Bushfire risk: Rollout of powerline fault detectors stalls

Dangerous faults on 27,400 km of ageing rural SWER lines remain undetected, despite technology capable of solving the problem.

A single-wire-earth-return powerline sparked the East Kilmore-Kinglake fire complex that killed 119 people.

The Allan Government has failed to mandate the rollout of early fault detectors, capable of helping stop Victoria’s ageing 27,400 km of rural single-wire earth return powerlines from sparking bushfires.

Nine years of trials, partly funded by the government, have recommended full-scale rollout of EFDs across the state “to protect Victoria’s rural communities from catastrophic powerline fires”, such as the 2009 Kilmore East-Kinglake fire that was sparked by a faulty SWER line, killing 119 people.

Much of Kinglake was wiped out in February 2009 fire that was sparked by a SWER line fault at Kilmore East.

In the most recent trial EFDs picked up 23 faults on 1100km of SWER lines, including live wires in contact with wooden poles, rusted-out tie wires, loose conductor clamps, plus dangling and cockatoo-damaged insulators.

The trials show that across the entire SWER network up to 161 dangerous faults remain undetected.

But without a state government mandated rollout, neither Powercor nor AusNet are able to gain Australian Energy Regulator approval to recover the cost of installing EFDs, developed and manufactured by Victorian firm IND Technology.

AusNet has proposed spending $8m on EFDs as part of its new bushfire safety program, which a spokeswoman said would form part of “our upcoming regulatory submission to the AER.

“We will present evidence on the benefits of EFDs arising from the trials but ultimately it is the AER’s decision on whether the expenditure meets the requirements of the framework.”

IND Technology and Monash University Grid Innovation Hub chair Professor Tony Marxsen said the regulations under which the AER operated restricted it from approving cost recovery on investments, other than those that benefited energy markets and customers.

“The AER (even) counts the benefits to climate change, but not public safety in rural areas,” Professor Marxsen said.

Ultimately he said the only way ahead was for the Allan Government to mandate the rollout of EFDs, as it had for the installation of Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiters to limit two and three wire lines sparking fires.

When asked if she would mandate an EFD rollout, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio dodged the question, with her office simply stating “distribution businesses are required to minimise bushfire risk on their networks under the (Victorian) Electricity Safety Act 1998 which can include early fault detection technology.”

But at this stage Energy Safe Victoria does not require EFDs to be rolled out as part of their bushfire mitigation plans.

Mr Marxsen said IND Technology had already sold about 10,000 EFDs to North American electricity distributors.