SA lockdown - what you can expect over the coming days

What you can expect over the coming days...

In response to the SA Coronavirus lockdown, we are cancelling all non-critical work. Our focus will be to continue to undertake work critical to ensuring safe and reliable electricity supply. This means we will respond as necessary to power outages and will undertake emergency and bushfire-related work needed to keep the community and network safe. Wherever possible we will avoid attending your property unless it is requested or absolutely necessary. If we do attend, we will be observing COVID-safe protocols.

The best way to keep up-to-date about power outages affecting your property, including any cancellations or changes, is via the free SMS and email messages. If you aren’t already registered you can do so at outage updates.

We hope everyone stays safe during these next few days.

SA Power Networks has revealed fresh support measures for larger businesses and community organisations who have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. This follows announcement earlier this month of measures providing about $10 million in relief to South Australian small businesses and residential customers enduring hardship.*

In its latest move, SA Power Networks will support larger businesses on Agreed Demand Tariffs who close down or significantly reduce activity during the response to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The offer to switch these customers to a different tariff package will benefit about 300 medium to large businesses and community organisations (ie hotels, recreation facilities) who have experienced 50% or more decline in energy usage (note: network bills of up to $120,000 per month).

If there are larger businesses who consider that their business activity has contracted, they should check with their retailer to clarify whether they are eligible for relief.

“Many of these customers are on Agreed Demand Tariffs that have a lower energy price and higher fixed charge component, which is an advantage to the customer in managing their energy costs, but not when they close or drastically curtail their activity, as they are doing now,” said Paul Roberts, Manager Corporate Affairs.

“For example – for consumption reductions of 80%, the network component for some of these larger customers may only fall about 40% because of the fixed element of the tariff they are on. (Medium-sized business are typically on tariffs that vary each month with usage and do not have the same issues)."

“We are contacting these larger customers and their retailers to provide advice as to whether it may be preferable for them to move from Agreed Demand to Actual Demand tariff arrangements,” Mr Roberts said. “We’ll also help them to plan the best approach to their tariff arrangements once they resume normal operations.”

“This latest initiative shows how we are helping our customers to get through these extraordinary times for all South Australians,” he said.

*The package announced in early April provides immediate tariff relief through the retailer for up to 80,000 small businesses using up to 40 MWh per annum who between April and the end of June consume less than 25% of their usual consumption for that three-month period.

There also is support for a number for retailers to sustain their most vulnerable residential customers on hardship programs as a result of COVID-19.

For those that haven’t heard about it yet, bear hunting is a recent global phenomenon inspired by the 1989 children's book by Michael Rosen, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt".

In recent weeks it has sparked the imagination of many with people putting teddy bears and other soft toys in windows and trees, encouraging children to get outdoors for a walk with their parents while hunting for bears.

Eddy - more formally known as Edison (by his mum) wanted to join the fun of the Adelaide Bear Hunt, so he's recently made his debut at SA Power Networks. Let us know if you spot Eddy (clue: he's a bit of an Adelaide train spotter). You can learn more about the bear hunt here.

For an activity that is fun and free for the kids (and adults) to do, you can also print out (or import into a digital drawing app) our colouring-in sheet and do your best to stay between the lines:

• Eddy the Teddy colouring-in page
• SA Power Networks crew colouring-in page

RELIEF PACKAGE ANNOUNCED

SA Power Networks has revealed a suite of measures to provide support to South Australians enduring hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relief package is effective from 1 April 2020 and will be delivered via retailers.

SA Power Networks CEO Rob Stobbe said the initial package could provide about $10 million in relief for local businesses and residential customers. “These are extraordinarily tough times for all South Australians,” he said.

“We will provide immediate tariff relief through the retailer for up to 80,000 small businesses using up to 40 MWh per annum who between April and the end of June consume less than 25% of their usual consumption for that three month period. We also will support a number of small retailers who are working hard to sustain their most vulnerable residential customers on hardship programs.

“This will support those customers who are doing it tough and help support continued retail competition. We also will defer network charges for residential customers of the larger retailers who go on hardship arrangements as a result of COVID-19,” Mr Stobbe said.

