Ongoing maintenance works

Proactive maintenance helps us identify and address potential issues before they become outages or safety hazards, protecting both our customers and the broader community.

• Tree trimming - Managing vegetation near powerlines to prevent outages and bushfire risks
• Pole repairs and replacements - Addressing leaning, damaged, or deteriorating poles to maintain structural integrity
• Cable fault repairs - Locating and fixing faults in both underground and overhead cables to restore and maintain supply
• Crossarm and insulator replacements - Replacing worn or damaged crossarms and insulators to prevent failures and improve reliability
• Switchgear and transformer maintenance - Servicing and upgrading critical equipment like transformers, reclosers, and switchgear to ensure safe operation
• Routine inspections - Conducting regular checks on network assets to detect and resolve minor issues before they escalate
• Follow-up restoration work - After storms or accidents, our priority is to restore power safely and quickly, and this may require temporary fixes to the network. Once supply is restored, we may return to complete more permanent repairs or upgrades, ensuring the network is fully restored to its long-term standards and resilience

We apologise in advance for any interruption to your power supply while we do this work. We understand the importance of a continual power supply and we will try to perform all work quickly and safely, to restore power as soon as practicable. 

• If you’re a customer who relies on essential medical equipment, please activate your back-up plan immediately. If you are not currently registered for life support and you require power for the use of vital medical devices, please call 131 003 to commence the registration process
• Once power supply is lost, automatic garage doors will not open. It is always good to know how to manually open, close and safely secure your garage door in case of a loss of power
• Some of the trucks used to repair electricity infrastructure are large and we may be forced to park across driveways to enable safe access to complete the work required. Talk to our crew when they arrive on site if you need access to your vehicle, they will work with you to find a suitable time
• In rural areas, the loss of power can often result in loss of water. If you require power for water pumps at your property, please consider alternate power generation (i.e. petrol generators) or alternate water supplies, for the duration of the outage
• Should there be bad weather, the job may be rescheduled to another date. We know this can be frustrating for customers who have made alternative arrangements, however our crew is unable to work on live wires during heavy rain or very strong winds

If maintenance is required on power poles, overhead powerlines, or overhead switches, it usually takes us about a day to finish the work. For safety reasons, we must turn off the power to the poles and wires we're working on. We may also need to deliver the new pole and store it safely, a few days before we start.  

On the day of the upgrade, you'll see our team and our trucks. We'll also have one or two elevated platforms to work at heights, and a crane borer digging holes to install power poles. Please be aware this could affect traffic and might even require us to close some narrow streets. After finishing, we may leave old poles on site until a special vehicle can remove them within 3-5 business days.

Replacing underground cables usually takes 4-6 weeks, depending on the weather, but your power should only be off for one day during this time. We do the work in stages, with each being finished before we start the next.

Here's what to expect if we're replacing underground cables:

1. We'll dig trenches using small excavators to access and install new conduits (pipes) and expose the existing cables.
2. We'll install temporary fencing or fill the trenches with sand temporarily to keep everyone safe.
3. We'll remove the old cables and replace them with new ones. We may install new pillars to connect individual buildings to the network.
4. We'll need to interrupt your power supply to connect your property to the new cables. We'll warn you before this happens.
5. Once you're connected, we'll remove and dispose of any old, unnecessary pillars.
6. We'll clean up and restore the area to how it was before we started.  

During this work, there may be some noise and dust. We'll do our best to keep it to a minimum. We may need to store some equipment on footpaths and nature strips before installation and our work may limit access to street parking and footpaths. We'll always try to keep your driveway clear, unless we've arranged something different with you. We may also need to control traffic, to ensure everyone is kept safe. If we're working in front of your property, please think about where you put your bins so your garbage service isn't disrupted.