Australia's latest electricity blackout reminds the nation that energy supply is subject to a raft of vulnerabilities.
As another summer approaches amid a fickle schedule of natural disasters and wild weather, plus network overloads, some residents and business operators are already finding the flick of a switch isn't always easy.
After a blackout crisis across two weeks, Broken Hill's troubles are easing. But relying on back-up power that has failed twice has left residents of the far-western NSW town anxious and uncertain while they wait weeks more for their connection to the electricity grid to be restored.
The experience is symbolic of the increasing risks to energy security.
Residents across parts of Victoria have found themselves enduring brownouts, and worse, through hot summer days as the network struggles to keep up with supply. In February more than 12,000km of powerlines and poles were damaged in wild weather, cutting power to 530,000 of the state's homes and businesses.
Most South Australians remember all too well the widespread blackout of 2016, when storms knocked out supply for virtually the entire state.
Bushfire often acts as another power supply predator and every state and territory has examples.
A combination of ageing infrastructure, more natural disasters impacting supply, higher temperatures fuelling demand and the difficult shift from fossil fuels to renewable generation has increased the risks of extended blackouts and load shedding.
The electricity system in Broken Hill failed on October 16, when seven transmission towers were knocked down in the same storm that cut supply to South Australia's far north, including BHP's Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs.
It left residents of Broken Hill and outlying towns without power for almost two days and intermittent supply last weekend.
The crisis intensified when the region's only operational large-scale generator failed in hot weather on Monday.
It was restored on Wednesday morning, but rolling outages have continued during peak demand at night as the limited supply is shared across the outback town.
A subsequent fault led to the generator going offline at 2.30am on Friday, again interrupting power. Its fuel forwarding pump was replaced before supplies were restored late the same morning.
The power cuts caused chaos, closing schools and shops, creating queues for fuel, mine workers being stood down, and businesses that rely on refrigeration being forced to throw out stock valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Outback Pharmacy director Jason Harvey said he had been forced to dispose of tens of thousands of dollars worth of medicine and the losses increased when an "oxygen thief" stole a generator from one of his outlets.
"You've just ruined tens of thousands of dollars worth of essential medication and might mean some people may need to go without critical meds," the pharmacy said in a post on social media.
Broken Hill Foodland owner Lauren Colmer said on Wednesday they did a "big dump of stock, we probably lost tens of thousands (of dollars)".
Ms Colmer was unsure if insurance would cover her losses and the cost of hiring the generator, but "there's no way I can run it for the next five weeks until the transmission lines are up and running".
"In this day and age, you don't mind a few blackouts here and there, and you go, okay, it gets fixed. But when it's down for so long, because they don't have any backup plans, that's really not acceptable," she said.
"We've got a solar farm out there, and we've got a wind farm out on the Adelaide Road, and we've got a wind farm out at Silverton, but we can't access any of that sort of energy.
"Some of the locals are like, can we just plug into that? And I was like, well, that'd be nice. That's not the way it works."
The power supply uncertainty will continue until at least November 6, when Transgrid's temporary transmission is forecast to be connected to the grid.
Crews have assembled seven temporary towers on the ground and are establishing structure foundations. Towers will then be erected before cabling starts.
NSW Premier Chris Minns visited Broken Hill on Thursday to announce a support package that offers $200 to households and $400 to small businesses.
But the funds will cover only a fraction of the losses incurred by many businesses.
"I realise that's not going to make everybody whole, and there's been significant disruption and interruption in power, but that's the first step in us working with the local community to get businesses up on their feet and get the community going again," Mr Minns said.
"Getting main power back on and ensuring the mines can operate again is integral, not just to the contractors, the employees and the workers in those towns, but also the general economy in Broken Hill."
Climate Councillor and former energy executive Greg Bourne said there were many communities across the nation like Broken Hill that are exposed to the risks of a single transmission line for their energy needs.
"And with climate change, we're going to have more powerful winds, more significant storm events, more floods and fires, all of which can affect a transmission line," he said.
The "portfolio effect" of renewable energy would vastly improve the resiliency of energy supply, through solar and wind farms, household solar panels and batteries, he said.
The mental model was moving from single point, massive generation through to multi point generation, distribution, usage, storage, and demand management.
"As we move forward, we end up with a bi-directional model and even a multi-directional model but in most cases, we're not yet wired for that," Mr Bourne said.
But there is hope on the horizon.
Project EnergyConnect is a large-scale interconnector that will link SA to NSW that is expected to allow more than two gigawatts of solar, wind, and battery projects to connect to the grid.
Construction is well advanced in NSW and ElectraNet has completed the more than 200km component of the project, from Robertstown to the SA border.
Mr Bourne said the "stringing together" of SA's system to the eastern states was "a good thing".
"But equally, that's not the only way you portfolio your risk. You portfolio risk by making sure that you have a lot of distributed energy systems. And that's a combination of generation locally, storage locally, EVs locally, demand management locally," he said.
More than 40 per cent of the electricity in the main national grid is being met by clean sources of power and more than three million families have solar panels on their rooftops.
But authorities have warned the transition is not happening fast enough to avoid the risk of blackouts and price spikes as nearly every coal-fired power plant shuts in the next decade.
More short-term challenges loom.
Australia is facing one of the hottest summers on record according to the Bureau of Meteorology's weather modelling released earlier in October, showing a greater than 80 per cent chance of minimum temperatures in the top 20 per cent of years.
Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Daniel Westerman said power supply reliability was improving, but warned that it is critical all anticipated projects are delivered on time or supply shortfalls would be a growing risk.
