Reliability and Resilience
How much would it cost to improve Essential Energy’s reliability?
Essential Energy consulted with customers about your preferences for whether Essential Energy’s current approach to reliability under normal operating conditions was appropriate or whether Essential Energy should spend more. Customers supported maintaining Essential Energy’s current approach.
Importantly Essential Energy still needs to demonstrate prudent and efficient expenditure to the regulator. Significantly increasing expenditure on initiatives to improve reliability is unlikely to meet this requirement.
What does Essential Energy do to provide continuous power to essential services such as telecommunications, especially during bushfires?
Essential Energy works with telecommunication businesses to restore power to their infrastructure and in the past has utilised SAPs, generators etc to achieve this during extended outages.
Telecommunication towers and associated businesses are also required to ensure there is adequate backup supply on site which they are responsible for.
Who pays for connecting to remote generators?
To connect to Essential Energy’s network, generators are to pay for any upgrades to the network required for this connection. These costs are funded by the connecting customer, i.e., the generator, and are not passed onto other customers.