Australia Weather News

A new report shows SA Power Networks paid more than $18.5 million to households that lost power in South Australia's December storms, which left about 155,000 properties without electricity at their peak.

The figure was included in two reports released by the Essential Services Commission of SA (ESCOSA) into the December storm, and the state-wide outage on September 28.

The report found the huge Guaranteed Service Level payments were racked up through homes that lost power for more than 12 hours, meaning they were eligible for payments ranging from $100 to $605 each.

SA Power Networks received criticism for the length of time many people were without power but the report found there was no case for putting on extra repair crews.

"ESCOSA is basically saying these are rare events and to crew up and resource to be able to respond for two days for a major storm, but those people sitting idle for the rest of the year, is just not viable and the regulator wouldn't approve it," SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said.

"I think ESCOSA's report confirms that we restored supply as soon as practical, given the level of damage to the network and the weather conditions."

While the commission found SA Power Networks did not breach its regulatory standards, it did find there was room for improvement.

It found that SA Power Networks' messaging around re-connection times was confusing, particularly with people receiving multiple messages.

SA Power Networks said it was already working on improvements to its messaging system.

"In the future when we have these events, we're actually going to stop the automated messaging and make it clear to people we're unable to give them an estimated restoration time until we actually get to site," Mr Roberts said.

"Then we'll provide them updates as we have information from our crews on site."

Areas for improvement

In its review of the September blackout, ESCOSA found that transmission company ElectraNet was "compliant with the conditions of its license", but there were areas it could improve.

In particular, the report found additional risks in power reliability in Port Lincoln and recommended improvements, "in terms of restart procedures, clarification of Electricity Transmission Code requirements, maintenance and transparency of generation support availability".

ESCOSA also found SA Power Networks paid more than $135,000 for the late repair of streetlights in the March quarter.

The payments were made because if a streetlight is not fixed within set time limits the person who first reported it is eligible for $25.

SA Power Networks said some of the delays may have been due to crews being tied up on urgent storm repairs.

ABC