Customers who have suffered massive Damaged Hill outages will receive temporary relief on their bills as premises continue to suffer night-time power outages in sweltering conditions.
Two power companies, Origin and EnergyAustralia, have agreed to defer bills for those affected by outages that paralyzed the region for the better part of a week.
Customers will not receive free electricity, but they will not have to pay a bill for a minimum of 30 days and companies will not pursue outstanding debts.
The government had already announced a support package that entitles residential electricity account holders to payments of $200, while small and medium-sized businesses can receive $400.
Energy Minister Penny Sharpe called on smaller suppliers to also take care of customers.
“There are questions about whether you will be charged for your photo voltaic energy and for all those fixed costs… we are working on those issues,” he said.
“But I have asked all retailers to ensure that people are not charged for electricity they were unable to use.”
Damaged Hill spent its fifth consecutive night without outages on Tuesday, but about 1,800 customers in surrounding towns were without power for 90 minutes.
The outages came after severe storms on Oct. 17 damaged power lines, and faulty backup generators left 20,000 residents without power.
Repeated blackouts occurred, especially during the afternoon peak, when electricity supplied by multiple generators could not meet demand.
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But officials confirmed that rapid progress in reconnecting the region to the national network meant it would likely be online on Saturday rather than next Wednesday.
Workers have been struggling to repair a 3.5 kilometer section of transmission line damaged by the storm.
“We are now working through the process of tensioning, securing and testing the lines that supply electricity to the far west of New South Wales,” Transgrid representative Sam Pickering said.
Sharpe was not swayed by Damaged Hill Decano Tom Kennedy's suggestion that Transgrid should be fined millions of dollars if an investigation found its backup generators were faulty.
“I know the decano is very interested in all of this…we will continue to work on it, but it will take a little time,” he said.
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