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Essential Energy has been slammed for being “too slow”, as Wagga residents prepared for more power outages this week.
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A number of homes will have their power turned off for several hours on Friday as Essential Energy carries out network maintenance.
But Labor spokesman for Wagga Daniel Mookhey said job cuts had increased the delays in restoring power, both for planned and unplanned outages.
“It’s one standard for the city and another standard for the regions,” Mr Mookhey said. “The (Energy) Minister needs to step in and stop these job cuts.”
Last year, the Electrical Trades Union traded blows with the state government after the company cut jobs in Wagga.
According to Mr Mookhey, Essential Energy blackouts lasted for more than three-and-a-half hours, while Endeavour and Ausgrid – which supply power to homes in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong – had power turned on in less than half that time.
However, Essential Energy’s acting regional manager, Mark Summers, said the average duration of power outages had fallen by almost 30 per cent in the past decade, from more than 300 minutes in 2005-06 financial year, to 214 minutes in 2015-16.
“Our largely radial network means many of our customers are supplied by one power line and electricity can’t be re-routed from an alternative source during power supply outages,” Mr Summers said. “It is often difficult to locate and repair radial line faults due to the distance needed to travel to find the fault on the network, often in adverse weather conditions.”
One of the big challenges for Essential Energy, Mr Summers said, was the sheer size of the network.
“It spans 95 per cent of NSW across a diverse geographical area including semi-arid plains, alpine, coastal and sub-tropical regions,” Mr Summers said.
“It comprises more than 190,000 kilometres of powerline – the equivalent to driving around Australia 13 times – with the longest circuit spanning 1,900 kilometres.
“About 80 per cent of Essential Energy’s network is rural powerlines which typically supply sparsely populated areas and have greater exposure to environmental factors such as weather.”
Mr Summers said Essential Energy’s workforce size was based on operational requirements and on-call employees were rostered outside businesses hours to ensure power was restored quickly and safely.
Stephen Mudd
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
Stephen Mudd is a journalist for Fairfax Media west of the great divide. He loves music, dogs and travel.
