Rachel Wells
May 10, 2012
THE reliability of Victoria's electricity supply has deteriorated in recent years, while the supplying companies have consistently made higher-than-expected profits, a report has found.
The Australian Energy Regulator, which looks at the service quality and profitability of Victoria's five electricity distribution companies, found the total time consumers were without power declined in the last reporting period, 2010, compared with 2009.
However, it said when the extreme heatwave events of 2009 were excluded, ''the results indicate a continuing deteriorating trend in the overall level of supply reliability over the 2005-2010 period''.
Customer complaints also doubled in 2010, from 1.1 per 1000 customers to 2.3, which was partly attributed to the introduction of smart meters.
Despite this, Victorian consumers have paid an estimated 40 per cent more for their electricity bills over the past four years to June 2011. And there is more pain on the way. The Australian Energy Market Commission predicts Victorian residential electricity prices will rise a further 33 per cent between 2011 and 2014, taking into account the carbon tax.
The regulator's report found customers experienced an average 130 minutes without power due to unplanned circumstances in 2010. While it was below the 178 minutes experienced in 2009 - the worst year since reporting began in 1996 - it was well above the performance threshhold of 113 minutes per customer.
Customers are eligible for compensation once annual electricity supply interruptions exceed 20 hours or more than 10 interruptions. Compensation starts at $100 (for 20 hours) up to $300 for more than 60 hours of interrupted supply.
Regulator chairman Andrew Reeves said that despite last year's improvement, which he attributed to less extreme weather, most of Victoria's electricity suppliers failed to meet their reliability targets. ''Jemena Electricity Networks was the only business which met the performance target set by the previous regulator [the Essential Services Commission of Victoria] for unplanned minutes-off-supply,'' Mr Reeves said.
The worst-serviced rural area was Terang, in south-west Victoria - supplied by Powercor - which experienced 1975 minutes, or 33 hours, without power during seven outages.
Bulleen residents (United Energy) experienced a total of 18 hours without power, making it the least-reliable urban area, followed by the Dandenong Valley and Ferntree Gully.
At the same time, all five electricity companies reported higher-than-forecast revenues, for the fourth consecutive year.
The regulator says this was due to greater consumer demand or use than expected and lower costs than predicted.
comments so far
So, please tell me again why privatisation of public utilities is good?
Commenter
MollyMoo
Location
Date and time
May 10, 2012
When you make something a commercial business, you shouldn't be surprised when profit is the overwhelming priority. Thanks, Jeff.
Commenter
Asynca
Location
Date and time
May 10
FINALLY fact based journalism!
We have these companies publicly state they are struggling in order to justify price increases but the reality is they have been reaping profits year after year. They have blamed everything including the yet released carbon tax to conceal this and have been very lucky in duping the not so smart amongst us who unfortunately number way too many these days and so therefore have been far too successful at it.
The sad result is we have a polarized community on the important things like the carbon tax which is designed to make them more honest and improve their service delivery. About time but a little to late!
When they were privatized by Kennet they immediately withdrew maintenance for profit and the end result is that only 53% of the power now gets to Melbourne from loy yang because the lines, poles and transformers are older than Jeff himself.
The Victorian Government needs to set the record straight and get these guys honest so the carbon tax is not used as another excuse to again increase profits on the consumer. But based on the past practices not only expect them not to do this but actually support the propaganda for more price increases. Shameless!
Commenter
Mark
Location
Melbourne
Date and time
May 10, 2012
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/less-power-to-customers-more-to-bottom-line-20120509-1yd7c.html#ixzz1uS9HYchB