April 9, 2014
Ergon Energy has today unveiled a new Outage Finder on its website that will help customers quickly access up-to-date information about any power supply interruptions on the network.
Chief Executive Ian McLeod said customers would find the new tool much simpler to use than the existing outage information on the website because it was presented graphically.
The system gives customers a snapshot of the key information about planned and unplanned power supply interruptions, including the cause, location and number of customers affected and an estimated restoration time once available.
Planned outages are shown in green (with a spanner); unplanned outages are indicated in orange (with a warning triangle).
“Customers will continue to receive written notice well in advance of planned outages for network maintenance and upgrades, but information also will be available on the Outage Finder for three days prior to the event and then during it as a reminder,” he said.
“For unplanned power supply interruptions, details typically will be posted on the Outage Finder within 15 minutes of power going out and will then be updated as new information comes from the field.
“This will include changes to the number of customers affected and, importantly, an estimated restoration time once crews have had a chance to assess any damage and the time required to undertake the repairs.
“The Outage Finder also will enable customers to check on any power supply interruptions that have occurred in the previous 24 hours.”
Mr McLeod said the Outage Finder had been optimised for smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.
“Customers will be able to see the general area affected by an outage on a map and then click on an icon in that area to read the relevant details for that outage,” he said.
The Outage Finder is available from the Ergon website; instructions are also available online
Mr McLeod said customers could still telephone Ergon’s National Contact Centre on 13-22-96 for details about power supply interruptions and they were encouraged to do so if they had information that could help crews identify the cause, or if their power stayed off when their neighbours’ power came back on.
He reminded customers to always call Triple Zero (000) in life-threatening situations involving power supply.
- For southburnett.com.au readers’ convenience, we have added a permanent link to the Ergon outages map to our Weather page
