Full Version - Essential Energy

• Large snowfalls in the Snowy Mountains, where field
crews had to shovel through snow to access Perisher
zone substation
• Bushfires in Parkes – destroying up to 8,000 hectares
of land and causing significant network damage.
Twenty six poles had to be replaced over two days
• Twenty-eight thousand lighting strikes in one night in
Orange – extra crews from across the region called in
to repair the damage.
Our decentralised workforce allows the rapid
deployment of employees and resources in
emergencies. For instance, in October 2004 field
crews from Grafton, Lismore, Ballina, Taree, Bathurst,
Orange, Parkes and Forbes joined local crews in Coffs
Harbour to quickly restore power to more than 15,000
customers following severe storms and flooding.
Independent review
In October 2004, Country Energy invited a Price
Waterhouse Coopers’ partner and consulting electrical
engineer to undertake a high level independent
assessment of our network asset management
strategy. Conducted over three months, it relied
on a mix of internal data, published information and
interviews with managers and frontline employees.
In February, the review authors reported that –
Our overall assessment is that Country Energy
is heading in the right direction. By and large the
appropriate systems and procedures are either in
place, in the process of being put in place, or there
are plans to put them in place at some stage in the
next one to two years. Clearly, there is a great deal
of work yet to be done, but we gained confidence
that Country Energy has assessed the position well,
knows what needs to be done and has plans in
place to achieve its aims (page 8).
The authors recognised benefits in our decentralised,
regional management structure, reporting that –
This allows local problems to be focused upon
by management who are close to, and should
understand local issues… While other models are
worthy of consideration we believe that the structure
currently in place has served Country Energy well
(page 65).
While we were reassured by the review’s findings,
there is still much work to be done. We recognise there
are further process improvements that we must make.
Future goals – implement review recommendations
to achieve industry leadership in network asset
management.
Better asset management
Our asset management strategies and policies are
well established, covering network planning and
development, project design and management, risk
management, reliability management, engineering
standards, safety, network operations and maintenance.
Our commitment to best practice asset management
strategies is reflected in our Network Asset
Management Plan, which employs the New South
Wales Government’s Total Asset Management System.
This plan details strategies to manage the entire
network and invest in capacity and reliability-driven
augmentation, asset maintenance, refurbishment and
demand side management. The plan applies these
strategies over the life of an asset, from construction
to replacement or disposal and has three major
elements – capital investment strategic planning, asset
renewal and replacement strategic planning and asset
maintenance strategic planning.
AMOSS
During the year, our Asset Management and Operating
Support System (AMOSS) was extended to include
details of all zone substation protection equipment.
A project is also underway to load and manage zone
substation maintenance.
The system is accessed by a wide cross section of
the business, with 1,200 registered users. Since
its deployment last year, it has proved useful as
a consolidated asset management system for all
electricity network assets. The AMOSS applications
provide automated transfer of asset data and a fieldbased
mapping application for more than 100 asset
inspectors and provides the mechanism for a further
100 design project managers to create and manage
network extension and system augmentation projects.
Production of geographic map books for field staff is
currently underway, with many field service centres
already realising the benefits of a consolidated data
source and application functionality designed to
increase field operations productivity.
Future goals – complete the geographic map books
for field crews, expand system to accommodate
gas network assets and the management of zone
substation maintenance.
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COUNTRY ENERGY ANNUAL REPORT 2004–2005