Electrical Contractors

ASP and Electrical Contractor Briefing: 2022 Central West Floods

• Safety must be the highest priority when testing and reconnecting customers.
• All submerged meters must be bypassed by an Essential Energy representative before reenergising premises.
• A CCEW must be submitted to Essential Energy to confirm the premise is safe to connect.
• A NOSW must be submitted as soon as possible after an ASP reconnects a premise.

Flood Recovery

The recent floods in the Central West of NSW have caused catastrophic property damage for our customers. Essential Energy is committed to supporting Accredited Service Providers (ASP’s) and Electrical contractors safely reconnect properties after thorough testing has been completed.

Safety

At all times consider the safety of yourself, customers and Essential Energy team members when testing and reconnecting customers.

Ensure the following:

• Follow your own safety management systems and safe work methods.
• Ensure you have isolated all incoming supplies, even if the network is deenergised.
• Disconnect and isolate faulty circuits at the switchboard. Prevent customers reconnecting until safe.
• Do not leave exposed cabling, GPO and light terminals after gyprock has been removed.
• A GPO mounted in the switchboard can provide electricity supply if all other circuits are isolated. Ensure that all new installations are installed to current standards and protected by a RCBO.
• All meters and frequency injection relays (FIR) that have been submerged by flood water must be bypassed by Essential Energy before the premise is energised.

CCEW

All premises must be inspected, tested and repaired before reconnecting. A Certificate of Compliance Electrical Work (CCEW) must be submitted to Essential Energy via Essential Energy’s Secure Web Form (SWF) portal immediately after the premise is deemed safe to connect. The premise does not have to be brought up to currents standards if only safety testing and no additional equipment is installed.

For further information see the recent Essential Engagement “Reimbursement for reconnection – Flood impacted customers Central West” dated 17/11/22.

Only accredited and authorised ASP’s can reconnect disconnected premises. Electrical contractors can either contact an ASP or Essential Energy will reconnect upon receipting a CCEW without an associated NOSW. SPDs with a sealed escutcheon plate are the only exception for electrical contractors.

NOSW

A Level 2 ASP must submit a NOSW immediately after reconnecting power to a premises (this will avoid our crews having to re-visit these premises).

A Level 2 ASP authorised person can perform the below:

• Class 2A – Reconnect at the connection point only.
• Class 2B – Replace the Service Protection Device (SPD) and reenergise customers isolated at the switchboard.
• Class 2C – Replace the Service Protection Device (SPD), reenergise customers isolated at the switchboard and reconnect at the connection point and point of common coupling.
• Class 2D – can only reenergise at the Service Protection Device (SPD) / Meter Protection Device (MPD).

Information for Re-energisation by Level 2 ASPs

Required Actions for appropriately authorised Level 2 ASPs when re-energising a premises with flood affected meters and FIRs:

1. Confirm a CCEW has been submitted and the customers electrical system has been thoroughly checked and tested and is safe to be energised.
2. Check the meters and FIRs have been bypassed. Please contract Essential Energy to bypass meters before re-energising by calling the Essential Energy Supply interruptions – 13 20 80.
3. Submit a Notification of Service Work (NOSW) through SWF. For consistency and clarity, in the ‘Comments’ field in Section E make the following note:

a. For sites with meters only note ‘ALL METERS BYPASSED’.
b. For sites with meters and an FIR note ‘ALL METERs AND FIR BYPASSED’.

Essential Energy Contacts

• Southeast Network Assurance Supervisor – Mitch Lotze 0400 089 800.
• Network Assurance Manager – Kevin Miller 0407 784 701.
• Essential Energy General Enquiries – 13 23 91.
• Floods and our network (essentialenergy.com.au).

Further Information:

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Essential Energy continues to work hand in hand with many ASPs across the flood impacted Central West, repairing the significantly damaged electricity network and reconnecting power for customers whose properties were inundated with flood water.

The process for customers for reconnection involves three-steps.

1. Arrange for either a licensed electrician or Level 2 Authorised Service Provider (ASP) to inspect property to make sure it is safe.
2. When the inspection is completed, the electrician will log a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work (CCEW) and provide the customer with a CCEW reference number.
3. Call Essential Energy on 13 20 80 to have your power restored.

Where a customer engaged Level 2 ASP performs the inspection and reconnection process, they charge the customer for this service. As Essential Energy is waiving the reconnection fee where we perform this service, and to ensure that all customers are treated equally, Essential Energy has offered to reimburse customers who are reconnected by an ASP up to $350 for that reconnection.

