Power is being restored to thousands of residents in southern New South Wales today as the state’s heatwave continues.
Reports of power outages affecting more than 6000 customers began at 5.30am, following storms across southern NSW.
Households and businesses in the Riverina region, including Wagga Wagga, Culcairn, Henty, Uranquinty and Holbrook were impacted.
Power company Essential Energy said the outage was caused by a fault on the Trangrid transmission line between Wagga Wagga and Albury.
It said the outage was not related to the heat, despite warnings of possible outages issued this week for Sydney and NSW.
“The power supply was isolated to keep the community safe until crews could temporarily restore power through a back feeder line just after 9am,” a spokesperson for Essential Energy said.
“Impacted customers were sent an SMS. To receive information about power outages, we encourage customers to confirm that their contact details are up to date with their electricity retailers.”
Meanwhile, NSW is seeing scorching temperatures as the pre-summer heatwave peaks.
A heatwave warning is in place for most of the coast.
By 9.40am temperatures across Sydney had already passed 30 degrees.
It was already a scorching 33.7 degrees at Sydney Airport and in Richmond to the north, while western suburbs including Penrith and Bankstown exceeded 32 degrees.
By lunch time the airport neared 37 degrees, the west was 36 degrees and the city a cooler 29 degrees.
The Australian Energy Market Operator previously issued blackout warnings, saying energy reserves were limited as millions turned on the air-conditioning.
There were several power outages in Sydney yesterday, but Ausgrid said they were not believed to be heat-related.
Energy expert Tony Wood from the Grattan Institute said there were several factors in play that left Australia’s most populous state facing blackout risks in November.
He said climate change meant Sydney was seeing weather conditions more typical of January or February in November, while the ageing energy grid required ever-more maintenance.
“We have not been getting on with has to be done,” he told Today.
“What has to be done to ensure that we do have a transition to an energy system, which has exactly all the features that we all want and need, and we’re not there yet.”
He said it was unlikely Australia would experience massive state-wide blackouts, but that these troubles would continue until the transition was closer to complete.
NSW can expect some relief from the heat later this week, with temperatures forecast to drop slightly to 30 tomorrow and then to a top in the mid-20s for Friday and the weekend.
Rain is also forecast, with showers on Thursday moving to heavier falls on Friday and Saturday.
