2 March – Update on Central Highlands reliability work

Powercor is conducting work on the power network to improve reliability following recent power outages in Trentham, Blackwood, Tylden, Spring Hill, Newbury, Kyneton South, Fern Hill, Lauriston and surrounding areas.

Unfortunately, over the past few weeks some customers in this area have experienced multiple outages.

While we have been able to respond quickly, we are continuing our work to identify the underlying cause of these outages.

Last night, another outage occurred that affected power to about 2500 customers.

We have restored power to all customers this morning.

We are still determining the cause of the outage and are keeping customers updated via our website, SMS and our contact centre.

Yesterday, we began conducting detailed patrols of more than 200 kilometres of high-voltage powerlines that stretch through some heavily vegetated areas to identify what may be causing these outages.

We have today cancelled all planned work in the area and diverted crews to join the patrols.

Once issues are identified, we will address them.

We know how much our customers rely on us to deliver reliable and safe power to their homes and businesses, and we recognise that unfortunately our network is currently not meeting its usual high standards of reliability in this area.

We want to assure customers we are doing everything we can to identify and address these faults.

We will continue providing updates about our ongoing work to restore power reliability in the area.