The State Liberals have dismissed Minister for Energy Tom Koutsantonis’ assertion that the report released yesterday by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) shows a supercell thunderstorm was responsible for the September 28 black-out.

Contrary to Minister Koutsantonis’ desperate spin the BOM report merely confirms what was already well known – that the storm brought down transmission lines the north of the South Australia.

 “The BOM report in no way explains why storms pulling down transmission lines in the north of the state plunged the whole of South Australia into darkness” said Shadow Minister for Energy Dan van Holst Pellekaan.

“That BOM is not charged with nor qualified to investigate what cause the state-wide blackout.

“The responsibility for investigating what led to the state-wide blackout rests with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

“AEMO will need to determine why the collapse of transmission towers in the north of the state resulted in the south of the state losing power despite no damage to the gas generators in Adelaide or the transmission lines supplying energy from those generators to Adelaide and all regions south.

“I’ll wait for the final AEMO report but I note that the wind farms were the first generators to go down, the interconnector was next and the gas generators were the last.”