The whole of South Australia was left without power for several hours on Wednesday after one of the most extreme storms in 50 years battered key energy infrastructure.

At least 80,000 lightning strikes hit the state during the wild weather, which knocked over 22 transmission poles.

Politicians and climate scientists spent much of Thursday blaming the outage on an apparent over-reliance on renewable energy or a failure to adequately respond to climate change.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the blackout was caused by cyclonic weather but accused state and territory Labor governments of being dangerously preoccupied with renewable energy.

"I regret to say that a number of the state Labor governments have over the years set priorities and renewable targets that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic, and have paid little or no attention to energy security," he said.

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the states's reliance on renewable energy – which supplies close to 40 per cent of all power– raised concerns about energy security.

"There are serious questions for the future of the energy system about how do we combine energy policy and climate policy," he said.

But ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell dismissed the criticisms as lacking evidence and failing to understand the reality of the situation.

"These statements reflect a failure to understand what occurred in South Australia which is a cyclonic event that caused critical damage to key parts of the state's infrastructure," he said.

"To suggest that wind power is somehow to blame for this outage is extraordinarily reckless and wrong."

Mr Corbell has committed the ACT to a 100 per cent reliance on renewable energy by 2020. Last year, the target was brought forward from 2025 to 2020.

The switch to renewable energy began with the funding of three solar farms in 2013. This was followed by two wind auctions and contracts with four companies to buy energy from wind farms in South Australia, Victoria and NSW.

Mr Frydenberg has billed a special COAG meeting in coming weeks as crucial to resolving the energy crisis in South Australia and rebalancing renewable energy targets.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said his government remained committed to the 100 per cent renewable target and it would not be altered at the COAG meeting.

"Having completely gutted the federal policy setting for renewable energy it appears they are trying to come after state-based targets," Mr Corbell said.

"Without state-based targets there would not have been the investment in wind and solar power that we have seen in recent years."

South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill hit back at critics on Thursday, accusing federal Liberal politicians of "playing politics" and pursuing an anti-renewable energy agenda.

Mr Corbell said it was difficult to envision a similar crisis in the ACT as the territory is connected to the NSW energy network, whichwas significantly larger.

"It could happen, but only after a catastrophic natural disaster with cyclonic winds which is what we saw in South Australia," he said.

The Climate Council and the Grattan Institute also criticised attempts to blame renewable energy for the power outage on Thursday, describing some statements as opportunistic.

"This is a prelude to a disturbing future, and it's only going to get worse if we don't address climate change," Climate Council member Will Steffen said