26 May 2021
Yesterday, a fire at the Queensland Callide C coal plant caused the facility to suddenly snap offline. That triggered a cascade of flow-on events, including the disconnection of multiple transmission lines, and other generators, along with a huge ‘frequency excursion‘, in which the normal operating state of the grid begins to stray outside safe parameters.
Nearly half a million customers were disconnected, including Brisbane airport, sewage pumps in the Gold Coast, Gold Coast University Hospital (which had to rely on backup generators) and traffic lights. “About 360 traffic intersections across the Brisbane metro region lost power just after 2:00pm, causing “chaos” for drivers ahead of school pick-up time”, wrote the ABC. People were briefly trapped inside a shopping centre.