The independent Network Outage Review's final report into how privately owned power companies responded to February’s storms has been released.
It provides a plan for a quicker response and reconnections for Victorians in future outages, focussing on:
- preparedness
- resource deployment
- and restoration of power.
Feedback from impacted communities and businesses was central to developing the report, which also considered input from industry, essential services, emergency and regulatory bodies.
Recommendations and observations
The Network Outage Review expert panel (Rosemary Sinclair, Gerard Brody and Kevin Kehl) made:
- 19 recommendations
- 12 observations
These form a clear pathway of improvements for Victoria's 5 distribution businesses (AusNet, Powercor, CitiPower, Jemena and United Energy) in response to an outage.
Among the report's recommendations are:
- a new financial support mechanism for distribution businesses to provide more immediate support for customers impacted by outages. This puts the onus on distribution business to reduce restoration times.
- formalising mutual aid arrangements between power companies, where they share resources with each other, before an outage. This will ensure a quicker response and reconnection.
It also highlights:
- the need for accurate and timely information on customer reconnection times
- the importance of ensuring that communications tools, such as outage trackers, can meet surge demand.
Moving forward
Some of the same communities that were impacted by prolonged outages during the February 13 storm experienced outages again to begin this spring, following extreme winds.
In response to the interim Network Outage Review released in July, power companies have already begun to change preparedness processes.
However, the review makes strong recommendations for improvements to power company processes and engagement to improve the response to storm-related outages. The Victorian Government will respond to the recommendations in the review later this year.
To read the final report visit, Network Outage Review.
Page last updated: 17/09/24