ABOUT 220 homes and businesses in north Orange and the city centre endured their second blackout in two weeks on Thursday after a fault left them without power for more than two hours.
Essential Energy crews detected a fault in an underground cable between Orange Central shopping centre and the Orange North zone substation.
Essential Energy south eastern region general manager Phillip Green said businesses and homes on the northern side of Summer Street, and Orange Central shopping centre, were affected by the supply interruption.
“Attending crews from the Orange depot quickly located the fault and began making arrangements to restore power to the affected area, which included parts of Byng Street, Summer Street, Anson Street and Samson Street,” Mr Green said.
He said Essential Energy was working on several projects to improve electricity supply and reliability in the Orange central business district (CBD).
He said the company was working to improve the electricity network to ensure there were alternate options to re-route power in the event of a network fault or unplanned power interruption.
“In the Orange CBD we have an interconnecting underground and overhead network across town that provides our crews with options to get the power back on faster to our customers,” he said.
“On this occasion crews were able to reconfigure the network and power was completely restored to all customers in less than two hours.
“We regret and apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused.”
About 35 residents in Byng, Clinton and Hamer Streets experienced a blackout of several hours on May 20.
This blackout was caused by a fault at the Clinton Street substation.
tracey.prisk@ruralpress.com