“The initiative reflects the comprehensive and co-operative way that the industry has sought to respond to this unprecedented situation. Networks will work with energy retailers to ensure the benefits of this package are passed on to customers smoothly.”

Meanwhile, Mr Stobbe said SA Power Networks was working hard to balance its responsibility to help minimise the spread of the coronavirus in South Australia and continue to deliver essential electricity distribution services.

“We continue to take advice from medical experts to shape how we manage our operations so we can safely deliver services to our customers during this time,” he said.

“We have instructed our people who are in the field working on our physical assets and other customer-facing staff to observe appropriate social distancing and hygiene protocols to safely manage interactions with customers.

“We will continue to undertake planned work, as it is critical to maintaining a reliable electricity network. However, we are reviewing the work we do and how we communicate with customers so we can minimise the impact of associated power interruptions,” Mr Stobbe said.

“If we need to adjust or change things we will, but safety of our people and helping our community get through this pandemic are our priorities.”

SA Power Networks support for electricity customers.

1. Small Business Customers: full tariff relief

Network charges will be rebated for small business customers experiencing financial stress and who are temporarily hibernating as a result of COVID-19. Relief will apply to all small business customers who:

• Are temporarily hibernating over the period of 1 April to 30 June 2020 as a result of COVID-19
• Eligible small business customers are those that consume less than 40MWh per annum (based on 2019 consumption) and use less than 25% of their historical average consumption for the April-June period
• This will apply for customer network charges from 1 April to 30 June 2020
• Rebating of retailer payments will be processed by networks in arrears of monthly invoicing, with networks providing a rebate of the relevant network charges by the end of September 2020 for the period from 1 April to 30 June 2020 following receipt of supporting evidence by 1 September 2020.

2. Small Retailers: Residential rebates

For small retailers, network charges will be rebated to retailers for residential customers that go into default as a result of COVID-19. Relief will apply for residential customers who:

• Are existing customers with retailers (excluding noted large retailers) as at 1 April 2020
• Are receiving relevant government benefits as from 1 April 2020 (and were not before 1 March 2020)
• Are in payment default/arrears and this was not the case as at 1 March 2020
• Residential customers are those that are currently on a residential tariff
• This will apply for customer network charges from 1 April to 30 June 2020
  • Network charges cover electricity transmission, electricity distribution, metering and jurisdictional charges
• Rebating of payments to retailers will be processed by networks in arrears of monthly invoicing, with networks providing a rebate of the relevant network charges by the end of September 2020 for the period from 1 April to 30 June 2020 following receipt from retailers of supporting evidence by 1 September 2020.

3. Large Retailers: Payment Plan incentives

Retailer Network charges will be deferred for residential customers of large retailers who go on payment plans or hardship arrangements put in place as a result of COVID-19. Relief will apply to large retailers for residential customers of large retailers who:

• Are existing customers with large retailers as at 1 April 2020
• Are receiving relevant government benefits as from 1 April 2020 (and were not before 1 March 2020)
• Are on some form of payment plan/hardship arrangement and this was not the case as at 1 March 2020
• This will apply for customer network charges from 1 April to 30 June 2020
  • Network charges cover electricity transmission, electricity distribution, metering and jurisdictional charges
• Deferred payment will be processed by the networks in arrears of monthly invoicing, subject to the retailers providing supporting evidence. The retailers will make all deferred payments under the Relief Package in full on or before 30 September 2020

4. Other help for customers

We will commit to our customers that we will adhere to the principles set out by the AER:

• We will support retailers in not disconnecting any residential or small business customers who may be in financial stress, without their agreement, before 31 July 2020 and potentially beyond
• We will support retailers in not disconnecting any large business customer, without their agreement, before 31 July 2020, and potentially beyond, if that customer is on-selling energy to residential or small business customers (for example, in residential parks or retirement villages)
• We will waive disconnection and/or reconnection fees for small businesses that have temporarily ceased operation
  • During this period of disconnection, small businesses will not pay the daily supply charges
• We will continue to prioritise the safety of customers who require life support equipment and continue to meet responsibilities to new life support customers
• We will seek to minimise the frequency and duration of planned outages for critical works, and provide as much notice as possible to assist households and businesses to manage during any associated outage.

