Perth power outage: Roger Cook warns of weekend-long blackouts as compensation is doubled for residents

More than 7000 West Australian homes remain without electricity on Friday morning – with Premier Roger Cook revealing it may take until the end of the weekend for power to be restored to every affected property. Those impacted by the sweeping blackouts impacting the Perth Hills, Wheatbelt and Goldfields will be eligible for $240 in compensation, double the usual extended outage payment. Hundreds of Western Power technicians are working to reconnect power lines after “unprecedented” summer storms on Tuesday and Wednesday knocked over major infrastructure, including five 50m tall towers carrying 220KV transmission lines through the Wheatbelt to Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Mr Cook said those towers had “crumpled like tinfoil” in ferocious thunderstorms that cut a swathe through the Wheatbelt on Wednesday night. The outages in Kalgoorlie were exacerbated by issues with Synergy’s backup gas generator near the Goldfields town, which Mr Cook said “tripped” when it was initially called into action. About 31,500 homes were without power as of Thursday morning, but Mr Cook said that had reduced to 7200 as of around 8.30am on Friday. “The Perth Hills still had 3500 customers without power… the Wheatbelt still has 2000 people without power and Kalgoorlie has now just 1700 people who are still without power,” Mr Cook said. “Now the Perth Hills and Wheatbelt customers, those final customers, will be reconnected over the next 48 hours and we expect the Kalgoorlie customers to be reconnected by this afternoon. “Power is back on now in most parts of the Goldfields and people have access to food, fuel and water. “Health and other critical infrastructure is also online. “Western Power made significant progress overnight and has been able to restore power to around 10,000 homes and businesses in the Goldfields area, including Kalgoorlie, Merredin and Kellerberrin town sites.” Mr Cook said it would take days for the fallen 220KV transmission towers to be repaired. In the interim, the undamaged section of that network has been connected to a 132KV line to supply electricity to Kalgoorlie. He added Synergy had carried out repairs on its backup gas turbines in west Kalgoorlie which were now also being used to feed the grid. “I’m advised that intermittent outages may occur while work on the system is being completed but authorities are confident as the Goldfield heads into what is forecast to be a very hot weekend,” Mr Cook said. A second media briefing will be held this afternoon and fronted by Energy Minister Reece Whitby and Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson as well as representatives from Synergy and Western Power. Compensation payments Mr Cook revealed a decision had already been made to double Western Power’s extended outage payment from the usual $120 to $240. The money is available to any customer who has experienced 12 or more consecutive hours without power, with Mr Cook saying it would help “with purchasing food and household items that may have perished as a result of these outages”. But Opposition leader Shane Love on Friday said the new payout figure was still a “drop in the ocean” that would not go anywhere near covering the losses of residents and businesses. “And in the case where it’s repeatedly known there’s a risk ... I think there’s a case for businesses to be properly compensated for their losses,” he said. Will it happen again? The Premier said “extreme weather events” such as the thunderstorms that triggered the blackout were expected to become more frequent and that he had directed the Energy Minister to develop a “resilience package” to safeguard homes and businesses in coastal and wooded areas as well as those “on the edge of the grid”. “We announced a three quarter of a billion-dollar upgrade to parts of the grid last year, and you’re going to see that sort of investment continuing into the future,” Mr Cook said. That investment – contained in the mid-year budget review – was headlined by a new 330KV high transmission line between Malaga and Pinjar to the north of Perth. Mr Cook said he would not immediately commit to a second transmission line out to Kalgoorlie but conceded it was clear “edge of grid communities” needed to be better protected. “That does lend support to the idea that you need to build more redundancies into the system to make sure that we’ve got other ways of reconnecting those communities,” he said. Mr Love said the widespread disruptions highlighted the vulnerability of regional communities, particularly in Kalgoorlie, where backup generators had failed when they were needed most. “I believe that what we’re seeing highlights again the need for a review of the appropriateness of power supplies to regional WA, something we called for in Opposition and in the National party after the Christmas blackouts of 2021,” he said.