February 12th, 2023Powercor reply to Just Sayin’… Feb 13, 2023
Daylesford, Glenlyon and surrounds power supply
Powercor is working to address reliability issues affecting customers in Daylesford, Glenlyon and surrounding areas.
We know how much our customers rely on us to deliver reliable and safe power to their homes and businesses, and we recognise that our network is not meeting its usual high standards of reliability in this area.
The most recent outage (9 February) was caused by a car hitting a pole in Daylesford. Other reasons for the recent outages have included lightning strikes, storms, trees and bark.
To improve reliability and reduce the risk of power outages, we will be replacing equipment and installing animal and bark mitigation devices in high-risk areas.
In late 2022, crews installed new-generation automatic circuit recloser technology, which respond to faults on the powerline, reducing the number of customers being impacted by the outage and isolating the location of the fault. This helps improve our crews response times when outages do occur, as well as keeping more customers on each time a fault occurs.
This work is in addition to extensive patrols, vegetation cutting and infrastructure replacement and upgrades that have occurred over recent years.
Network design in the area
The area between Ballarat and Daylesford is supplied by main powerlines from the Zone Substation at Ballarat North.
These lines act as a back-up supply to each other, allowing us to keep customers on supply during planned maintenance or during some faults.
Powercor’s network control team can divert power around affected parts of the network in the event of a storm or some other impact to powerlines by using the other circuit to temporarily power those customers.
For areas beyond Daylesford, like Glenlyon, there is no network interconnection, so faults in that area cannot be back-fed by a different part of the network. An example is the vehicle collision on 9 February.
Claims and compensation
When outages do occur, customers may be eligible for compensation under the Guaranteed Service Level Payment scheme. This is a regulated scheme and payments are applied to bills automatically.
Customers can also make individual claims and more information is available on our websites at www.powercor.com.au
We would also encourage customers to contact their insurance company to find out if they are covered for their losses.
Just sayin’…February 13, 2023
DINNER done and I was sitting down ready to watch, again, Mr Inbetween. It’s a great Australian series, quite dark, but also very funny. The guy who wrote it is also the lead character.
Anyway, Ray was about to shoot someone and, the power went out. Now this may seem a first world problem but it literally happens all the time. And you get that annoying phone message that Powercor is aware of the outage and it should be fixed by…some time later. Last Thursday it was originally going to be done by midnight but that quickly became 12.30am. And it went out about 8pm.
Now, I am sure you are thinking there are plenty of things to do in the dark but Kyle and I have been together for 29 years so we barely even talk to each other, let alone do other things. I put out a FB message saying if one of us was murdered it was on Powercor. Just in case.
So we found our trusty giant torch, some candles and a gas lighter and put some Spotify music on. Seventies road trip, I think. And then we just sat and listened to the tunes. And wondered how long the UPS (uninterrupted power supply) would last to our computers and whether we should shut down our programs before they shut down themselves and we lost data. You know, stories, photos, graphic design work.
I might have posted a few things on FB. A little complaint perhaps. Might have used the F word. And some people put smiley faces on it and others said I should be more careful because “what if someone had of been injured”. I didn’t bother correcting the grammar but then I saw that someone had not been injured but had hit a power pole in East Street in Daylesford. Maybe speeding but that is not for me to say. But you would have to hit a pole pretty hard to take out the power.
Anyway, I am sorry someone hit a power pole but why does that take out power all the way to Glenlyon? It’s a good 10km – I know that because it used to be a 20km round trip to pick up a bottle of wine at the end of the day. (Thank you Cellarbrations for starting up a great delivery service!)
Imagine if you lived in Melbourne and someone hit a power pole in say, St Kilda and power all the way to Black Rock went out, closing all the businesses along the way. People would be up in arms.
And it happens all the time here. I asked a few friends who live around Melbourne how often their power went out and they looked at me like I was starting a joke. When we had that massive storm in 2021 and they lost power for about four days in Trentham, all the media reports were focused on power being lost in the Dandenongs. While all the Trenthamians, is that what they are, got on with life, those nearer Melbourne were outraged. We are just used to it.
I know Powercor will sometimes reimburse people for lost fridge and freezer food but I reckon they would be better off giving everyone a free generator when they sign up for power. Would probably be cheaper in the long run and lead to less “neighbour envy” when you are sitting in the dark and listening to your neighbour’s generator whirring away. (Yes, I am talking about you, Gary.)
Anyway, the torch is back in the cupboard, the candles have returned to the dining table and thankfully, we did not lose data so you are reading this edition of The Local in a timely manner. And we wait for the next blackout. Perhaps today – it’s quite hot, next week – might be windy, or any time of the day when someone wants to drive a bit fast on a country road. I guess I could write to Powercor and see if they can make sense of it all but I have a feeling I will be left in the dark. Just sayin’…
(I was wrong. Powercor got back to me. Read their reply at www.tlnews.com.au)
