Some facts about SWER lines

A regional and remote customers sub-group has been established to look at opportunities for worst served customers in the State in terms of reliability and electricity supply. One of the objectives of the group is to become better informed about the technical and economic aspects of Single Wire Earth Return (SWER) lines, the role they play in the network and the particular issues SWER customers on SWER lines face.

The extensive area serviced by our network means 70% of SA Power Networks' infrastructure delivers energy to 30% of customers. The average customer density per kilometre of distribution line in South Australia is the lowest among Australian distributors and there are customers at the edge of the grid who experience significantly lower service levels than customers closer to urban centres.

Did you know?

  • 32,115 of our customers are served on 19kV SWER feeders, whereas 820,000 customers are serviced by 11kV lines
  • 29,119 km of our network is SWER lines
  • The average number of SWER customers per km of line is 1 customer per km. In comparison there is an average of 40 customers per km of 11kV line
  • The average SWER line length per customer is 0.9km
  • The average SWER feeder length is 65km vs 20 km for 11kV
  • The average restoration time following an outage for SWER customers is 5.8 hours vs 3.1 hours for 11kV line customers
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