VICTORIA'S power supplies will cope with the expected record heatwave but the margin will be very tight, Premier John Brumby says.
Records were smashed in the last couple of days when Victorians guzzled more than 10,300 megawatts of power, pushing the system to the limit.
Temperatures topping 44 degrees celsius in Melbourne caused localised power outages and brought the Basslink reserve down yesterday, forcing electricity to be cut from thousands of homes.
Basslink said today the system did not trip and was designed to engage a "protective block" when temperatures hit 45 degrees in Victoria or 35 degrees in Tasmania.
Mr Brumby said electricity supplies remained in surplus despite the enormous demand.
"The bulk of power supplies through the week have got through reasonably well, today will be very, very tight indeed, the margin between supply and demand is very tight."
Mr Brumby said the state's biggest electricity user Alcoa aluminium smelter, in Portland, was on standby to top up electricity if supply dwindled. He said two major gas-fired per stations and a solar plant would boost the state's electricity capacity in future.
However, there was nothing that could be done to prepare for this week's unprecedented heatwave, he said.
"You would never, ever ... no government, no business would ever make the investment for an event that occurs on one day every 100 years because it's a waste of money," the Premier said.
"You've got to have a system that will work very well 99.99 per cent of the time and ours does but in extreme conditions sometimes things will literally melt in the heat, there's nothing you can do about that."
Mr Brumby said he had told government departments to set their air conditioners at 26 degrees and urged businesses to do the same.
The Premier said he understood the frustration of public transport users faced with hundreds of cancellations because of the heatwave, and Ftoday's free travel was a "token of goodwill".
"It is an extreme week. The system is not made to operate where you've got temperatures in the suburbs of 46 degrees celsius," he said.
Mr Brumby said reservoirs would suffer in the heat and water users would inevitably break the 155-litre daily limit.
He urged Victorians to stay indoors and keep cool and to check up on old or ill friends, neighbours and relatives. Story
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