Frustrated businesses face millions of dollars in losses and 10,000 properties still without power in storm aftermath
TREASURER Tom Koutsantonis has called for more compensation for households left without power for days as delays with repairs are blamed on maintenance staff being laid off by South Australia’s energy distributor.
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READ BELOW: Businesses feel heat from outages
TREASURER Tom Koutsantonis has called for more compensation for households left without power for days as delays with repairs are blamed on maintenance staff being laid off by South Australia’s energy distributor.
Mr Koutsantonis has asked the Essential Services Commission to investigate if the amount of compensation for households left without power after storms like those which hit the state this week should be increased. It is currently capped at $605.
“This was a catastrophic storm that brought down thousands of trees, destroyed about 350 power lines and damaged more than 120 transformers - each of which need more than four hours to repair,” he said.
“While SAPN have assured me that they are doing everything possible to restore power to remaining effected customers, we know that the loss experienced by some families from food wastage can exceed the current $605 cap.
That is why I have asked ESCOSA to investigate options for increasing the compulsory compensation payments available to customers affected by these outages in the future.”
Frustrated businesses face tens of millions of dollars in losses and 10,000 customers were still without power on Thursday night. Some won’t have services back until Saturday.
On Thursday night, as the cost of the power outages on businesses climbeds into the tens of millions of dollars and about 10,000 homes faced a third night in the dark, communities slammed SA Power Networks for being too slow to restore power.
A key union said it warned South Australia’s energy distributor earlier this year that planned job cuts to maintenance staff would create delays restoring electricity after a major weather event.
In a text message, seen by The Advertiser, the distributor on Thursday cancelled all rostered days off scheduled for today to deal with the workload.
The union representing electrical supply workers said five months ago it cautioned against redundancies because it would slow the lights being switched on, which it said had “absolutely” played out this week.
SA Power Networks said about 25 staff accepted a voluntary early retirement scheme which was offered to up to 77 workers, but rejected any suggestion its 600-strong workforce was understaffed.
Communications Electrical Plumbing Union organiser Ben Jewell said there was no doubt the job cuts had slowed restoration.
“Absolutely. It has to. You can’t have fewer workers and expect to attend a huge amount of call outs in the same amount of time,” he said.
Mr Jewell said the outages would have been even longer if the distributor had received the 77 redundancies it had targeted.
“The pressure the existing workforce is under to perform is immense. Everyone needs power; there are huge outages, but only so many workers,” he said.
“SAPN is now focusing on the numbers they require for maintenance but these storm events don’t come under a maintenance banner.”
SAPN spokesman Paul Roberts told The Advertiser the distributor had “sufficient crews” for maintenance, construction and outage response in line with reliability targets set by the regulator.
Mr Roberts said there would be no impact on future performance because the company had more apprentices than older workers retiring or leaving the business.
He said the recovery effort was “generally consistent with other storm events” and pointing to February 2014 where it took three days for power to be restored to the eastern suburbs.
But in a text message to staff Mr Roberts said: “Obviously we still have a large number of jobs, including single customer jobs, to complete. As a consequence RDOs for Friday have been cancelled to assist in getting as many people back as possible.”
About 155,000 homes and businesses had suffered a power outage as a result of the storm.
Emergency Services Minister Peter Malinauskas said SA Power Networks had “by and large done a good job” considering the intensity of the storms that blew over 350 power lines.
Bruno Ocampo, owner of Evercream Gelati at Hahndorf, was one of the growing number of business owners and households spending thousands on a generator to protect against the state’s energy woes.
Power was restored to the Adelaide Hills tourist district late Wednesday but Mr Ocampo said it was not “quick enough”.
“We are a developing country, not a developed country,” he said.
“We have the highest power prices in the world and we have to go and buy generators.
“We have acquaintances living in Aleppo (Syria) and they have power.”
His comments were echoed by hundreds of South Australians who took to advertiser.com.au and Facebook to vent their frustration.
Even State Government departments have been shut down as a result of the storm with a power surge closing the 11-storey building housing Correctional Services Department, legal and finance offices on King William St.
A Corrections spokesman said when workers were relocated to other offices and prisons. By yesterday afternoon power had been restored, he said.
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said the current situation in SA was “completely and utterly untenable”.
“We have the highest prices and the least reliable electricity in the nation,” he said.
“It’s simply not good enough. It’s time for this Government to get off their hands and have a better system in SA, and more than that, a better response to the crises that are now enveloping SA.”
Federal Special Minister of State Scott Ryan said the outage “illustrates again why security and reliability of electricity supply needs to be a prime consideration of all government policy”.
Mr Malinauskas criticised Mr Marshall for politicising a storm event.
— with Miles Kemp
Businesses feel heat from outages
Renato Castello and Cameron England
THE holiday season should be the time when staff at the Hahndorf IGA are stocking the shelves for one of the tourist hub’s busiest trading period
Instead it was among dozens of supermarkets across the state forced to strip shelves of tens of thousands of dollars worth of perishable produce following a power outage.
Owner Peter Ratcliffe, who took over the Main St store three weeks ago, predicted the wastage bill and lost revenue would be upwards of $60,000.
“We didn’t trade at all yesterday,” he said as his son Tom tossed meat into a skip bin.
“It’s frustrating ... we live in a first-world country with third-world energy supplies.
“I’m seriously considering putting in a generator.”
He said a generator to power the shop, which lost power for 14 hours, would cost about $30,000.
Drakes Supermarkets assistant operations manager Arthur Iliopoulos said the company’s outlets across SA had to throw out such food as meat, seafood and milk, which became illegal and unsafe to sell once power went off.
Mr Iliopoulos said a dollar figure of how much was thrown away was still being estimated but it was a substantial sum.
“When you’re talking 10, 12, 14 hours without power you just can’t sustain it,” he said.
“We ordered in dry ice for the stores at $600 a tub, and that’s if it’s available. Three stores got that.”
Cheap as Chips chief executive Shane Radbone said he estimated that combined impact of this week’s outages and the complete loss of power on September 28 was about $500,000.
“We had four stores closed for the whole day yesterday,’’ he said. “The only consolation was it didn’t happen before Christmas.’’
He said Cheap as Chips was considering responses such as buying backup generators.