Given the trying conditions our customers are facing, Essential Energy will now streamline this process and pay Level 2 ASPs directly for reconnection on behalf of a flood-affected customer once they have completed the reconnection.

How do I arrange payment for customer reconnection work?

Once inspection and the necessary repairs to a premises’ switchboard and internal wiring has occurred, a CCEW provided and reconnection completed by a Level 2 ASP, the following process can be followed for payment:

Submit to Essential Energy via email connection.enquiries@essentialenergy.com.au.

• An itemised invoice for the reconnection process.
• Copy of the Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work (CCEW).
• Copy of the Notice of Service Works (NOSW) when reconnection at Essential Energy service main.
• Completed new vendor information form.

This process needs to be followed for every individual NMI. There will be one reimbursement for each NMI.

For clarity there are circumstances where ASPs will not receive a payment for each individual unit/complex as there is only one NMI connection to Essential Energy network for these sites. Examples of where there is only one reconnection to the network for the below and one claim for reimbursement up to $350 are:

• Residential unit complexes.
• Caravan parks with private metering.
• Commercial complexes with multiple units.
• Industrial complexes with multiple units.

It is important to note that Essential Energy is funding the cost of reconnection up to $350, and any repairs to the customer’s electrical installation will not be reimbursed. Essential Energy has processes in place to ensure that claims for reconnection costs are not paid where Essential Energy has performed the reconnection.

The Customer Contact Centre will provide a Case Number by return email. Please keep this number as your reference.

The reimbursement will be provided by direct credit to your nominated bank account.

What do you need to do?

1. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
2. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

A recent Queensland Electrical Safety Office audit has found that support fixtures for LV services installed on customer premises have not been earthed appropriately and in accordance with Queensland Electrical Safety Regulation 2013-Reg 212.

This Regulation requires that all LV service installations in the Queensland franchise area – including new installations and those installed in fault and emergency situations – must comply with clauses (2), (3) and (4) noted below. This includes a requirement to earth support fixtures, such as metallic pins, eye bolts or similar fixtures.

ELECTRICAL SAFETY REGULATION 2013 - REG 212

Termination of low voltage overhead service line.

212 Termination of low voltage overhead service line.

(1) An electricity entity must ensure a low voltage overhead service line is—

(a) secured to a consumer’s premises, including poles on the premises; and

(b) insulated continuously; and

(c) not readily accessible to persons.

(2) An electricity entity must ensure a metallic pin, eye bolt or other similar fixture installed by or for it on a consumer’s premises to support an active conductor of a low voltage overhead service line is effectively earthed.

(3) The earthing must be by direct connection to the neutral conductor of the service line, at the point of support, by a conductor having an appropriate cross-sectional area.

(4) Earthing under subsections (2) and (3) is not required if—

(a) the low voltage overhead service line is a neutral screened cable, and the service fuse is mounted on the electricity entity’s pole; or

(b) no part of the metallic pin, eye bolt or other similar fixture, or of a metal bracket or riser supporting it, is within 25mm of other metal work on a building, pole, or other structure.

More information on Queensland Electrical Safety Regulations.

Please help us comply

Essential Energy staff typically complete new and like for like service replacements on the Essential Energy network extending into the Queensland franchise area.

The Queensland Electrical Safety Regulation 2013-Reg212 requires that the electricity entity must ensure low voltage service lines comply with the regulation as such all new and like for like replacements will not be completed unless the regulation is complied with.

Contractors must ensure the requirements of the regulation are complied with before Essential Energy staff attend to carry out new and like for like replacements.

What do you need to do?

1. Share this information will your team members.
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
3. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

Essential Connections Weekly Update 3rd November 2022

Projects with 2 applications and therefore 2 Essential Connections Numbers (ECNs)

It has come to our attention that some projects in Essential Connections have 2 application cases and 2 ECNs. This only applies to some cases which were raised in the old portal and migrated across to Essential Connections, requiring the creation of ‘dummy’ applications for all design jobs to flow through the new portal.

There are two different scenarios:

• A Connection Application was created in Essential Connections after Drop 1 (June 2022) and a DIA was requested in the old design portal prior to Drop 2 – in this scenario, the original Connection Application and the ‘dummy’ application both exist within Essential Connections, each with their own ECN; or
• A DIA was requested in the old design portal that has not yet had a Connection Application processed – in this case, when the Connection Application is applied for it will generate its own ECN (with the DIA already having a different ‘dummy’ application and ECN created during the migration process).

