Queenslanders are furious after more than 8,300 households had their air conditioners remotely turned off by energy retailer Energex during sweltering weather.
As temperatures soared to 36C on a Sunday earlier this month, the state-owned power company cut the cooling functions of air conditioning units in order to meet surging demand and reduce network load.
The affected households had signed up for the state’s “PeakSmart” scheme where Energex and Ergon customers were given cash rebates of up to $400 on air conditioner purchases in exchange for having a signal receiver installed that allows the energy retailers to control the power supply.
However, the scheme began in 2012, and renters and new property owners may not be aware that their air conditioners are fitted with the receivers, causing alarm when the units are remotely shut down, as they have been five times this year. Swimming pools and hot water systems can also be affected.
The latest incident, on December 8, affected 8,311 homes in Logan and Ipswich, while in January more than 170,000 air conditioners were turned down to 50% power by Energex remote access.
Acting Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the Big Brother-style interventions were “unacceptable”, The Courier Mail reported.
“I don’t think Queenslanders should expect an energy company to be able, at a flick of a switch, to turn people’s aircon for a few hours a day,” he said.
“Queenslanders should be able to go home and turn their lights on at night time when they want they should be able to turn their air conditioner on in summer or the heater on in winter, without government and energy companies saying, ‘we may have to turn your air conditioner off specifically so the grid doesn’t fail’.”
Furious residents responded by blaming left-wing state and federal Labor governments’ destructive energy policies.
“This is outrageous. Build some more coal fired power stations for gods sake. China are building 2 new coal fired stations a week!” one told The Courier Mail.
“Absolutely disgraceful! The politicians and their misguided ideology have failed their employers. Get more coal fired power stations built before it’s too late!” said another.
“Australians really are sheep. Happily handing over more control of our lives to governments and their energy company helpers,” added a third.
“[The] only way to sort this out is for us to all suffer power outages and have a gutful of Labor, Greens, wokes and lefties and get our cheap reliable coal fired power stations maintained and back up and running like they were for 50 years,” another said.
An Energex spokesman told 4BC radio the “PeakSmart events” only affected residents who had opted in, and said he believed they would rather lose access to their air conditioning temporarily than have to deal with power outages.
“What happens on really heavy load days … we can signal air conditioners, people with their pool pumps, and also hot water systems, we’ll signal to wind them back a bit to smooth out the load,” he said.
“I think at the end of the day, people would rather possibly have their aircon, or their pool pump, or their hot water system turned off for a few hours, rather than having outages,”
Earlier this month lobby group Sustainable Population Australia warned that continued mass immigration-driven population growth would result is more power outages as demand outstripped supply and infrastructure struggled to keep up.
Header image credit: Energex
