Thousands of power poles damaged during NSW’s once-in-500-year floods are being shunned in favour of EV charging stations and wind farm repair. That is according to a report in The Daily Telegraph, which warns that NSW’s big three energy distributors—Endeavour, Essential, and Ausgrid—are sending workers, who are meant to focus on keeping the lights on in rural and regional communities, to work in the green space.
New figures logged with the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) show that Ausgrid had 16,205 outstanding corrective tasks or fixes required across its network, while Essential had 14,970 and Endeavour had 2,699. Technicians working on those fixes are meant to be ring-fenced from the distributors’ commercial operations, which compete with electrical contractors for work such as installing electric vehicle (EV) charging stations or maintaining wind turbines.
However, by finding wriggle room in the ring-fencing rules, the Daily Telegraph revealed that Endeavour has shared 89 staff with Ausconnex, which keeps wind turbines at Lake George, 40km northeast of Canberra, in the last quarter. Essential has also shared 11 staff and eight executives with its green energy subsidiary, Intium. And whilst Ausgrid provides no staffing numbers, they confirmed that key staff had been seconded to work on EV charging stations.
New Koala Park Could Knock Out 50% of NSW Power Poles!
The maintenance concerns come after Wood Central revealed that almost half of all NSW power poles used in its electricity network come from coups tied up in the Great Koala National Park, with the state’s largest suppliers of poles – Koppers and Coffs Harbour Hardwoods – concerned that the NSW Government is sleepwalking into a catastrophe – at the exact time the network needs a major service.
Last week, Premier Minns travelled to the Coffs Harbour Hardwoods Glenreagh plant, which supplies utility poles (as well as bridges and other essential services), to get a feel for the industry before he makes a captain’s call on the enlarged Koala Park: “We sat with the Premier, Minister Sharpe and Mr Duncan at our Blue Gum boardroom and spoke about the Koala Park,” said Martin McCarthy, a member of the multi-generational Coffs Harbour Hardwoods business. “We then spoke about the impact of an (oversized) park on the state’s supply of hardwoods, and you could see the cogs start to turn. Our business supports a park, but it needs to be a viable-sized one that can be a win-win for everybody.”
- To learn more about how critical hardwood-based poles are to the NSW (and Australian) electricity network, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from March 2024.
