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Figure 1: Thanks to the roaring Forties South Australia is installing increasing amounts of wind energy [Source: energyaustralia.com.au, ND]

There was a serious black out incident in South Australia last month due to high winds. Inevitably the anti-wind farm brigade were quick to blame wind farms and inevitably the media (who don’t know any better) were soon parrotting these claims. Is any of this true?No, not in the least. South Australia has seen a significant rise in renewables, in particular wind power over the last few years. They are now supplying 27% of the state’s electricity. However the fact is that the wind farms stayed up and running through the high winds and that it was the collapse of several powerlines that actually caused the black outs.

Figure 2: Wind power has at times met a significant proportion of SA’s electricity demand []Source: The covnversation, 2015