Western Power tells Bremer Bay hotel to 'buy generator' for blackouts

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

A regional business owner says she has been advised to purchase a diesel generator by Western Australia's state-run power provider if she wants a guaranteed electricity supply to her hotel.
Bremer Bay, 500 kilometres south of Perth, has a population of about 571, rising steeply on weekends and holiday periods as tourists flock to the pristine coastline.
Businesses and residents said power supply to the town, which sits at the edge of the state's largest energy network, the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), has not kept pace with the growing population.
Over the Easter and Anzac Day holiday period, residents were hit with half a dozen power outages over 10 days.
For 22 years Melissa Joy has owned the Bremer Bay Resort, a pub, restaurant and motel that can serve up to 450 guests at any one time.
"Over the years, there have been lots of power issues, but in recent months we've noticed it growing increasingly worse, which is quite alarming," she said.
"We have outages quite regularly and quite often, anywhere from a 10-second outage to one hour or even more on a regular basis.
"It seems to be worse when we have high numbers coming to town."
Western Power blamed the outages on severe weather and "atypical" demand.
But with tourism increasingly critical to the town's economy, Ms Joy said outages during peak periods were not acceptable.
"It has a huge impact, it's highly disruptive and really quite unacceptable."
When the issue was raised with Western Power, Ms Joy said she was advised to purchase a generator for the business at her own cost.
"The electricity bills to run this business are over $65,000 a year," she said.
Western Power did not respond to claims that it had advised businesses in the region to purchase diesel generators.
In a statement, the power utility said it understood the frustrations that unplanned power outages caused residents, and acknowledged the community was prone to more blackouts.
It said "some back-up power supply" was in place to support the community, but faults that occurred within the Bremer town site could limit its utility.
The situation highlights the complexity WA's legislated power monopoly leaves some regional customers facing.
Western Power, a statutory corporation, is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the SWIS.
But Synergy is responsible for the generation and sales of power to customers connected to the network.
Business owners said the backup wind-diesel power station, owned and operated by Synergy, was inadequate to service Bremer Bay and nearby settlements.
Bremer Bay General Store manager Danielle Formica said the business had spent $30,000 on a new generator to keep the shop running.
"It's probably the worst year we've had over the years; there were three occasions over the course of four days where we had to run solely on cash," she said.
"The locals are a population of about 300–400, but the majority [of people in town during peak season] are 15 to 20,000-plus tourists.
"We're not just going to give an IOU, so we lost thousands here at the store."
A Synergy spokesperson said it did not manage the Bremer Bay power supply network, but its wind-diesel plant had the capacity to provide 40 per cent of Bremer Bay's energy requirements.
It also said four Synergy-owned back-up diesel generators were available to Western Power when managing network outages in the region.
However, the patchwork of backup energy infrastructure has infuriated residents who are also being forced to find backup options to power essential appliances.
Paul Taylor bought a house at Bremer Bay with the aim of retiring on the south coast.
But the 66-year-old, diagnosed with neuropathy of the diaphragm, requires a CPAP machine to help him sleep.
"My diaphragm doesn't work, and when I lie down to go to sleep, my diaphragm falls against my lungs, and it makes it very difficult for me to breathe, so my doctors have put me on a CPAP machine so I can sleep at night.
"I'm looking at options, having to buy a generator or a CPAP machine that has its own battery system if there is a power failure, but these things are like $10,000, so it's not a good option."
Western Power said it was exploring solutions to improve reliability.