Our key message from CEO, Rob Stobbe, regarding our response to the Coronavirus pandemic has been translated into a number of languages.

Arabic

إننا نعمل بجد لضمان صحة ورفاه موظفينا لكي نتمكن من الإستمرار في الحفاظ على تقديم الطاقة للناس في جنوب أستراليا

إننا نبذل ما في وسعنا للإستمرار في تقديم تيار كهربائي آمن وموثوق به خلال هذا الوقت العصيب

يمكنك أن الإشتراك على موقعنا الإلكتروني (sapowernetworks.com.au) للحصول تحديثات الإنقطاع واستلام رسالة نصية قصيرة SMS أو يميل حول إنقطاع التيار الكهربائي الذي يؤثر على منزلك

إننا بحاجة للقيام بعمل مخطط له للإستمرار في تزويدكم بالطاقة ونعرف أنه قد يكون ذلك غير مريح إلا أن ذلك يساعدنا على التأكد من أنه يمكننا تقديم الدعم لكم في المنزل أو في مكان العمل لفترة طويلة . إننا نبذل قصارى جهدنا لأن نعمل بمرونة وأن نقلل من تأثير ذلك على الناس في الوقت الذي نوازن فيه بين العمل الضروري المطلوب لإبقاء الأنوار مضاءة.

نرجو أن تخبر موظفينا إذا كنت مريضاً أو في الحجر الصحي الذاتي قبل أن يدخلوا إلى مكان إقامتك .

Burmese

ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔၏ ဝန္ထမ္းမ်ား၏ ေကာင္းကိ်ဳးသုခႏွင့္ က်န္းမာေရး ေကာင္းမြန္ျခင္းကို ေသခ်ာေစရန္ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔ ႀကိဳးပမ္းအားထုတ္ေနၾကပါသည္၊ သို႔အားျဖင့္ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔သည္ ေတာင္ၾသစေၾတးလ်ားျပည္နယ္ ျပည္သူလူထုကို လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အား ဆက္လက္ေပးေနႏိုင္မည္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔သည္ ဤခက္ခဲေနသည့္ကာလတစ္ေလွ်ာက္လံုးတြင္ ေဘးကင္းလံုၿခံဳ၍ ယံုၾကည္စိတ္ခ်ရေသာ လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အားကို ဆက္လက္ေပးသြားႏိုင္ရန္ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔ တတ္ႏိုင္သမွ် ႀကိဳးပမ္းလုပ္ေဆာင္ေနပါသည္။

သင္သည္ လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အား ျပတ္ေတာက္မႈဆိုင္ရာ ေနာက္ဆံုးအေျခအေနမ်ားကို သိ႐ိွရန္ႏွင့္ သင့္အိမ္ရာအေပၚ အကိ်ဳးသက္ေရာက္မႈ႐ိွမည့္ လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အားဆိုင္ရာ သတင္းအခ်က္အလက္မ်ားကို SMS စာသတင္းတိုအရ သို႔မဟုတ္ အီးေမးလ္အရသိ႐ိွရန္ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔၏ ဝက္ဘ္ဆိုက္ (sapowernetworks.com.au) ၌ အမည္စာရင္း ေပးသြင္းႏိုင္ပါသည္။

ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔သည္ လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အားကို ဆက္လက္ေပးေနႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ ႀကိဳတင္စီစဥ္လုပ္ရသည့္အလုပ္မ်ားကို လုပ္ကိုင္ရန္လိုအပ္ၿပီး ဤအလုပ္မ်ားသည္ သင္တို႔အတြက္ အဆင္မေျပမႈ႐ိွႏိုင္မည္ကို သိေသာ္ျငားလည္း သင့္အိမ္ သို႔မဟုတ္ သင့္လုပ္ခြင္ကို အခ်ိန္ကာလာၾကာျမင့္စြာ ေထာက္ပံ့ေပးေနႏိုင္ရန္ ေသခ်ာမႈေစေရးတြင္ ယင္းအလုပ္မ်ားက ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔အား အေထာက္အကူျပဳပါသည္။ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔သည္ တစ္ဘက္၌ လွ်ပ္စစ္မီးမ်ား ဆက္လက္႐ိွေနရန္ လိုအပ္ေသာ မလုပ္မျဖစ္လုပ္ရမည့္အလုပ္မ်ား လုပ္ေနျခင္းကိစၥႏွင့္ အျခားတစ္ဘက္၌ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔အေနႏွင့္ ေျပာင္းလြယ္ျပင္လြယ္ျဖစ္ျခင္း၊ လူမ်ားအေပၚ အကိ်ဳးသက္ေရာက္မႈမ်ားကို ေလ်ာ့နည္းေစျခင္းကိစၥ၊ ယင္းကိစၥႏွစ္ရပ္ကို အေကာင္္းဆံုး ဟန္ခ်က္ညီညီ ထိန္းညိႇလုပ္ကိုင္ေနပါသည္။

