A Goonumbla resident was less than impressed with electricity company Essential Energy when planned maintenance work went ahead despite high winds, a massive dust storm and hot weather.
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Farmer Lynn Woods said her family was suffering.
“It’s 36 degrees today, we have high winds causing a massive dust storm,” Lynn said.
“I have to have the doors open to keep cool and the house is just filling up with dust.
“If I had power, I’d have the evaporative air conditioner on and that would be helping greatly in keeping the dust out.”
The planned outage ran from 9am to 4pm.
“I have a fridge and freezer full of food without power all day,” Lynn said.
“If this keeps going in this heat, my husband will have to get the generator out.”
“Why couldn’t they say ‘hey hang on it’s going to be hot out here today, let’s do it another day when it’s cooler’?”
Essential Energy’s Regional Manager Northern, Mark Summers said the planned power outage earlier this month was required to allow crews to safely replace equipment which will help to ensure the electricity network remains safe and reliable.
He said it the planned work would assist to reduce the number and length of any unplanned power outages, particularly during storm season.
“Essential Energy assesses all planned power outages on a case-by-case basis to determine if they should proceed," Mr Summers said.
“Work on the electricity network is only postponed in exceptional circumstances as it can result in failure of minor equipment components without warning which can cause flow‐on major equipment damage and lengthy power outages for customers.
“It is far better to have a scheduled power outage for which customers can plan, than unplanned power outages that can potentially cause lengthier disruptions to larger numbers of customers.
“All customers are encouraged to have contingency plans in place for both unplanned and planned power outages, depending on their individual requirements.
“Essential Energy operates across 95 per cent of NSW and crews work during both hot and cold weather to ensure a safe and reliable electricity network.”