SA power. (Be warned that this is a somewhat technical post. MW = Megawatt - 1 million Watts or enough to run about 7500 computers or 800 vacuum cleaners.
)
The fundamental problem in SA is twofold. One with distribution (the poles and wires), the other with generation.
With distribution the underlying problem is one of insufficient investment to provide adequate capacity in the network. SA power demand is VERY peaky with huge spikes when it's hot (fairly common in Adelaide...). Much of the system simply wasn't designed to cope with this and was in fact designed around a WINTER peak rather than a Summer one.
In short, it's not economic to upgrade the system under present regulatory rules. This partly relates to the separation of generation, transmission, distribution and retail. The distributor has no real incentive to keep the power on when they're not losing much from lost load - the generators and retailers are largely copping that. So competition is partly to blame here.
As a consumer, the only real thing you can do to influence this (apart from lobbying politicians) is to even out your power demand. Regardless of the actual rate you pay, switching off pool pumps etc. when it's very hot and running them at off-peak times will help the system technically. Another thing is to use MORE electricity at off-peak times. I don't mean blatant waste, but if everyone in SA used their air-conditioners for heating during Winter (believe it or not, air-conditioning is popular in Tas solely for use in Winter since it's a very cheap means of heating with many never turning it on during Summer) then that would help the economics of distribution (and it's actually more efficient than gas anyway from a technical perspective) since revenue to the distributor should increase without placing any real stress on the network. Either that funds upgrades or leads to lower unit prices for electricity via the regulatory process. And certainly don't be using continuous (non off-peak) electricity for hot water if you can avoid it for both technical and (yours as well as the distributor's) economic reasons.
Generation.
Fundamentally the SA industry has inbuilt high costs due to heavy reliance on gas. Competition has encouraged the building of HIGH cost generation plant (sorry economic theorists but it's not working...) rather than low cost plant. This is continuing to build in ongoing high costs for decades to come. Another problem is that the market (as opposed to central planning under the old ETSA) encourages the unnecessary running of high cost plant when lower cost plant could meet demand (off-peak times and days - most of the time). This both wastes resources (impacting the environment) and adds unnecessary costs.
What would I have done?
The Hallet and Pelican Point and Quarantine gas-fired plants and the Lonsdale diesel power station shouldn't have been built IMO. It would have made a LOT more sense to instead redevelop 3 (of 4) units at Torrens Island A power station into a combined-cycle gas turbine plant. This would have marginal operating costs around $20/MWh instead of about $30 for the Torrens Island plant as it is and around $50 for Hallet (Pelican Point has some low cost capacity but in the true spirit of competition (take note economists) it sits idle while higher cost plant is run. A true waste of gas and higher prices are the result.
I would also have looked very hard at converting Torrens Island B power station to dual fuel coal/gas firing. Despite the location (metropolitan Adelaide), I do believe that coal could be used acceptably there with proper emission controls. The site isn't perfect but it's not bad judging from what I've seen of it. Two (of 4) units at that plant are particularly suitable for coal conversion and indeed this was contemplated at the time of construction.
Doing this would have given SA a large source of cheap baseload electricity which it presently lacks. Costs would still be higher than the Eastern states, but by only a modest amount versus literally double at present.
So, you would have about 1780 MW of low cost plant at Torrens Island (around $20 / MWh marginal cost), one remaining 120 MW unit as is (around $30) with operation at full capacity of two of the B station units (only when demand is highest) to get the last 100 MW coming in at around $25. (For techical reasons the B station units would still use some gas to reach full capacity but this wouldn't be necessary more than 90% of the time).
Total plant capacity would be 2000 MW versus 1280 MW at present. Deduct the Quarantine, Pelican Point, Lonsdale and Hallet plants that I wouldn't have built and overall it's about the same capacity.
Add in the existing coal-fired plant at Port Augusta (Northern (520 MW) and Playford B (240 MW) power stations) and you would have a total installed low cost plant of 2540 MW versus about half that now. This would meet virtually all SA power demand except during the hottest weather. Under most conditions the plant would be competitive intermediate load generation with SA exporting cheap power to Victoria during a typical business day thus lowering prices there as well (with some impact in NSW and Tas (minimal in Qld) too).
The other thing that should (still could) happen is to change the status of the Murraylink Vic-SA interconnector to a regulated interconnector. At present it operates below capacity (forcing up SA prices) as a profit making venture. The change of status would involve the owner simply being paid a flat fee for their service (as with other transmission lines) and actual power flows no longer being restricted by the profit motive. The Directlink interconnector (Qld-NSW) has just undergone such a change.
This way virtually all power in SA would be supplied by either local low cost plant at higher fuel efficiency than at present (environment benefits) or imports from Victoria. The SA wholesale power price would then be similar to that elsewhere and you would have a system with genuinely viable long-term power plants rather than the present patchwork of outdated, inefficient plant using high cost fuels.
All this could have been done and would have fitted very nicely with the technically driven focus of state-owned suppliers. Unfortunately it doesn't fit with the profit motive of competing private owners who prefer to relocate seccond hand plant from overseas rather than commit to the long term supply of electricity.
At the time of posting, wholesale electricity prices are about $29 in SA, $19 in Vic, $17 in NSW and $14 in Qld. SA power demand is 1423 MW with 536 MW being imported from Vic and the rest from local generation. Enough said really...
On a positive note, the high prices in SA have enabled Hydro Tasmania to commence operations in SA (they're also doing things in China, India and various other countries too) at a good profit. Nothing stopped the other states from doing much the same but they grabbed the quick cash of privatisation instead. Now it's pay, pay and pay again. But they haven't learnt and are going to repeat the mistakes with privatisation of the Snowy Hydro. Rather than selling it, IMO it would make more sense to increase the rainfall (there's a proven method for doing this which has been used in Tas for the past 40 years) and thus put more water in the Murray to help the environment whilst increasing clean power generation, thus leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions. That sounds too much like a good idea though...