NOT one to normally complain, food store proprietor Bridget McCutchan from the Bay Gourmet Food and Wine Store in Venus Bay is hopping mad over power outages.
“Repeated power outages are costing me hundreds of dollars each time they occur,” said Bridget.
“Now AusNet is planning to shut the power down on a Sunday, our busiest trading day.”
Unplanned and planned outages are common in Venus Bay, according to Bridget.
“We received two days’ notice before the last planned outage, only to be told at the last minute it was going to be rescheduled for a Sunday.
“Each time the power is off, it costs our business $500 a day in lost sales.”
AusNet claims the planned outages are essential for routine maintenance.
Venus Bay is not connected to town water or sewerage, and a reliable power supply is essential to operate water pumps and keep toilets flushing.
Complaints about power outages are common throughout South Gippsland.
“We have a gravity-fed system, so although we lose the water pressure without the pump, we still have running water during an outage.”
“Power goes out three or four times a year, so I bought a generator.”
“Our tanks will normally slowly fill the toilet, so it can be flushed once or twice a day; last outage, it didn’t, so we used an outside tap and a bucket to fill the toilet.”
“I carry buckets from the tank to the house.”
“We live in Venus Bay and need power to run our pumps and septic.”
“I’ve seen some properties with solar panels on their water tanks.”
“The power goes out regularly unfortunately.”
A generator of sufficient size would just be too costly, according to Bridget, with some appliances at the Bay Gourmet Food and Wine Store needing three-phase power.
“No water, no toilets, no coffee machine, no cool room without power,” said Bridget.
“We would need a very large generator.
“During a storm, the power can go off without notice and take hours to be restored.”
Even planned outages are difficult to manage, according to Bridget.
Staff need to be organised and much of the stock in the cool room is perishable.
Bay Gourmet Food and Wine Store normally opens every day except Wednesday and seven days a week during summer and school holidays.
“We’ve been closed for a month to take a winter break,” said Bridget.
“The last thing we need now is to be forced to close on a Sunday.
“It’s a beautiful country town, and we have a lot of loyal customers.
“Families are starting to move in with lots of new buildings underway.”
“Everyone looks out for each other.”
According to AusNet, the maintenance works that are being undertaken in Venus Bay are essential to maintain a safe and reliable network and will also help with bushfire preparedness ahead of summer.
“Over the last few years, we’ve seen significantly more weather events impacting the network, so undertaking these types of maintenance works have become even more important,” said a spokesperson for AusNet.
“We know that it’s inconvenient to be without electricity and we thank our customers for their patience as we make these important upgrades to the network.”
AusNet has scheduled a planned outage for critical maintenance in Tarwin Lower, Pound Creek, Inverloch and Venus Bay from 8.30am to 4.30pm on September 14.
Critical maintenance has also been scheduled for Cape Paterson, Inverloch and Wonthaggi on Tuesday, September 12 and Ventnor and Cowes on Sunday, September 17. For further information on planned outages go to outagetracker.com.au/outage-list.
