Electrical and plumbing union blames blackout on backlog in infrastructure repair and maintenance jobs

POWER supplies and public safety are being put at risk by a massive backlog in infrastructure repair and maintenance jobs, according to the state’s electrical union.

Cracked Stobie poles in Henley Beach South.

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POWER supplies and public safety are being put at risk by a massive backlog in infrastructure repair and maintenance jobs, according to the state’s electrical union.

The electrical and plumbing union warned decades-old infrastructure may have compounded the extent of the recent catastrophic blackout.

CEPU SA branch organiser Ben Jewell said there was a backlog of more than 70,000 unresolved maintenance issues and defects that have been identified across the South Australia’s energy supply system.

“Many of these have been known about for years but nothing is done,’’ he said.

“This is putting people at risk of electrocution and businesses shutting down.

“These defects come to prominence during severe weather events and can cause blackouts.’’

Mr Jewell said the union was urging the independent review of the statewide power outage to look closely at maintenance and see whether past “shortcuts’’ played a part in the network’s failure.

Last week he found dozens of cracked and rusting Stobie poles in just 15 minutes walking down a few streets in West Beach and Henley Beach.

He said this type of poor maintenance had contributed to poles being brought down by wild weather in the past.

The electrical and plumbing union has blamed old power structures, like this one at West Beach.

Mr Jewell also took pictures of high voltage switches which were 50 years old but still in use around the Adelaide CBD. They are similar to equipment which exploded in a Perth shopping centre last year and killed two electrical workers.

The power towers owned by energy company ElectraNet which collapse during last month’s storm and led to the statewide blackout may have been brought down by the changes to the power lines they were supporting, Mr Jewell said.

“Most of the towers were engineered to carry a certain sized line but these lines are now two to three times the size of the originals,’’ Mr Jewell, who has inspected the toppled towers in the Mid North said.

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said the company was “appalled by the ill-informed scaremongering” of the union.

“There is no evidence to support the union’s suggestion that maintenance has any contribution to distribution-related outages in the recent storm event,” he said.

“The reality for anyone who owns an asset is that you manage them through an appropriate plan, which in our case is approved annually by the State Government’s Office of the Technical Regulator.”

Opposition Leader Steven Marshall bemoaned the state’s “sky-high” energy prices and demanded the Government take immediate steps to ensure energy and financial security.

Power restored to SA customers more than two weeks after statewide blackout

Meanwhile, two weeks and almost four hours after the statewide blackout — ElectraNet last night proudly announced that power had finally been restored to all of its customers.

South Australia plunged into darkness about 4pm on September 28 when severe weather caused problems with the electricity transmission system, including three major transmission lines north of Adelaide in the space of 12 seconds.

Power has been progressively restored around the state with ElectraNet announcing at 7.50pm on Wednesday it had “returned full access to the transmission network”.

The company said a third damaged circuit was back up and energised, allowing all industrial customers — the last to be fully restored — to have full load levels available to them.

ElectraNet Chief Executive Steve Masters said the full restoration was “a significant achievement” which would allow permanent repair work to start.

“While the design and scheduling details are still being confirmed, we expect permanent towers to be in place over the coming months, provided weather conditions remain stable,” he said.

He said the enormity of the task and its safety requirements “should not be underestimated”.

“On behalf of everyone at ElectraNet I also thank our customers, landholders and the community for their understanding and support during this challenging time.”

One high transmission line remains down, and planning is underway to replace temporary towers in the state’s mid north.

Mr Masters told ABC 891 that the towers going down in the weather event was a contributing factor of the statewide blackout but would not say if it was the sole cause.

An investigation is currently underway into how many towers went down before the blackout, and how many after.

Mr Masters said the former and temporary towers met industry standards but the review would

consider the structure of towers in South Australia compared to those in Queensland which can withstand cyclonic weather.