Power supply in Darwin's northern suburbs

18 Nov 2008

A damaged circuit breaker at the Casuarina Zone Substation (one of 26 substations) in mid September caused a power outage of 12 hours and affected more than 11,000 customers (about 14% of total customers).

As the cause of the damage needed to be investigated and new equipment ordered in, temporary repairs were made to get customers’ power back on.

However, a second outage a couple of weeks later resulted in an eight-hour loss of power for about 7,000 customers and further temporary repairs were made.

All zone substations are equipped with spare capacity. The damage at the Casuarina Zone Substation means that while it’s supplying enough power for the area, it has no spare capacity.

To ensure the substation is safe to work in while repairs are being made to it, (plus other equipment running to and from it such as transformers, feeders and powerlines) it maybe necessary to have short duration power outages – these will be advertised.

Power and Water has placed a number of generators around the northern suburbs to provide back up electricity for the area for any longer, necessary repair works and for any other unforseen event.

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