Hon Barry House's question addresses power interruptions in Cowaramup and Margaret River, revealing details on frequency, duration, and causes of both planned and unplanned outages over a 12-month period. The response details the extent and reasons for the disruptions.

AnsweredQoN 5548Legislative Council
Asked
27 September 2007
Portfolio
Energy

QuestionView source ↗

(2) On what dates have these faults occurred and for how long have these disruptions been?
(3) What was the cause of these disruptions?

AnswerView source ↗

Answered
14 November 2007
Responded by
Leader of the House representing the Minister for Energy
Response time
48 days
Western Power has provided the Minister for Energy with the following response.
(1) In the 12 months to 30 September 2007, there were 64 unplanned and 34 planned power interruptions in the localities of Cowaramup and Margaret River (including Augusta, Beenup, Vasse and Wonnerup).
The majority of planned interruptions took place in the Augusta area and allowed Western Power to carry out network improvements, such as changing poles, replacing conductors and installing a new regulator. People affected by a planned outage were given at least 72 hours' notice.
The number of customers affected by each interruption (including planned and unplanned) ranged from one to 1800, out of a total of 3,600 customers in the two localities.
On average, each electricity customer had 3.34 interruptions during the 12-month period to September 2007 (System Average Interruption Frequency Index).
(2) The duration of interruptions ranged from three minutes to several hours (details in the attached table). The longest outage (about 21 hours) was caused by wind damage during a storm on 1 July 2007.
(3) Thirty-four outages were planned to allow network improvements. Of the unplanned outages, 18 resulted from equipment failure or pole top fires, 12 from trees (blowing or falling into lines), 10 unknown, 8 lightning, 6 wind, 5 bird and 2 were caused by vehicles. Fire, animal contact and human error each caused one outage.
[See paper tabled number ].
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