AEMO had contracts with two "System Restart Ancillary Services" (SRAS) providers to help bring the network back up. The Mintaro Emergency Diesel Generator had suffered storm damage, including a cloud-to-ground lightning strike in very close proximity, but would not have been useful anyway due to its location in the network and downed transmission lines. The Quarantine Power Station was unable to start the larger Unit #5 required to provide enough power to restart any of the Torrens Island Power Station units, so Torrens Island needed power from the Victorian interconnector to be restarted. A circuit breaker in the Quarantine Power Station switchyard connecting Torrens Island Power Station and the smaller units at Quarantine Power Station with Unit #5 tripped repeatedly due to in-rush current on the generator transformer and auxiliary transformer, and subsequently ran out of stored energy before Unit #5 could be started.