အကယ္၍ သင္ဖ်ားနာေနပါက သို႔မဟုတ္ မိမိကုိယ္မိမိ သီးသန္႔ခဲြေနပါက ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို႔၏ ဝန္ထမ္းမ်ား သင့္အိမ္ရာအတြင္းသို႔ မဝင္ေရာက္မီ ၎တို႔အား ႀကိဳတင္ေျပာပါ။

Cantonese

我們在努力確保員工的健康和福祉，以便能繼續為南澳民眾提供所需的電力。

我們正盡一切可能讓人們在這個艱難的時期獲得安全、可靠的電力供應。

您可在我們的網站 (sapowernetworks.com.au) 登記瞭解最新的斷電詳情，並在斷電會對您造成影響時接收短信或電郵通知。

我們需要提前規劃來維持供電。儘管我們知道這可能會帶來不便，但它可以幫助我們確保我們可以為您長期在家或工作場所提供所需的支援。

我們正盡最大努力保持靈活，在完成基本供電所需工作的同時，最大限度地減少對民眾的影響。

在我們的員工進入您的物業之前，請告訴他們您是否患病或正在自我隔離。

French

Nous travaillons dur pour assurer le bien-être et la santé de notre personnel, afin que nous puissions continuer à garder le courant pour les habitants de l’Australie-Méridionale.

Nous faisons tout notre possible pour continuer à fournir un approvisionnement en électricité sûr et fiable pendant cette période difficile.

Vous pouvez vous inscrire sur notre site web (sapowernetworks.com.au) pour les mises à jour des pannes et recevoir un SMS ou un e-mail en ce qui concerne les pannes de courant affectant votre propriété.

Nous devons effectuer des travaux planifiés pour maintenir l’approvisionnement, et même si nous savons que cela peut être gênant, cela nous aide à nous assurer que nous pouvons vous soutenir à la maison ou au travail sur une période prolongée. Nous faisons de notre mieux pour être flexibles et minimiser l'impact sur les personnes, tout en équilibrant le travail essentiel requis pour garder les lumières allumées.

Veuillez informer nos employés si vous êtes malade ou en quarantaine avant d'entrer dans votre propriété.

Greek

Εργαζόμαστε με επιμονή για να εξασφαλίσουμε την ευημερία και την υγεία του προσωπικού μας, ώστε να διασφαλίσουμε την συνεχή παροχή ηλεκτρικού ρεύματος στους κατοίκους της Νότιας Αυστραλίας.

Κάνουμε ό, τι μπορούμε για να συνεχίσουμε την παροχή μιας ασφαλής και αξιόπιστης παροχής ηλεκτρικού ρεύματος σ’ από αυτή τη δύσκολη περίοδο.

Μπορείτε να εγγραφείτε στην ιστοσελίδα μας (sapowernetworks.com.au) για ενημερώσεις σχετικά με διακοπές ρεύματος και να λαβένετε ένα μήνυμα SMS ή ένα μήνυμα μέσω ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου σχετικά με διακοπή ρεύματος που θα επηρεάζει την ιδιοκτησία σας.

Χρειάζεται να κάνουμε προγραμματισμένες εργασίες για να διατηρήσουμε την παροχή και, αν και γνωρίζουμε ότι αυτό μπορεί να είναι ενοχλητικό, μας βοηθά να σιγουρέψουμε ότι μπορούμε να σας υποστηρίξουμε στο σπίτι ή στο χώρο εργασίας για μεγάλο χρονικό διάστημα. Κάνουμε το καλύτερο δυνατό να είμαστε ευέλικτοι και να ελαχιστοποιούμε τις επιπτώσεις στους κατοίκους, ενώ παράλληλα εξισορροπούμε τις απαραίτητες εργασίες που απαιτούνται με τη διατήρηση της παροχής ηλεκτρισμού.

