Power Outages

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:23): My question is to the Minister for Mines and Energy. Can the minister confirm that constituents in my electorate will be eligible for compensation from ElectraNet and/or SA Power Networks due to a prolonged power outage? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: Early in the morning on Friday14 March the power went out in the entirety of my electorate and stayed out for at least 19 more hours. It meant that business owners had to ditch stock, lose customers, and other measures that cost them money, and they are looking for compensation.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:24): I want to thank the member for his question. It's fair to say that he was on the phone to me quite regularly during the prolonged outage, and he was very frustrated on behalf of his constituents. I share his frustration. He was on the ground talking to the bakery owners, he was on the ground talking to the people who were impacted by this outage and it was very stressful for everyone involved. I want to thank him for letting the government know, in no uncertain terms, what was going on on the ground on Yorke Peninsula which, quite frankly, was unacceptable. He was a pretty fierce advocate for his community on that day.

At approximately 5.30am on Friday 14 March, ElectraNet experienced multiple faults on the transmission network impacting power supply on Yorke Peninsula to about 25,000 customers. Restoration activity commenced around 10.30pm of that evening, with most impacted customers being restored throughout the night. Apparently, the initial faults and subsequent damage to the equipment is likely to have occurred because of dust and salt burn-up on ElectraNet's infrastructure due to the lack of rain in the extended dry weather conditions. ElectraNet had been actively monitoring conditions prior to the faults and had scheduled preventative maintenance of equipment for 16 March. The unfortunate event occurred two days before the outages.

The maintenance period had been scheduled to avoid summer periods and forecast hot conditions but, as monitoring and pollution monitors were showing, this needed to be brought forward. I could go on about ElectraNet having responsibility for these transmission lines, but that's a legacy decision, and ElectraNet will need to account to independent regulators about their performance. I think it's fair to say that even ElectraNet were not pleased with the level of the outage.

In terms of compensation, we recognise the impacts that these events have had on households. ElectraNet is a private company and it owns and operates the transmission network following the privatisation. We have sought to ask some serious questions of ElectraNet about how the situation could have occurred, and I am advised that there is no regulated compensation scheme for this event for those who lost their electricity supply. This is not a distribution event, this is a transmission event.

Some people may be aware of the Guaranteed Service Level payments (GSL), which are payable to customers for distribution-related power outages of more than 20 hours. This was not a fault of SA Power Networks, this is a transmission fault. So in this instance that payment does not apply. Individuals or businesses who suffered loss or damage may be covered through their personal insurance, but not through any regulated scheme. The only regulated scheme here is for distribution faults that extend that outage. It's cold comfort to the member, but this is the legacy scheme that was given to us through privatisation.

But I can assure the member for Narungga that we are seeking answers from ElectraNet, and we are holding them to account for what occurred. I think that ElectraNet know that they perhaps could have done better. The work that the chief executive did on the ground I thought was exceptional, but that is cold comfort to people on Yorke Peninsula who were without power for so long.