On Friday, more than 20 thousand properties across the Yorke Peninsula were without power. The fault has impacted businesses and homes since early this morning with SA Power Networks saying the blackout is a one in 10-to-15-year event caused by an issue at an ElectraNet substation. The area has experienced its driest summer in 33 years causing a built up of dust and salt on powerline equipment that led to "multiple trips" to the system.
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00:00In Moonta, the costs of the outage are already adding up for businesses.
00:06I just looked at the fridges then and just went, oh my gosh, all of that's got to go.
00:10A few customers take nearly a thousand litres of diesel just between two people, so you've
00:15lost that.
00:16Like, that's a morning trade that you're open for.
00:19Wendy Schultz's cafe in Balaclava couldn't open for trade because of the power outage.
00:23It means my staff have no work today, so they'll have no pay, and I'm really concerned about
00:29the wastage of food that will happen.
00:31Without power, local pharmacies in the town couldn't dispense prescriptions.
00:35We can do just cash sales of shop items, but yes, basically a lot of people come in from
00:41out of town, so they are looking to get their scripts straight away and can't.
00:47Provider Electronet says the outage is due to damage at the Hummocks substation near
00:51Port Wakefield, caused by a build-up of dust and salt from dry conditions.
00:56Work underway at the station, where the company says there was more damage than it originally
01:00thought that has delayed power restoration.
01:03The state's energy minister frustrated, but says he's been assured that Electronet is
01:07working hard to fix it.
01:0927,000 people without power is not acceptable.
01:14It's hot today, it's going to be hotter on the weekend.
01:17Energy is an essential service.
01:19This needs to be fixed as quickly as possible.
01:21I am assured by Electronet that power will be restored today.
01:25Power distributor SA Power Network says it expects services to be restored this evening,
01:30but that additional, smaller faults on its local network may arise.
01:33But on the York Peninsula, Wendy says they've been struggling with unreliable power for
01:38two to three weeks.
01:39Yeah, it's just a difficult day of hanging about, waiting to see what will happen.
01:44The community demanding more reliable power and better communication, as the heat hits
01:48again tomorrow.
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