Country News

Energy uncertaint­y sparks blackout fears

- — Barclay White

To most people a power blackout is just an inconvenie­nce.

People cannot watch TV or open the fridge, and if it goes for longer than a few hours they might need to start to find some candles and a torch.

But for Toolamba-based orchardist Peter Hall a blackout means one thing — money.

And with Victoria’s energy output being lowered by the closure of Hazelwood Power Station, and the current uncertaint­y of gas and renewables to fill the void, Mr Hall is worried.

Fruit from his orchards and farms end up in supermarke­t shelves at Woolworths and Coles across Australia, as well as overseas.

Timing is everything, and he will plan when is the ideal time to pick a certain fruit to ensure it is ripe when it is on the shelf in inner city Melbourne, or China.

To make this happen he relies on 25 cool rooms on his properties to store thousands of pieces of fruit at a time, keeping the fruit from fully ripening before they go for sale.

‘‘If we had stonefruit that was being prepared for export and it needed certain cold storage requiremen­ts, it might need to be kept cold for a certain period of time for biosecurit­y issues,’’ Mr Hall said.

‘‘If you weren’t able to maintain that cool chain, then that product would not be suitable for the market.’’

He guessed a short blackout of about an hour or two was something his product could cope with. But if he was hit with blackouts of 12 hours to a day, he could lose tens of thousands of dollars.

Extended blackouts are rare in Australia, but the South Australian blackouts earlier this year and the current political debate over energy security has him worried that extended blackouts could hit the state.

Insuring his business from blackouts by installing back-up generators would cost too much for it to be viable.

‘‘It just seems bizarre that we are sitting on the world’s greatest deposits of coal, and I know that is not the flavour of the month, but at least have a back-up system until we get to the stage where we are sustainabl­e,’’ he said.

‘‘My concern is when Hazelwood does go offline, does that leave Victoria in a precarious situation?’’

Mr Hall could find out sooner rather than later, as Hazelwood Power Station, which supplies 25 per cent of Victoria’s base load electricit­y, is due to close at the end of this week.

Fairfax Media reported last week that Victoria could face 72 days of possible power supply shortages over the next two years, according to figures it obtained from the Australian Energy Market Operator.

If looming blackouts do become the norm, State Member for Northern Victoria Luke O’Sullivan wants to know what parts of the state will keep the lights on, and which parts will go dark.

‘‘I would hazard a guess that country Victoria would be blacked out first, and that would be wrong,’’ he said.

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