Victorian electricity distributor AusNet has spent almost $60 million on vegetation management and maintenance programs over the past 12 months to prepare the network for summer.
AusNet executive general manager distribution Andrew Linnie says it’s important that the network is ready for severe weather events.
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“This year across the AusNet network our Asset Inspectors, who assess AusNet’s infrastructure to ensure it’s safe, inspected over 117,744 poles. This work resulted in the identification and completion of 9,495 maintenance jobs,” Linnie explains.
AusNet’s vegetation team, who are responsible for keeping trees away from powerlines, assessed 322,066 spans (spans being the area between two poles) across the AusNet network, identifying maintenance work that was undertaken on 69,250 spans.
“This work is essential to help keep the network and the community safe,” Linnie says.
Preparation work comes following a warning from Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) last week for the community to prepare for warmer temperatures and an increase in fire activity across the state this summer.
EMV advised that a lack of rainfall has resulted in an increased chance of fires across most of western and northeastern Victoria and parts of greater Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula and Southwest Gippsland.
“Summer is a particularly challenging time for electricity customers. On top of the bushfire risk, summer often brings with it intense thunderstorms that can damage infrastructure,” Linnie says.
Every summer, AusNet undertakes an awareness campaign to encourage Victorians to be power prepared and provides outage and energy saving tips so that people can better deal with the impact of potential power outages.
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“One of the most important things customers can do is provide their contact details to their electricity retailer. The retailer will then pass these details on to AusNet, so that we can contact them during outages and emergencies,” Linnie says.
“We also recommend customers bookmark or save AusNet’s Outage Tracker on their phone or computer for easy referencever. In the event of an outage, the tracker will provide customers with restoration times, helping them to plan.”
