Why do the lights twinkle in Adelaide

No, it wasn’t ghosts playing tricks on you this morning, and in fact third-party connections to power grids that caused lights to flicker across South Australia.

Lights were flickering and dimmed across the state for hours this morning which energy distributor ElectraNet said the unnamed “third-party” connection to a grid in the state’s north at about 1:30am caused. “voltage” issue.

Stay up-to-date on the latest news with The South Australia Briefing - keeping you in the loop with news as it hits:

Despite suggestions from South Australians, the state’s Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Australian Energy Market Operator’s end to its intervention to wholesale price caps and this morning’s event were unrelated.

"I don't think it was anything malicious or dangerous. I just think it's probably testing, probably either a new generator that's attempting to establish its connection to the grid after commission."

"There was testing and as demand started to increase into the day, they pulled the testing and the flickering stopped.”

ElectraNet power supplies returned to normal around 5:30am.

South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas said ElectraNet controls the transmission lines from power stations to localised networks.

"The transmission lines issue sits with ElectraNet and apparently there's a frequency issue there with one of their feeders," he said.

"I understand there is an investigation underway from AEMO with ElectraNet."

Get the latest breaking news from SCA newsrooms around Australia. Short, simple and everything you need to know.

Posted Thursday 23 Jun 2022 at 9:00pmThu 23 Jun 2022 at 9:00pm

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

Transmission company ElectraNet says a new wind farm in the state's north caused the issue but posed no risk of a major blackout.