Even though it was a public holiday, there was a raging bonfire in prices in South Australia on the evening of Australia Day. The spike in prices hit a blistering $20,000 peak and stayed there for three long  hours…

Expert Danny Price warns of 'catastrophic' national grid failure after SA price surge

By Patrick Starick, The Advertiser

The average price for every hour of the 24 hour period in South Australia was $2,457 per megawatthour.

Frontier Economics chief Danny Price, a key architect of energy policy for state and federal governments, warns renewables cannot meet high electricity demand and predicts significant outages and high prices.

Wholesale electricity spot prices spiked in SA to near the $20,000 per megawatt hour limit on a still Monday night, when household batteries drained and wind generation dipped, prompting the Australian Energy Market Operator to issue a low-reserve warning at 8.42pm.

"It is only a matter of time. It will happen. There's no doubt that it will happen. Year by year the system becomes more fragile and that's because people are spending less on coal."

Dan Lee at WattClarity tracked the big batteries in South Australia and says they were run almost flat by 8:30pm. The 1.5GWh battery was down to 66MWh — empty.

This outcome is perhaps unsurprising given that much of the region's battery fleet contains around two hours of duration, while the period of sustained high prices extended for more than three hours, pushing many batteries toward their energy limits as the evening wore on.

Danny Price thought it was "very, very lucky" that so far, heatwaves have basically hit Australia on weekends and holidays.

The state was running on an LOR1 — lack of reserve, Level 1. for hours. So any unexpected unit failure or break in a line could bring down the system.

To shore up Australia's electricity grid, obviously then, we need more public holidays and weekends? Do it for the nation, eh?!

Shame if you run a business…