SA Power Networks want $2m a year from customers just to tell people about next outages

SA POWER Networks wants another $2 million a year from customers — this time just to tell people when it plans to blackout their homes.

SA POWER Networks wants another $2 million a year from customers — this time just to tell people when it plans to blackout their homes.

The company formerly known as ETSA has warned the State Government it will add the money to power bills if a rule change goes ahead to make the company write letters to customers to warn of blackouts caused by factors such as urgent maintenance.

Currently minor works which cause blackouts of less than 15 minutes can be carried out without warning, but under the new rule, householders would have to be warned in their letter box four days prior.

SA Power Networks says the system of brief outages without warning works well because small faults can be fixed quickly. But if a four-day delay was introduced, there could be major failures leading to long blackouts.

But Uniting Communities electricity expert Mark Henley said the welfare sector would object to the extra charge because it sought payment for providing the basic courtesy of telling people when their service would be cut.

“It is nonsense for network businesses to be wanting to charge more for providing their core business, to warn people when the power will be cut off,’’ he said.

“Letting customers know about outages is a standard role of a network business, I would not accept a network proposal to charge more for this.’’

SA Power Networks already makes after-tax profits of $420 a year from each customer.

Spokesman Paul Roberts said the four-day warning system, which was currently in place for long planned blackouts, would disadvantage customers if it was applied to brief blackouts.

“Currently if we identify that a minor repair can be done within 15 minutes we do it on the spot, but if we have to go away and give people four days notice that we have to fix it, in the mean time if that equipment fails customers could experience an outage for hours,’’ he said.

“So what it would lead to is more outages of longer duration.

“Secondly there are many small jobs like our meter replacement program which require an outage of 10 minutes. Currently if they are home we drop in and ask if it is convenient and do it and if nobody is home we do it and leave a note.

“Under the change we would have to make an appointment with four days notice.’’

SA Council of Social Services executive director Ross Womersley said the organisation was keeping a close watch on SA Power Networks because in October it had to submit a so-called “regulatory proposal” in which it would negotiate a better deal for itself over the next five years based on how laws and market conditions were affecting the business.

For the last period, from 2010 to 2015, the Federal Government approved spending which was passed on to the customer such as capital expenditure of $1.76 billion, or more than double the previous five years. In May this year SA Power Networks asked for $35 million for tree lopping expenses because trees were growing faster following the drought.

Meanwhile a Canstar Blue survey of 2500 adults found one in three Australians say they have cut back on the use of key appliances over the past year for financial reasons.

National electricity company AGL on Wednesday announced a $570 million profit after tax, up 52 per cent.