AUSTRALIAN Energy Market Operator spokesperson Jonathan Geddes has dubbed it the worst power outage in Victoria’s history with many parts of the state still without power after Tuesday’s ferocious storm.
Speaking on ABC Radio Albury Goulburn Murray on Wednesday morning, in the absence of ABC Gippsland, he said nearly 300,000 customers across Victoria had their power restored progressively overnight.
“So, Victoria experienced severe storms yesterday afternoon. That disrupted the power supplies to around 530,000 homes and businesses,” Mr Geddes said.
“Storms have damaged power lines, brought down power poles and dropped trees throughout the area making it very challenging for emergency crews to access, make safe and then repair that damage.
“I'm pleased to say that around 295,000 homes have had their power restored and so work continues today, and I think that if customers can, and are still without power, they can have a look at the websites of their distribution businesses to see when power is expected to be back on.
“So, in Gippsland that is Ausnet services. There'll be estimated times of restoration there.”
Mr Geddes acknowledged the extent of the outage, brought about by damage to the transmission system, after several lattice towers were brought down, forcing the shutting down of Loy Yang A, a situation that was exacerbated by scheduled maintenance taking Yallourn offline.
“It's probably the most damaging event to the electricity network in recent history. So, we do apologise for the inconvenience that I'm sure businesses are facing at the moment without power but we can assure you that everything's being done to restore power as quickly as possible.
“But if people are without power, they should seek alternative arrangements because their power may be off for a few days.”
He said it was actually hard to say when power would be restored in some areas.
“I don't think there was an expectation of the amount or the severity of the storm yesterday. So, we were a little bit surprised at the extent of the damage.
“But this is something that we as a electricity distribution businesses face and the task of restoring power. I would say that for safety reasons we encourage people not to approach fallen powerlines and they will be a faults and emergency number to call your distribution business which Ausnet services in Gippsland to report fallen powerlines.”
As additional bad news, those customers that have had power restored and likely to be paying a premium for the scarce amount of power available to the state.