Παρακαλούμε ενημερώστε τους υπαλλήλους μας εάν είστε άρρωστοι ή σε αυτο-απομόνωσι πριν εισέλθουν στην ιδιοκτησία σας.

Hindi

हम अपने कर्मचारियों का कल्याण और स्वास्थ्य सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कड़ी मेहनत कर रहे हैं, ताकि दक्षिण ऑस्ट्रेलिया के लोगों के लिए बिजली की आपूर्ति जारी रखी जा सके।

हम इस चुनौती भरे समय में बिजली की सुरक्षित और भरोसेमंद आपूर्ति जारी रखने के लिए यथासंभव सब कुछ कर रहे हैं।

आप आउटेज के बारे में नवीनतम जानकारी प्राप्त करने के लिए के लिए हमारी वेबसाइट (sapowernetworks.com.au) पर साइन-अप कर सकते/सकती हैं और अपनी संपत्ति को प्रभावित करने वाले पावर आउटेज के बारे में एसएमएस या ईमेल प्राप्त कर सकते/सकती हैं।

हमें आपूर्ति बनाए रखने के लिए नियोजित कार्य करने की आवश्यकता होती है, और हालांकि हमें यह पता है कि इसके कारण असुविधा हो सकती है, परंतु इस इससे हमें घर या कार्यस्थल में विस्तारित अवधि के लिए आपको समर्थन देना सुनिश्चित करने में सहायता मिलती है। हम बत्तियों को जलाए रखने के आवश्यक काम को संतुलित करते हुए लोगों पर पड़ने वाले प्रभाव को कम से कम करने के लिए अनुकूल बने रहने की अपनी पूरी कोशिश कर रहे हैं।

यदि आप बीमार या एकाँतवास में हैं, तो कृपया हमारे कर्मचारियों को अपनी संपत्ति में प्रवेश करने से पहले बताएँ।

Italian

Stiamo lavorando alacremente per tutelare il benessere e la salute del nostro personale, così da poter continuare a portare elettricità ai cittadini del South Australia.

Stiamo facendo tutto il possibile per continuare a garantire la sicurezza e l’affidabilità della fornitura di energia elettrica in questi tempi difficili.

Visita il nostro sito Internet (sapowernetworks.com.au) per aggiornamenti sulle interruzioni nella fornitura della corrente elettrica e per ricevere comunicazioni su interruzioni che interessano il tuo domicilio tramite SMS o posta elettronica.

Per garantire la continuità della fornitura dobbiamo eseguire opere già programmate. Ci rendiamo conto che la cosa può creare disagi, ma questi lavori ci consentono di esserti di supporto al lavoro e a casa nel lungo periodo. Stiamo facendo del nostro meglio per garantire flessibilità e ridurre al minimo le ripercussioni sui clienti, tut al contempo la nostra capacità di eseguire lavori essenziali per garantire la continuità della fornitura di elettricità.

Se non ti senti bene o sei in quarantena (auto isolamento), ti preghiamo di informare i nostri addetti prima dell’ingresso nel tuo domicilio.

Mandarin

我们一直在努力确保我们员工的健康和福祉，从而能够继续为南澳人民提供所需的电力。

我们正尽一切可能让人们在这个艰难的时期能获得安全、可靠的电力供应。

您可在我们的网站 (sapowernetworks.com.au) 登记了解最新的断电详情，并在断电会对您造成影响时接收短信或电子邮件通知。

我们需要提前规划来维持供电。尽管我们知道这可能会带来不便，但它可以帮助我们确保我们为您长期在家或工作场所提供所需的支持。

我们正在尽最大努力，尽可能地保持灵活，以便在完成基本供电所需工作的同时，最大程度地减少对人们的影响。

在我们的员工进入您的物业之前，请告诉他们您是否患病或正在自我隔离。

Pitjatjantjara

Pulkarala warkarinyi nganampa warkaripai tjuta atunymankunytjaku, munula warka pulka palyani, pawa ala ngaranytjaku anangu South Australiala nyinantja tjutaku.

