The Broken Hill solar farm, along with the Silverton wind farm,...

The Broken Hill solar farm, along with the Silverton wind farm, was unable to supply electricity to the town during a recent outage because they are connected to the grid and were disconnected when the grid experienced a failure. While the farms are capable of generating a significant amount of power, they cannot operate independently as a microgrid when the main transmission line is down. AGL's battery system in Broken Hill was also initially unable to operate in this "islanded" state due to a lack of a prior agreement with Transgrid, though this was later resolved.

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Grid Dependence:

  Both the Broken Hill solar farm and the Silverton wind farm are designed to feed power into the main electricity grid. They are not set up to operate as a self-sufficient microgrid, meaning they cannot function independently when the main connection to the grid is lost.
• Anti-islanding Protection:

  The solar farm, like many renewable energy sources, has anti-islanding protection mechanisms. These systems automatically shut down the farm when the grid is down to prevent the farm from feeding power into a disconnected and potentially dangerous section of the grid.
• AGL Battery Issue:

  While AGL's battery system in Broken Hill was intended to provide backup power during outages, it initially couldn't be used when the transmission line went down. This was because AGL had not yet finalized an agreement with Transgrid to allow the battery to operate in an "islanded" situation, where the town is cut off from the main grid.
• Restoration Efforts:

  Following the outage, Transgrid has been working to rebuild the damaged transmission lines and reconnect Broken Hill to the grid. They are also working on enabling the battery to function as a microgrid and have been bringing in additional generators to help stabilize the power supply.