Power outages of concern

By Lachlan Ellis

Powercor has responded to the community’s concerns, after a series of power outages disrupted Korweinguboora residents over the past couple of months.

Frustrated locals took to social media asking for the outages to be looked into, and one resident claimed to have had five outages in the space of four weeks, with one lasting over an hour.

However, a Powercor spokesman said there had been three outages, and apologised for “not meeting usual high standards of reliability”.

“Powercor is aware of recent outages in Korweinguboora and we’re working hard to provide safe and reliable power to residents in the area. We know how much customers rely on us to deliver reliable and safe power to their homes and businesses,” Powercor’s spokesman told the Moorabool News.

“The powerline that feeds the area stretches 600 kilometres and winds through some heavily vegetated areas, including areas severely impacted by last year’s once-in-a-generation windstorms. During June and July, there have been three outages impacting Korweinguboora and surrounds.”

On one occasion, Powercor crews “found a bird had dropped wire onto parts of the network which triggered an outage”, while on another occasion, “a transformer failed and needed to be replaced, while no cause was found for the remaining outage”.

“In all cases, local Powercor crews responded quickly to restore power for customers. Our teams will continue working to improve reliability for the area, while Powercor’s annual inspection, maintenance, and vegetation cutting programs are also continuing and are on track ahead of the summer months,” the spokesman added.