Country Energy is investing $700,000 to upgrade over 15 kilometres of powerlines between Yass and Kangiara, securing the electricity supply to Kangiara and surrounding rural areas.

The major investment in the region’s essential services will improve power quality and reliability, as well as allowing for future agricultural growth through the installation of a third phase of electricity.

Country Energy’s regional general manager South Eastern, Phillip Green, said the investment was part of Country Energy’s ongoing commitment to improving service to residents across the Yass Valley.

“We’re single-minded in our drive to improve the reliability of the power network for our customers – we recognise that the electricity supply to Kangiara and region has not been as reliable as we would like, and once this project has been completed the area will benefit from a more secure energy supply,” Mr Green said.

“While crews are working in the area, we’ll take the opportunity to replace an older, manual protection mechanism, called a ‘recloser’, with a state of the art automatic model that can be accessed remotely,” Mr Green said. “This will improve the dependability of supply as well as enable a faster response time in the event of an unplanned supply interruption.”

“Reclosers allow us to work smarter as we manage our network – they can be interrogated remotely from our Queanbeyan Operations Centre should there be a problem on the network. This allows us to restore the power supply much quicker, helping prevent extended supply interruptions.”

“The Yass field crew have already started the project, using live line techniques to replace a number of power poles. By working on the electricity network while it’s energised, minimise power interruptions to our customers,” Mr Green said.

“While live line techniques will be used for some of the pole replacement work, it’s not always possible to use the practice due to public and employee safety. A number of planned interruptions will be required to finish the work safely,” Mr Green said. “Any customers to be affected by the planned interruptions will be notified individually.”

“As we work to improve the electricity supply in the area we recognise that the project’s planned supply interruptions may cause some inconvenience – we thank customers for their patience during this time.”