SA Power Networks' role in delivering electricity to South Australians

SA Power Networks connects homes and businesses directly to the low voltage distribution network.

The electricity we deliver to our customers relies on the provision of power from an arterial source – ElectraNet’s high voltage transmission network, which carries power between regions and major centres of South Australia. It arrives at a substation, and is then fed into SA Power Networks’ distribution network, to deliver to customers.

Because we provide that connection, we have a direct line of communication with our customers, and the responsibility to give them up-to-date information about their power, especially when it goes off. If there is a fault on Electranet’s transmission network, we rely on the timely information from ElectraNet to share.

Yorke Peninsula outage – 14 March 2024:

Yesterday’s outage on the entire Peninsula was the result of a fault on ElectraNet’s transmission network.

While we waited on ElectraNet to resolve this issue, SA Power Networks’ focus was on having crews ready to safely switch our network back on, once it was being supplied by ElectraNet.

Equally, our priority was trying to keep customers informed.

We appreciate the frustration of customers, and we were relaying the information as it was received from ElectraNet as quickly as possible.

We appreciate the frustration of customers due to multiple changes in the expected restoration time, however we could only provide the information ElectraNet provided to us.

Just prior to midnight, ElectraNet restored supply and within an hour, SA Power Networks had switched all but approximately 1200 customers on. These customers are now reconnected.