If you find you have a project in either scenario, please:

• Use the DIA ECN and related ‘dummy’ application case number for your design requests (easements, non-standard approvals, asset labels).
• If you need to obtain a connection offer prior to Design Submission, add a note into the collaboration section of the design submission case by creating a post, and entering the new Connection Application case number and ECN. The Design and Certification Officer will then ‘link’ the two ECNs together within the system for future reference. You will not see this linking in the external portal.

Important changes to the standard construction schedule & earthing verification process

As you know, changes to the standard construction schedule will be taking effect soon. Whilst the target date for these changes to occur was initially the 21st of November 2022, we are exploring options to delay these changes to minimise any impact to you and your colleagues. You will be advised once we have a confirmed date.

More information on the changes was covered in yesterday’s drop-in session along with upcoming changes to the earthing verification process. For anyone who was unable to attend or would like to refer back to it, a link to the recording will soon be made available to you.

Need help?

A registered user guide has been published on our Essential Connections Support to help you navigate the new design portal. Note: If the latest version (October 2022) doesn’t appear, select the CTRL+F5 keys together to refresh the guide.

Our last support session will be held next week to answer any questions you may have. An FAQ document will then be made available to you to assist with any questions and concerns offline.

For design specific training, click on the recording to access the Level 3 ASP design training Recording.

What do you need to do?

1. Access our Essential Connections Support to view our registered user guide.
2. Sign up to the above session to have your questions answered live.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

Essential Connections Weekly Update 26th October 2022

The new design portal went live on Monday 24th October 2022, allowing new design applications to be submitted via the Essential Connections portal.

Data migration activities in relation to existing design applications and submissions are almost complete and most files related to design cases should be available from today.

Large files may take until the end of the week to come through the new system. If you need access to any missing files urgently, please email: contestableworks@essentialenergy.com.au and provide the relevant reference details for Essential Energy to manually attach the files to the new system.

Process for re-certifications

We have had a couple of queries around the process to follow for recertifications.

If the design for your project was certified via the Contestable Works process, you will need to follow the Contestable Works process for recertification.

If the design for your project was certified in the Design Portal (ST projects) or in the Essential Connections portal, you will need to complete the recertification in Essential Connections.

If you need to do a recertification of a design in Essential Connections on a migrated design case, you may find that you error messages on your screen. In this instance, check the compliance checkboxes in the same way you do for a new design submission (follow the external user guide for design submission). This won’t be required where you do a recertification on a design certified in the new portal.

Need help?

A registered user guide has been published on our Essential Connections Support portal, to help you navigate the new design portal. The guide contains information on how to log in, submit requests in the new portal and where to go for additional support so please use this as your first point of contact, along with the below support sessions. Note: If the latest version (October 2022) doesn’t appear, hit the ctrl key + F5 to refresh the guide. Please find a link to the Level 3 ASP Design Training Recording.

Our support sessions continue, with many great questions received so far, so please join one of our upcoming sessions to have your questions addressed live.

What do you need to do?

1. Access our Essential Connections Support to view our registered user guide.
2. Sign up to one of the above sessions to have your questions answered live.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
4. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

As you know, the BetterConnect project has been preparing for the next Essential Connections release, which will support the design phase of the end-to-end connections process to be managed in the Essential Connections portal.

Although we are progressing well with ensuring the readiness of the system, and it is available for the submission of new design applications, we are experiencing a delay in making your existing design-related data available.

What does this mean for you?

New and in-flight connection enquiries and applications

• The system is now open and ready to accept new connection enquiries and applications and Essential Energy is able to assess and provide you with connection offers

New design submissions

• You can now submit NEW easement requests and design related services (design information application requests, design submissions, asset labels and non-standard approvals) via the Essential Connections portal.

Existing design submissions (design information applications, design submissions and non-standard approvals)

• Whilst you will be able to see your in-flight design cases we are still migrating your design file attachments into Essential Connections portal - these will be available progressively over the coming days.
• We anticipate that all data will be available this week

PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS OR PROCESS ANY IN-FLIGHT DESIGN PROJECTS AS THIS MAY CORRUPT YOUR REQUESTS

Design Information Applications where the Connection Application was Submitted in the NECF Portal

If you have a design information application (DIA) request to submit for a project where the connection application was processed in the NECF portal you won’t be able to submit the request until you get an Essential Connection Number (ECN) and application case number from us. Please send an email to contestableworks@essentialenergy.com.au and include your connection offer number and street address and we will be able to provide you with the information you need to submit the Design Information Application (DIA) request.

