Storm damage to Essential Energy’s main and secondary power lines into Cobar knocked out the power to more than 2,600 homes and businesses last Tuesday night.
The power went out in Cobar at 5.14pm and, for many customers, it wasn’t restored until 1am Wednesday, while a group of 68 customers didn’t get power until 7am on Wednesday.
Business customers, including several mines in the area, were harder hit, as repairs to the secondary powerline (which supplies the mines) were not completed by Essential Energy crews until late Wednesday.
Power was then progressively restored between 5.58pm and 7.53pm that day.
Essential Energy’s acting regional manager Northern Jamie Warren said storms around NSW last week caused unplanned power outages right across its distribution network with the Cobar area one of the hardest impacted.
“Tuesday evening’s storm caused damage to the main and secondary powerlines to Cobar approximately 40 kilometres from Nyngan,” Mr Warren said.
He said the secondary powerline to Cobar normally supplies power to several mines in the area and had it not also been damaged by the storm, Essential Energy would have rerouted power to the town by using that powerline.
“Additional crews, equipment and stock were brought in from Cobar, Dubbo, Parkes and Wellington to assist local crews from Cobar and Nyngan restore power as quickly as safety allowed for customers,” he said.
“Repairs to the electricity network included replacing one power pole on the main powerline and six on the secondary powerline.”
A local crane and earth moving company was also engaged by Essential Energy to assist crews with power restoration efforts.
