Sarah Herrmann, Yorke Peninsula Country Times

A fight for justice has begun after revelations that neither ElectraNet nor SA Power Networks are required to compensate customers for the up to 20-hour power and telecommunications outages that hit Yorke Peninsula on Friday, March 14.

Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis told the South Australian Parliament on Tuesday, March 18 there is no regulated compensation scheme for transmission network failures, which are the responsibility of private company ElectraNet.

The blackout was “not a fault of SA Power Networks”, which only managed the distribution network, and therefore it was also not liable.

“Some people may be aware of the Guaranteed Service Level payments, which are payable to customers for distribution-related power outages of more than 20 hours,” Mr Koutsantonis said. “In this instance that payment does not apply.”

He said individuals or businesses who suffered loss or damage may be covered through their personal insurance, but not through any regulated scheme.

The minister’s comments were a result of questioning by Narungga MP Fraser Ellis who advocated for his constituents throughout the sitting period.

Mr Ellis told parliament he would be working towards finding a way to provide compensation, instituting proactive and routine cleaning of network insulators, and reviewing the adverse community outcomes that occurred, including the lack of phone service and refrigeration, “to ensure that those things never happen again and that we have contingencies in place”.

In terms of compensation, he said Regional Development Australia Yorke and Mid North was preparing a survey to gauge losses.

“I’m investigating whether we can afford a Private Member’s Bill to expand compensation from just distribution issues to transmission issues,” Mr Ellis said.

“It doesn’t matter why the power’s out, what matters is people lost stock and lost trade.

“I’m hearing from businesses that it’s unlikely to be paid out by their insurance company.

“If you’re getting unfairly rejected by your insurance company, by all means report them to the authority, but the reality is I don’t think it should be on businesses to file these things and drive their premiums up through no fault of their own.”

Regarding cleaning, Mr Ellis said ElectraNet chief executive Simon Emms “called me and committed to a thorough review of how the power outage occurred”.

“ElectraNet said … they’ve had two crews working cleaning manually for the past two months statewide,” Mr Ellis said.

“Whether that’s enough or not is up for debate; I reckon it’s not.

“But they’ve said it’s been so hot and dry without enough rain that, by the end of the day’s work for the crew, more work had been undone than what the crew could do.”

Mr Ellis said locals had told him of a row of nine fires along a line of Stobie poles on southern Yorke Peninsula, and many stories of powerlines arcing and glowing, that they witnessed ahead of the mega outage; power had also been going off in the weeks beforehand.

“There was a helicopter crash in 2019 when they (ElectraNet) were doing the Carrapateena Mine, which discouraged them from using helicopters to clean the transmission lines as frequently, in addition to the cost,” he said.

“My understanding is a helicopter went up again yesterday (Thursday, March 20) and will be more frequently used going forward in times of extreme dry because that’s the most efficient way to clean instead of cherry pickers.”

Telstra and Optus were on his list of things to follow up in reviewing community assets, Mr Ellis said.

“We need phone towers that last for a whole blackout, and we need some sort of refuge centre that’s temperature controlled so people can congregate if they can’t get to the beach, at the bare minimum,” he said.

The RDAYMN survey is available at forms.office.com/r/gkjDJtmsnv and is open until April 30. 

This article appeared in Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 25 March 2025.
Related stories: Power outage knocks out Yorke Peninsula; Losses all over the peninsula.