By Denis Hay
Description
Power outages during storms are increasing. Learn why networks fail, how mobile towers lose power, and what real network resilience would look like.
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Introduction
Every time a storm hits, thousands of Australians lose power and many, like those in Southeast Queensland, are left without electricity for 10, 20, 25 hours or more. It is not an isolated problem.
Power outages during storms now affect millions across Australia.
A growing number of people also lose mobile reception within hours of the blackout, leaving families cut off from help. This raises an obvious question:
Why is a modern nation losing essential services every time the weather turns violent?
People want answers, not excuses. They want a storm-proof electricity grid that matches the climate reality we now face.
Stat Box
• Extreme weather outages in Australia have increased 22 per cent in the past decade. (Australian Energy Council)
• Queensland records some of the country’s highest storm-related distribution failures.
• Mobile tower batteries average 3 to 8 hours of backup time.
The Problem
Root Causes
Australia relies heavily on overhead power lines, especially in state- or privately-owned distribution networks. These lines are vulnerable to wind, trees, lightning and flood damage.
Underground networks exist, but only in limited areas. Countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and parts of Switzerland bury most of their low and medium-voltage networks, drastically reducing failures.
Australia’s vast distances, regulatory settings and fragmented ownership model across states have delayed this transition.
Consequences
When a key transmission or distribution corridor fails, the outage cascades across a wide region. Entire suburbs, towns and sometimes hundreds of thousands of homes lose power at once.
Standalone microgrids could isolate failures, but Australia has not widely adopted this approach outside remote communities.
The Impact
Everyday Disruption
Blackouts stop refrigeration, medical devices, air conditioning, heating, and food preparation.
When mobile towers run out of their limited battery supply after several hours, communications fail, too.
This leaves communities isolated at the very time they need information most.
Who Benefits from The Current Model
Regulators prioritise keeping consumer prices low rather than building top-tier network resilience.
Private operators must justify every infrastructure upgrade through cost-benefit tests.
State-owned networks are under pressure to keep spending restrained.
The result is a grid built for calm weather, while the climate becomes more dangerous.
The Solution
Monetary Sovereignty
States do not have currency sovereignty, but the federal government does.
A storm-proof electricity grid requires federal funding for:
• Undergrounding in high-risk zones.
• Microgrids to reduce outage size.
• More robust transmission pathways.
• Vegetation management and climate adaptation upgrades.
• Mandatory long-duration backup at mobile towers.
Federal investment removes the pressure on state budgets and ensures national standards.
Policy Solutions
- Create a National Network Resilience Program funded by federal public money.
- Prioritise undergrounding in populated, storm-exposed regions.
- Require microgrid capability for new developments.
- Mandate 24-hour backup power for mobile towers.
- Modernise regulatory rules so reliability and resilience are valued equally with price.
FAQs
What causes power outages during storms?
Wind, lightning, falling trees and flooding damage overhead lines, substations and transformers.
Why do mobile towers go down, too?
Most towers have only 3 to 8 hours of battery backup. Once that runs out, the tower shuts down unless a generator is on-site.
Would undergrounding stop most storm outages?
No system is perfect, but countries with extensive undergrounding experience have vastly fewer storm-related failures.
Final Thoughts
Australia can no longer treat power outages during storms as an unavoidable inconvenience. A modern, storm-proof electricity grid is achievable and affordable when the federal government uses its monetary capacity to strengthen national infrastructure.
What’s Your Experience
How long was your most prolonged blackout, and did your mobile service fail too?
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Find more writing on political reform and Australia’s dollar sovereignty at Social Justice Australia.
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My longest powerless period was two weeks after cyclone Larry, my latest four hours yesterday afternoon, long before the evening storm. That’s far from unusual in regional Queensland
Hotspringer
Thanks for sharing that. Regional Queensland really cops it. Long outages like that show how fragile the network still is and how much upgrading is needed.
A lot of this is due to privatisation; the priority is profit and return to investors, so maintenance takes a backseat.
I’m 45km from Hobart, a small (growing) coastal town. Worst I’ve had was around 36 hours after widespread storms back in … 2016, maybe. Landline and internet were out as well, mobile was OK.
Interesting on ‘network resilience’, ironically the risible US Rockefeller Foundation (Standard Oil/Exxon) had a ‘resilience’ movement, redolent of related sustainability, limits to growth, degrowth, ZPG Zero Population Growth etc.
Fossil fueled radical right libertarian or nativist trap; it’s not fossil fuels or carbon driving emissions, but immigrant led population growth (leading to the ‘great replacement’).
Moot point nowadays as renewables are going gangbusters, but ignored by MSM, that will require a rejigging of grid and transmission networks.
We’ve lost power twice due to storms in the last ten days, in both cases outside of normal work hours but the linesmen and women were called out and responded quickly and efficiently.
On the first occasion there was a large tree down on the road with power lines entwined – a neighbour redirected traffic at one end and I did the same at my end as the lines were still live and the road impassable due to the tree blocking it.
The astonishing thing was that several motorists who I had to redirect complained to me and told me that it was very inconvenient having to take a ten km detour and in one case a galah in a 4×4 was prepared to take on the tree branches and live power lines until I told him that it was a death trap until the power company cut the power-fortunately his wife agreed.
In both cases we were out for about five hours with no mobile phone coverage or landlines – another neighbour with solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall battery as backup merely had to switch off mains supply from the grid and rely entirely on battery which coped quite adequately during the downtime.
It is worth remembering those countries who’s electrical network is predominantly underground are about the size of Victoria. In a country the size of Australia, I doubt it;s economic feasibility?
With regard to phones, I found the old copper wire home line system far more reliable than the current mobile phone system.
jonangel
You are right that Australia is a vast country, and we cannot underground everything. The point is to target the high-risk sections, especially those that cut power to thousands of people at once. That level of disruption can be reduced with selective undergrounding, better maintenance, and stronger backup systems.
I also agree that the old copper landlines were often more reliable than today’s mobile networks. That is why strengthening mobile tower backup power needs to be part of the solution too.
Denis, the thing that many obviously miss, is the fact that where the UG stops aerial network takes over, so the termination point be it pole or substation, when it goes out it takes all the UG with it. In fact if a transmission line fails it virtually takes everything out.
jonangel
That is exactly why microgrids matter. If a pole or substation failure wipes out everything downstream, we need smaller, stand-alone sections so outages do not spread across thousands of homes. Microgrids limit damage and enable faster repairs.