Media Release - Major Power Maintenance for Hilltops & Cowra

Published on 02 March 2023

MEDIA RELEASE | Major power maintenance for Hilltops and Cowra

Essential Energy will commence work next week on the final stage of a major maintenance program on the electricity network that supplies power to Cowra, Young, Harden, Boorowa and the surrounding areas.

Operations Manager Riverina Slopes, Morgan Coelli, said the major works would see around 1,100 tasks completed across the area over ten consecutive days. 

“Crews will be replacing 125 power poles, 230 pole crossarms, 10 transformers and various other network components that have reached end of life,” Morgan said.

A series of planned power outages will be necessary for the works to be completed safely, and these have been scheduled daily from Tuesday, 7 March to Thursday, 16 March 2023.  Customers will receive Essential Energy’s standard outage notification advising the dates and times of outages affecting them.

Essential Energy is bringing in additional crews and equipment from Bega, Bombala, Barham, Blayney, Coolamon, Corowa, Crookwell, Culcairn, Deniliquin, Jindabyne, Junee, Molong, Temora, Tumbarumba, Tumut, Wagga Wagga and Yass depots to help get the work done.

“Significant planning has been undertaken to complete the large program of works as quickly and safely as possible, with a significant amount of work being completed in a relatively short time across the area, to reduce the overall inconvenience on affected communities,” Morgan said.

The scheduled works are reliant on suitable weather conditions and may be postponed if the conditions are unfavourable or any unforeseen circumstances arise.

“We appreciate that planned power outages may cause inconvenience for some customers, but they are vital to ensure a safe and reliable power network for these communities,” Morgan said.

Media contact: Bronya Pressler, Community Relations Manager Northern

FACT FILE: 

• Essential Energy builds, operates and maintains one of Australia’s largest electricity distribution networks, servicing more than 880,000 customers across regional, rural and remote NSW and parts of southern Queensland
• Our footprint covers 95 per cent of NSW, traversing 737,000 square kilometres of landmass with 183,612 kilometres of powerline, including 163,417 kilometres in designated bushfire zones
• The network has approximately 5.1 customers to each kilometre of powerline, which is almost one-tenth the customer density compared with our counterparts in NSW
• Essential Energy’s footprint also includes 1.38 million power poles, equating to 1.6 power poles per customer