Need help? Join our Essential Connections support sessions and have your problems solved live!

Support sessions have been scheduled to address any system questions and solve your problems live. If you need help accessing the portal or have any navigation questions, please join us in one of our sessions and we’ll do our best to assist you!

For learning materials and our step by step Registered User Manual

Information on Essential Connection portal and how to use the solution can be found on Essential Energy's support page, check out the Essential Connections Portal Registered User Manual.

Additional support

If you can’t make any of the support sessions mentioned above, please send an email to the relevant mailbox based on your type of enquiry.

Note: please send your enquiry to one mailbox only and do not cc other mailboxes as this will delay Essential Energy’s response to your enquiry.

Essential Connections Weekly Update 20th October 2022

We continue to work towards next Monday 24th October 2022 for the new design portal to go live. As previously communicated, the following processes are going live on Monday 24th October @ 09:00am.

• Design Information Applications
• Design Submissions
• Non-Standard Approvals
• Asset Labels
• Easements

Construction (Level 1 ASP) processes will not be used in the new system until later in the year. These processes will continue to be carried out via Contestable works and we will communicate further around the phased onboarding approach for construction.

If you have missed this week’s Essential Connections ASP information session or would like to revisit any of the information, please view the Information Session and/or watch the Recording.

Level 3 ASPs: Accessing Essential Connections on Monday 24 October 2022

Existing Level 3 ASPs who have been using Essential Connections will automatically have access to the portal – there is no need to register for the new system.

When you access the system on Monday, the ‘Design Portal’ tile will have disappeared from your OKTA screen, leaving only the ‘Essential Connections’ tile. Use the Essential Connections tile from Monday to access all your design related activity.

For some L3 ASPs you may find an error message when you log in, depending on how you have bookmarked the Essential Connections portal in your browser. If this is the case, simply go to Essential Energy okta to login to the system (and make sure you update your bookmark).

Essential Connections Design Go Live Support Sessions – Starting next week!

Click on the link(s) to register your attendance for one of our support sessions.

NOTE: Drop-in support sessions have been scheduled after go-live to support you and address your enquiries live. These sessions should be your first point of contact to have your queries answered.

Change in easement hold point

Not all projects will be able to transition to the new hold point as highlighted below.

What do you need to do?

1. Review the overview presentation and watch the session recording by clicking on the Essential Connections Information Session above.
2. Access the level 3 ASP 3 hub on Essential Engagement for links to training materials and our user manual.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
4. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

Essential Connections Design Go Live Support Sessions

Drop-in support sessions have been scheduled post go-live to support you and address your enquiries live. These sessions should be your first point of contact to ask questions.

What do you need to do?

Register for the Drop-in Support Sessions that suits you.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

Essential Connections will be unavailable from 18th October (5pm) to 24th October 2022 (9am).

As you may be aware, Essential Energy has been working on the next release of the Essential Connections portal which will support the design and construction phases of the end-to-end connections process to be managed in the one system.

To prepare for this next release, a number of activities need to be undertaken to migrate data from the existing system to Essential Connections.

What do you need to know?

From 18th October (5pm):

• The Essential Connections applications and enquiries portal will not be available from 5pm, Tuesday 18th October until 9am (AEDT), Monday 24th October 2022.
• Similarly, the Design portal will not be accessible during this time.
• There will be a freeze on design information requests, design submission requests, asset label requests, non-standard approvals and re-certification requests (that have been submitted via the design portal).
• All new design information requests will be required to be submitted via the new Essential Connections portal and will not be accepted via email.

What do you need to do?

If you are not already registered user of the new Essential Connections & Design portal, please Register Here.

Essential Connections Portal will be available on the 24th of October 2022 @ 09:00am

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

What is Happening?

Unfortunately, system issues with submission of connection applications and enquiries in the new Essential Connections Portal have resulted in delays in processing applications.

At the moment, the average time to process an application is approximately 15 to 20 days.

We apologise and ask for your patience as we put plans in place to resolve system issues and onboard additional staff to reduce the backlog and process your requests within our standard target of 10 days.

To assist in getting an application completed, please ensure you have filled out the application accurately and all required documents are uploaded.

What do you need to do?

1. Make sure your application is filled in with actuate information and you have attached all the required documents
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation and your clients.
3. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.