Queensland Breathing Systems in Townsville suffers due to Ergon electricity power outages

A North Queensland business that employs nine people in a vital industry says it is suffering because of repeated Ergon electricity outages.

Queensland Breathing Services operations manager Ezra Henderson and managing director Colin Hudson at the business's South Townsville business headquarters on Friday. Picture: Daniel Shirkie

An innovative North Queensland business that employs nine people in a vital industry says it is suffering lost wages and productivity because of repeated Ergon electricity outages.

Queensland Breathing Systems managing director Colin Hudson said the South Townsville-based business was thriving but had been hit by one costly power outage with additional outages scheduled in the coming weeks, all during business hours.

Mr Hudson said Ergon contacted the company that provides important services to the military and health sectors to say it was shutting power for six hours to install new power poles two weeks ago.

He said his work premises in an industrial and residential area on Morehead St was not suitable for a generator.

“I asked them (Ergon) if they were going to put a generator into the line and they said ‘no, we can’t do that,’ so I said, ‘who pays my nine employees’ wages?’ and they said, ‘that’s your problem’,” he said.

“And then she turned around and said, ‘you can get another provider you know’, she didn’t realise we were in North Queensland and we can’t get any other provider.

“Obviously she was in Brisbane, just didn’t give a s---.”

Mr Hudson says his company could be without power for 18 hours during business hours business hours over a six-week period, costing him thousands of dollars in lost wages and much more in lost productivity servicing military clients. Picture: Daniel Shirkie

Mr Hudson said Ergon also intended to turn off power for six hours to connect a new business on Monday with a third outage scheduled for meter installation in two weeks.

“That’s six weeks and you’ve shut us down for six hours three times, that’s 18 hours,” he said.

“I’ve got nine staff, who pays there wages? I can’t dock them but we are only a small business.”

Mr Hudson said that in addition to an estimated $9000 lost wage bill, lost productivity meant the business, which works with all three branches of the Australian Defence Force, fell behind in fulfilling time-sensitive projects.

“Not just in Townsville, we travel all over, next week I’m in Nauru (in Micronesia) to do the oxygen-generation system for the hospital there, we’ve been doing that for nine years.”

He said Ergon had told him they could not do the work outside business hours because of the residential properties.

Ergon spokeswoman Emma Oliveri said it could not comment on individual customer calls for privacy reasons.

“But generally speaking, we may advise businesses to talk to an electrical contractor about installing generation as a temporary solution during outages,” she said.

“As the sole electricity distributor for regional Queensland, we would not advise customers to find an alternative power provider.”

Ms Oliveri said that to ensure the power network remained safe and reliable, “our crews need to do maintenance year-round, every day of the week and in all kinds of weather.

“Whenever we need to switch off the power so that crews have safe access to the network and can get the job done as efficiently as possible, we will give customers as much written notice as possible to plan for the interruption.”

She said business owners, particularly in areas prone to cyclones, severe storms and flooding, should consider “investing in a generator so you can be self-sufficient and continue to trade during unplanned and planned outages”.

Originally published as Queensland Breathing Systems in Townsville suffers due to Ergon electricity power outages