Committee for Lorne: Power — or lack of it — is there a solution?

The power is out, again … but in which half of the town — the north half or the half to the south of the bridge?  Indeed, the split in Lorne’s power supply has been a long-running topic of interest, its answers deeply in the town’s history.

Lorne’s first electric power generator belonged to the local Lorne photographer, Albert Jarratt.  He used it to supply power to his darkroom behind the current [pun intended] fish and chip shop at 48 Mountjoy Parade.  Later, at the request of the Port of Lorne, he ran a line to power a marker light at the end of the pier to aid visiting ketches and steamers.  When he began to supply a few houses and streetlights as well, the Winchelsea Shire decided to purchase his system on behalf of the town, later replacing it with a generator station built on the site where the Lorne Information Centre now stands.  Its two engines — a 52 horsepower 35kw generator and a 27 horsepower 25kw generator [with an additional 20kw generator as a standby] — used crude oil and powered Lorne for the next 15 years.

This machinery provided ‘part-time’ direct supply current — don’t touch that wire — and only came on at ~4:00 pm…. except on ironing days when it fired up at 2:00 pm.  Then, before bed, the local engineer would check ‘the load’, forecast when it would likely decline, and finally gauge how much fuel to leave for each engine.  The engines would then independently grind to a halt between 1:00 am and 2:00 am when their fuel ran out.

Shire records show that Lorne’s power supply was discussed in detail at a Shire meeting on 14 March 1935 … in those days, Lorne was an outreach of the Winchelsea Shire and not the Surfcoast Shire as it is now.  At that meeting, the council engineers stated they “were preparing estimates of the cost of installing a hydro-electric development on the St Georges River near the Margaret Falls”.  As an author’s aside, thank goodness that never eventuated.  Later, the Allen Dam was built near the same site.

Thankfully, a government-run public entity, the State Electricity Commission [SEC] … shades of Chairman Dan’s recent retro-thought bubble… had been progressively taking over the provision of state-wide power from local councils in regional Victoria since 1919.  By 1936, it was Lorne’s turn and as an outcome of the same council meeting, the Shire agreed that the SEC should link Lorne to the grid.  In the last full year of the Shire of Winchelsea’s responsibility for Lorne’s power, records show that Lorne had 133 electricity customers in a population of 350, charged one shilling for each ‘unit’ of energy for lighting and nine pence per unit of power, and yielded a total annual power revenue of £1,568.  The SEC assessed the proposal to be cost-effective and agreed.

The main decision concerned where the power should come from … Colac via an extension of the Birregurra feeder or Belmont via Princes Highway and Anglesea?  After the second alternative was adopted, a line ~65 km long was built to Lorne through Anglesea.  Until then, Anglesea had been without power of any kind.  Its local residents were delighted. 

Joining Belmont to Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, and Eastern View presented little difficulty, but bridging the Grassy Creek valley and crossing Big Hill were more difficult.  A special ‘four-wheel drive pole erecting machine’ was used, arousing great local interest.

To the SEC’s credit, only three poles were erected along the Lorne foreshore in an effort to minimise view intrusion, while impressively, no trees were cut down in the town.  Lorne was soon one of the best-lit towns in the southwest, boasting forty-eight 60-watt and nine 100-watt streetlamps.  The total cost of the project was £20,236.

The system worked well during the 1939—1945 war years when power requirements were low but ramped up quickly during the expansion years of the late 50s and 60s.  In addition, as salt spray from a series of easterlies affected the insulators, outages became increasingly frequent.  

By the late 60s, demand began to exceed line capacity and a new line was approved.  Rather than following the older course from Belmont via the cutting on Big Hill, a newly built line tracked in from Colac using stronger, higher steel supports and wires with far greater capacity.  Leaving Barwon Downs, it coursed up the western slopes of the Otway range, then tracked roughly parallel to Mt Sabine Road before finally turning down along the Erskine Falls Road to Lorne.  

It is unclear why it was then decided to divide the town’s supply system into two, with the Belmont supply route continuing to power North Lorne while the town, the Polwarth Road/Richardson Boulevard sector, and the homes on Teddys were switched over to the new line.  Whatever the underlying reasons for their decision at the time, the dual delivery system remains to this day. 

Perhaps the question I posed in the title “Lorne Power — or lack of it — is there a solution?” may not actually warrant a solution.  In a geographically isolated town like Lorne, there may be occasions when it might be advantageous not to have all power eggs in one basket.  

In the 1983 Ash Wednesday conflagration in Victoria alone, 47 people died, 150,000 hectares were burnt, 1620 houses and more than 1,500 other buildings were destroyed, and an estimated 32,400 livestock were lost.  And, pertinent to this article, the Belmont to Lorne power lines were incinerated on Big Hill and beyond.  As a result, the power split may have proved a saving grace for the town, given that much of its power remained ‘on’ via its Colac supply.

At least now, when the power in Lorne goes out — again — and people ask, “… is the outage north or the south of the bridge?”, we may better understand the background for this strange Lorne anomaly.  Needless to say, I will continue to keep my torch batteries charged, some candles in places where I can find them, and a fridge that doesn’t groan too heavily with perishable foods.

John Agar  

A word from the Chairman