Wind farm ‘would have helped’ Kalgoorlie: Whitby

The Goldfields is an obvious place to build a wind farm, according to Energy Minister Reece Whitby, as he begins the task of finding out how the state’s largest outback town was left without power for days.

Mr Whitby’s comments came after he was asked to lead a climate resilience package focused on solutions to energy resilience amid a power outage that has left Kalgoorlie residents and businesses in the dark for most of the week.

The power outage was sparked by a freak storm that flattened five transmission towers in what has been described as a bigger hit to Western Power’s network than tropical cyclone Seroja in 2021.

Backup generators failed to fire as they required power from the grid to start up.

Mr Whitby said diversity of power supply would be critical to minimise the impact of climate change on the state’s energy network.

“If we had a wind farm or solar power or batteries out at Kalgoorlie in the Goldfields, that would have helped to ease the situation and provide that kind of energy and create more resilience in the system,” he said.

“I am told we have some of the best wind resources anywhere out in the Goldfields, so that's the obvious place you'd be looking at putting the wind farm.

“Obviously (there are) great solar resources, you get a battery in there, we need firming because that's a big part of the story.”

Mr Whitby said diversifying the state’s network required a huge cheque to ensure energy security.

On the failed generators, Mr Whitby said he was seeking answers from Synergy as to how they failed and what needed to be done to prevent a repeat.

“When you are trying to start an energy system from zero, it's very difficult to get generators up and running, so we need to look at that,” he said.

Mr Whitby would not be drawn on whether generators across the state needed to be checked to ensure they didn’t have similar problems.

His comments come after opposition leader Shane Love earlier in the day called on the government to test tapping privately owned power plants during times of crisis

“I believe the government has had, time and time again, over the past six or seven years, situations where we’ve had power supply interruptions in regional Western Australia – in communities such as Kalgoorlie and communities such as Geraldton, the Mid West and the like, and right across rural communities,” he said.

“We have seen nothing which is actually preventing these disruptions in communities going forward.”

Opposition energy spokesperson Steve Thomas said policy lessons should have been learned from a power outages years earlier. 

"In 2022 power outages had significant impacts on Kalgoorlie residents and his businesses directly in the hip pocket," he said. 

Western Power acting chief executive Jacqui Hall confirmed nearby miners had been engaged to provide power back into Kalgoorlie.