South Australia plans to have two back-up power plants up and running around Adelaide by 1 December to deal with the demands of the hot summer and prevent blackouts.

"Why have we had to do this?  We have a broken national electricity market," said SA Premier Jay Weatherill, faulting the federal government for failing to come up with a "coherent" energy policy that takes global warming into account. 

One power generating station will be located at Lonsdale near the Adelaide Desalination Plant in the city's south, and the second is at General Motors Holden at Elizabeth in the city's north.  These sites were chosen because of significant connections to the grid.  They'll utilize nine new General Electric aero-derivative turbines purchased from US company APR Energy.  These units are designed to fire up quickly and be called on to provide as much as 276 Megawatts of power in the event of a blackout.  The turbines will run on diesel for the first two years, and they'll run on gas after that.

"The point of the energy plan and the point of this announcement today is to make sure we can ride through not only the next two summers but also take charge of our energy future to make sure we have secure, reliable and affordable and clean power for the future," said Mr. Weatherill.

The SA government says the price tag for taxpayers will be less than the $360 million estimate for gas and temporary generation contained in Premier Jay Weatherill's energy plan.