AusNet has paid penalties totalling $280,000 after allegedly failing to notify customers of two planned interruptions in March and April 2021.
AusNet penalty notices 2021 (planned interruptions)
AusNet has paid $280,000 after we issued 28 penalty notices on 30 November 2021.
We issued the penalty notices to AusNet for the alleged failure to notify customers of two planned interruptions in March and April 2021.
AusNet planned outages for maintenance purposes in Heathmont in March 2021 and Ferntree Gully in April 2021, however failed to notify 36 customers. Two of the customers' premises were registered with AusNet as requiring life support equipment that relied on electricity supply. The Heathmont outage continued for over seven hours, and the Ferntree Gully outage continued for over six hours and 30 minutes.
The Electricity Distribution Code requires distribution businesses to give customers at least four business days’ notice of planned power outages.