Upgrade for Melton electricity network

Powercor is upgrading the electricity network in Melbourne’s booming outer-west, as thousands of new homes and businesses connect to the network in one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions.

The upgrades in the Melton area will increase network capacity for new technology such as electric vehicles, while also supporting new shopping centres, housing estates and business developments.

At the end of 2018, Powercor’s Melton Zone Substation supplied about 26,000 customers, with this number growing to almost 35,000 in 2022.

As customer numbers have grown, so too has demand for electricity, with an average demand of 28.65MWh in June of 2018 compared with 34.85MW in June of 2022. This is expected to continue growing as new customers connect and as more people switch to electric vehicles in the future.

As part of the Melton Network Upgrade, Powercor will install a new high voltage ‘feeder’ or powerline from the Zone Substation out to our customers to help increase the capacity of our network and support growth of both residential and commercial customers in the region.

Powercor Head of Network Planning Andrew Dinning said it was an important upgrade for the region.

“These works will increase capacity to help meet the near-term growth in Melton and the surrounding region, while also paving the way for greater electrification of transport and heating in the future” Mr Dinning said.

“When compete the upgrade will further increase interconnection of our customers improving network resilience for faults and outages and better enabling the use of residential solar at a local level”

Powercor Head of Major Projects Marcus Olive said the works include upgrades to the Zone Substation in Graham Street, as well as the installation of new overhead powerlines and underground power cables.

Works will take place along Graham Street, Tullidge Street, Holland Drive, Collins Road, High Street and Mount Cottrell Road in Melton. The network upgrade will also take place along parts of the Western Freeway down to Leakes Road in Aintree.

The nature of the upgrade requires some temporary planned power outages for some customers, so work can be completed safely, as well as some impacts to roads and footpaths.

“Traffic controllers and signage will be in place to help motorists, pedestrians and cyclists remain safe as works take place,” Mr Olive said.

“We’re working to minimise disruptions to both power supplies and the road network as much as possible during the upgrade.”

The Melton Network Upgrade is another example of the way Powercor is acting to develop a network that meets both current and future customer needs, enabling current technologies like rooftop solar and paving the way for electric vehicles and virtual power plants in our transition to become a distribution system operator.

For more information on the upgrade, visit www.powercor.com.au