Wednesday 31 December 2008

Surge in power cut time, Aurora pays the bill

Hobart Mercury
Wednesday 24/12/2008 Page: 8

TASMANIANS were left in the dark longer because of power failures, costing Aurora more than $1m in fees, the latest performance report into the state's electricity supply has revealed. Aurora was penalised $1.22 million in the 2007-08 financial year for its failure to meet reliability targets set under the 2003 Price Determination. But these financial penalties were scrapped on July 1. under the 2007 Price Determination.

The annual review by the Independent Energy Regulator has shown the Aurora and Transend networks both maintained consistent levels of supply to the previous financial year. But while, on average Tasmanians experienced slightly less than three power failures over the year, the average time it took to get the power back on was longer.

In the 2006-07 financial year customers experienced an average of just over four hours without power. But in the 2007-08 period that jumped to more than five hours. Energy Regulator Glenn Appleyard said this had a lot to do with the bad weather experienced in the first half of 2008. "Weather continues to have a significant impact on the performance of Aurora's distribution network, with the April 2008 storms affecting around 70.000 customers." Mr Appleyard said.

Last financial year customers experienced an average of 1.76 network interruptions - excluding interruptions associated with significant weather events - the best performance recorded by Aurora for this reliability measure. "Aurora has completed upgrade work on the network to lessen the impact of storm s and wind damage," Appleyard said.

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