John Rolfe The Courier Mail December 30, 2024
More than 8000 Queensland households had the cooling function on their airconditioner turned off remotely by Energex on a sweltering Sunday earlier this month – the fifth Big Brother-style intervention of the year. In total, aircons have been automatically throttled back about 210,000 times in the Sunshine State so far in 2024 to ease pressure on the power grid, according to information obtained from the government-owned power company.
The most recent instance was during the early evening of December 8, when over 8300 households across Logan and Ipswich had the compressors of their aircon disabled.
Energex was trying to manage surging electricity demand after temperatures reached as high as 36 degrees celsius.
The affected households were part of the PeakSmart “demand response” scheme.
They joined PeakSmart in return for a rebate of as much as $400 on purchasing an air conditioner. The quid pro quo was that a signal receiver was installed in the unit.
The receiver allows Energex or Ergon – depending on the location – to remotely control power supply to the air conditioner to cap its energy consumption during times of heavy demand.
Energex calls these times “PeakSmart events.”
The December 8 event was the most severe form of intervention, known as a “Demand Response Mode 1”.
During a DRM1, air conditioners in areas of high demand have their compressors turned off.
On December 8, in the Logan area, compressors were turned off for as long as six hours, from 6pm until midnight.
The most far-reaching PeakSmart events this year were on January 22 and 27. On both days, air conditioners in 100,000 households were capped at 50 per cent of their maximum consumption, in a DRM2 event.
The other PeakSmart event type is a DRM3, when an aircon’s consumption cannot exceed 75 per cent of its maximum. That was last used in 2017.
Nowhere else in the nation uses demand response as actively as southeast Queensland.
But other states are watching and preparing to follow suit.
In 2023, South Australia made it mandatory for new air conditioners to be enabled for demand response. But SA currently has no plan to send signals to the receivers to reduce the load on its grid.
PeakSmart was launched in 2012 under the Campbell Newman Liberal-National state government. The scheme was expanded by Labor.
More than 155,000 households now have PeakSmart appliances – a number growing by about 15,000 a year.
The area with by far the highest enrolments is Pimpama, where 3670 devices are connected.
New LNP Energy Minister David Janetzki suggested curtailing power was far better than having to cut it off altogether.
“Energex and Ergon Energy carefully manage electricity demand peaks for those who have opted into PeakSmart, to smooth the load and help prevent widespread outages,” Mr Janetzki said.
There hasn’t been a PeakSmart event in the Ergon distribution area this year.
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