Flying foxes cause power blackouts as growing colony forages around Adelaide

Searching Adelaide suburbs at night for food, flying foxes are shorting electricity wires when they get zapped. And no one’s sure how to stop them.

Fruit bats – or grey-headed flying foxes – have been causing a growing number of local power outages in the northeastern suburbs.

Bats gets electrocuted because their wingspan of up to 1.5m can easily breach spacing on infrastructure, SA Power Networks said.

“We’ve had more than 25 longer-duration outages involving bats since the beginning of the year,” SAPN spokesman Paul Roberts said.

“Customers also are experiencing short ‘momentary’ outages as equipment reconnects power if the animal falls clear after contacting our infrastructure.

“We understand this is frustrating for customers, but there is no magic solution to deal with the issue.”

The bat colony in Adelaide, centred on Botanic Park, has grown to some 20,000 since they arrived in 2010.

Grey-headed flying foxes - or fruit bats - caught on electricity infrastructure. Picture: SA Power Networks.

They forage widely for food from the evening through the night, covering much of the metropolitan area and surrounding horticultural region.

“These flying foxes are likely to have a growing impact in terms of the number of power outages they cause,” Mr Roberts said.

“They do not have specific flight paths as they go where the nectar and fruit is, so it is difficult to undertake targeted preventive action.

“We install animal guards and insulate some overhead equipment in the rare instances where we have repeat interruptions caused by the animal at the same location.”

So far this year, households in Windsor Gardens, Gilberton, Rostrevor and Felixstow have had power outages for several hours while SAPN crew located and removed the bat carcasses.

SAPN has sought help from other electricity companies, the Environment Department and Adelaide University researchers.

“No one has a viable solution, we’re open to ideas,” Mr Roberts said.