Look out, Djibouti, here we come!

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, South Australia and Victoria are in for a spell of hot weather of the sort Sydney is already experiencing in suburbs distant from the cooling influence of the coast. As Australia is not yet fully acclimatised to Third World-style power outages, the possibility of summer blackouts still inspires much anxiety, especially amongst older Australians who remember when power was cheap and reliable and who wonder why Gaia decreed it a sin to keep things that way.

But just how anxious is it appropriate to be to any particular sweaty moment? Thanks to the Australian Energy Market Operator we can watch the grid as it struggles to cope.

Follow this link or the one below for a dynamic chart which constantly updates the various states’ generation and demand, plus the going price at any given moment.

As of this post going live, only Tasmania and Queensland were producing more electricity than they consumed. In Victoria, where they shut Hazelwood to focus on”renewables”, “wind and other” is contributing just 2.65% of total demand.

Isn’t this modern age just wonderful, with such wealth of information just a click away! Ideally, should you satisfy curiosity with a visit to the AEMO flow chart, the power won’t have gone out and your computer will still work.

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