The Mooroopna Zone Substation is entering its final stages of restoration, with homes and businesses being reconnected to power following re-energising of the substation.
Powercor’s final inspections, repairs and testing are underway and parts of Tatura have been reconnected to the zone substation.
“We expect to have all homes and businesses reconnected to the substation by the weekend, and this will allow us to restore a more stable and reliable network for the region. However, this work is dependent on our final safety inspections,” CitiPower said in its 26 October statement.
Earlier in October, rising water from the Goulburn River breached a levy and flooded the site. In response, Powercor de-energised the zone substation to minimise the safety risk to the community and reduce the potential for long-term damage.
Despite the zone substation being turned off, Powercor was able to switch homes and businesses to other parts of the network and build new sections of infrastructure to return power supply to about 10,688 homes and businesses.
Mooroopna Zone Substation supplies power to Mooroopna, Tatura, Ardmona, parts of Shepparton, Kialla, Haston, Murchison, Dhurringile, Rushworth and surrounding towns.
As part of the detailed re-energisation plan, Powercor identified about five customers will experience a temporary power outage during the transfer. Those customers have been contacted directly to inform them of the outage.
While Powercor does not expect other outages to occur as they transfer customers, crews are ready to respond quickly and as safely as possible to get power back on if unplanned outages do happen.
Since water was pumped from the substation site on Thursday 20 October, crews have been cleaning, inspecting, repairing and testing critical assets within the zone substation.
During the 22-23 October, an aerial inspection was conducted over a main powerline that connects the zone substation to Shepparton to identify potential fault risks.
CitiPower thanked its customers who have been supportive and understanding during the flooding event.
“We are proud to be part of such a strong community and our thoughts are with those who have been affected by these devastating floods,” CitiPower said.
“We also thank the SES, ADF, and the Bendigo and Shepparton incident control centres who all played a significant role in our restoration work.”
