If you were in Dawesville last year, we experienced a perfect storm of extreme heat, holiday festivities, and power outages. It is time I do not want to see this repeated, and I have worked extremely hard with Minister Johnston and Western Power to see some changes.
I am happy to inform you that Western Power has significantly invested in the Dawesville network area over the past year. Updates to infrastructure, including poles, overhead wires, and investment in new transformers in the area, have increased the capacity of the local network and will enhance reliability over the summer period
Recently, I made a formal grievance to the Minister for Energy, Bill Johnston, MLA, regarding the Dawesville Electorate Christmas Power Outage Progress.
Following the Christmas 2021 Power Outages, the Minister for Energy, Hon Bill Johnston MLA, announced an independent review (Review) to be led by Michelle Shepherd. The Review examined all relevant aspects of Western Power’s actions related to the outages, including the following:
- Network and operational planning and design
- Asset management, maintenance, and asset performance
- Load forecasting and historical network performance
- Operational response to the Christmas 2021 outages
- Engagement with customers and the community
- Compliance and approach to risk.
Independent Review of Christmas 2021 Power Outages (March 2022).
The Shepherd Report identified that many outages were due to the customer and network overloads driven by unusually high electricity demand in residential areas. This demand was beyond what Western Power had forecast and planned for. The increased electricity demand in residential areas attributed to the following:
- Heatwave conditions – four consecutive days over 40 degrees with high overnight temperatures. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) described this period as a 3 in 100-year event
- Festive season impacts - A higher portion of the population at home was not at work and could not take/overseas due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Other outages were attributable to the more sensitive network settings, which were in mitigating the risk of the network-initiated fire during high fire-risk conditions.
The Shepherd Report noted Western Power’s role and performance in a complex legislative and regulatory framework. It was broadly positive in how Western Power performs on its obligations concerning all relevant matters, including forecasting, planning, asset management, operational, and risk management.
Western Power will also introduce targeted texts this summer to alert customers if their suburb could be at risk of power supply interruptions and to encourage them to reduce their energy.
To watch the Parliamentary video of the grievance, click HERE
