobe Street and some streets in Carlton. A police spokeswoman said no accidents were reported relating to the traffic light failures.

An employee at Elle's Natural Ice Cream in Melbourne Central said the store lost power for about an hour: “Our icecream was melting and we couldn't serve any drinks. The power came on just in time to save the icecream, but we had lost sales,” she said.

A supervisor at the Otis Elevator Company said they had dozens of calls from city offices to come and free people trapped in lifts during the blackout.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/01/03/FFX9VT0GGHC.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 02, 2001


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