Kuwari panya ara witu-witu nguwanpa ngaranyi uwankaraku.

Nganana pulkara warkarinyi pawa rawa ala ngaranytjaku anangu uwankaraku.

Nyuntu mukuringkula website nyawa (sapowernetworks.com.au) munu ini tjunama kala sms or email iyalku nyuntulakutu, tjakultjunkuku pawa yaalara patintjatjara.

Nganana warka pulka palyara kuranyakutu nyanganyi. Munula kutjupara pawa patira warka kutjupa-kutjupa tjuta palyalku. Kutjupara warka nyanga purunypa taimingka waintaripai, palu nganana pulkara warkarinyi warpungkula palyanytjikitja nyuntumpa pawa, munu tili titutjara ala ngaranytjaku.

Nganampa warkaripai walingka tjarpanytja kuwaripangka tjalkutjura nyuntu pikatjara nyinanyangka munta nyuntu pikangkatawara mauntalpa nyinanyi.

Somali

Aad baan u shaqeynaynaa si aan u hubino caafimaadka iyo fiyoobaanta shaqaalaheena, saa daraadeed, si aan u sii wadi karno inaanu xoogga korontada ugu sii heyno dadka South Australia.

Waxaanu sameynaynaa wax kasta oo aan awoodno si siinta xoogga korontada ee laysku haleyn karo ammaana ah wakhtigan loolanka leh.

Waxaad iska qori kartaa website keena (sapowernetworks.com.au) wixii ah akhbaartii ugu danbeysay ee maqnaanshaha korontada ah iyo inaad heshid SMS ama iimeyl ku saabsan maqnaanshaha korontada saameynaysa gurigaaga.

Waxaan u baahan nahay inaan sameyno shaqo qorshe leh si aan u sii wadno bixinta korontada iyo anagoo og inay noqon karto waxaan habooneyn, waxay naga caawineysaa inaan hubino inaan guriga kugu taageeri karno ama goobta shaqada xili la sii kordhiyey. Waxaan sameynaynaa sida ugu fiican ee aan ku noqon karno kuwo u jajaban oo ka yareeyo saameynta dadka , anagoo dheelitireyna shaqada muhiimka ah ee loo baahan yahay si nalku uu u sii shidnaado.

Fadlan u sheeg shaqaalaheena haddii aad jiran tahay ama aad isgooniyeelayso ka hor intayan soo gelin gurigaaga.

Vietnamese

Chúng tôi đang cố gắng đảm bảo sự an vui và sức khỏe cho những nhân viên của mình, để chúng tôi có thể tiếp tục cung cấp năng lượng cho người dân Nam Úc.

Chúng tôi đang làm mọi điều có thể để tiếp tục cung cấp nguồn điện an toàn, đáng tin cậy trong thời gian đầy thử thách này.

Quý vị có thể đăng ký trên trang mạng của chúng tôi (sapowernetworks.com.au) để được cập nhật về những lần cúp điện và nhận SMS hoặc email về những lần cúp điện gây ảnh hưởng đến tài sản của quý vị.

Chúng tôi cần thực hiện công việc theo kế hoạch để duy trì nguồn cung và, trong khi chúng tôi biết điều đó có thể gây bất tiện, nó giúp chúng tôi đảm bảo rằng chúng tôi có thể hỗ trợ quý vị tại nhà hoặc tại nơi làm việc trong thời gian dài. Chúng tôi đang làm hết sức mình để linh hoạt và giảm thiểu tác động đến mọi người, đồng thời cân bằng những công việc thiết yếu cần thiết để giữ sáng những ngọn đèn.

Hãy vui lòng cho nhân viên của chúng tôi biết nếu quý vị đang bị bệnh (ốm) hoặc đang tự cách ly trước khi họ vào nhà của quý vị.

During these unprecedented times of uncertainty, energy networks want customers to know they are doing everything they can to keep the power on, gas flowing and the energy system safe and reliable.

There is a need to continue critical maintenance to protect lives, prevent damage to properties and keep the power on for the future.

Referred to as a planned outage, this critical preventive maintenance is needed to ensure customers continue to receive a reliable supply of energy. It means that the supply of electricity or gas will sometimes be temporarily interrupted so the work can be done safely and efficiently.

Energy Networks Australia has released a video explaining why this critical maintenance is undertaken.

Every one of us has a role to play in helping our community and State get through this Coronavirus pandemic.

At SA Power Networks, we are balancing the need to ensure we keep our community and people safe, with the need to help keep the State running.

Our organisation is well versed in emergency management and response and we have robust business continuity plans in place for our field crew and office-based teams (many of whom are working from home).

We also have essential equipment and key personnel based at strategic locations, and we’re working closely with our suppliers to ensure we have what we need to continue to provide our essential services.

We are keeping our people informed and connected through regular communications and are supporting our leaders in managing dispersed teams in the current changing environment.

We continue to take advice from medical experts to shape how we manage our operations and safely deliver services to our customers during this time.

We have instructed our people who are in the field working on our physical assets to observe appropriate social distancing and hygiene protocols to safely manage interactions with customers.

We will continue to undertake planned work, as it is critical to maintaining a reliable electricity network. However, we are reviewing the amount of work we do and how we communicate with customers so we can minimise the impact of associated power interruptions.

Like everyone, this is our first experience of a pandemic. We are learning as we go and we are responding as the situation changes.

If we need to adjust or change things we will, but safety of our people and helping our community get through this pandemic are our priorities.

Rob Stobbe

Today the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) issued a statement calling on energy businesses to put customers first during the current global health crisis.

Launching the Statement of Expectations of energy businesses: Protecting consumers and the energy market during COVID-19 the AER has reiterated that energy is an essential service and that the energy market has an important role to play in protecting and supporting businesses and the community through the COVID-19 pandemic and our recovery.

Key AER expectations include:

• that energy retailers offer payment plans or hardship arrangements to all residential and small business customers who indicate they may be in financial stress, regardless of whether the customer meets the ‘usual’ criteria for that assistance;
• no disconnection of any residential or small business customers who may be in financial stress (without their agreement) before 31 July 2020 and potentially beyond;
• deferring referrals of customers to debt collection agencies for recovery actions, or credit default listing until at least 31 July 2020; and
• waiving disconnection, reconnection and/or contract break fees for small businesses that have ceased operation, along with daily supply charges to retailers, during any period of disconnection until at least 31 July 2020.

You can read the full media release here.

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation continues to evolve, we want to let you know that we are working to protect the health and wellbeing of our people and community, and ensure we can continue to deliver electricity distribution services to customers across South Australia.

Over the past month, we have undertaken significant work to ensure that we can continue operations if the COVID-19 outbreak escalates in South Australia.

Our priorities remain:

• The wellbeing of our people and our customers; and 
• Maintaining electricity supply and critical services over an extended period.

As a business, we are well-versed in emergency response and have robust business continuity plans in place.  

We are adopting social distancing strategies and hygiene protocols to safely manage interactions with our workforce and customers, and are encouraging our industry partners to do the same.

Our approach reflects this evolving situation and is consistent with action being taken by State and Federal governments as well as the latest expert medical advice of Australian and international health authorities.  

We are confident that the steps we are taking will result in minimal impacts to essential services, such as emergency outage response. 

We will continue to have crews available 24/7 for emergency response including responding to fallen wires and power outages.

It is essential our crews stay safe to keep the power on across the state, so we ask our customers to help by following a few precautions.

When reporting faults, please notify us if anyone at the property is self-isolating or quarantined or has been in contact with anyone who has a confirmed case of coronavirus.

Customers can also report power outages online 24/7 and let us know in the comments whether there are any infections in the household or not.

The alert to our crews does not mean we will not attend the fault reports, it is simply extra information for our crews to manage risk.

Planned maintenance on our network will continue to be a daily part of our operations. This program is important to ensure that we can keep the power on and minimise the risk of unplanned power outages.

The best way to keep up-to-date about power outages affecting your property, including any cancellations or changes, is via the free SMS and email messages. If you aren’t already registered you can do so at outage updates.

Our focus is being able to maintain customers supply now, and over the coming months, and keeping both our crews and the South Australian public safe, well and healthy.