WRITTEN QUESTIONS
9th Assembly

23/10/2002

27. Underground Power Priority Areas

Mr dunham to SPEAKER for Essential Services

QUESTION

The Chief Minister has said that the program to underground power has been staged on the basis of the highest priority going to areas with the highest power outages.

How many outages, and for what duration, did each of the 13 suburbs of Darwin currently with overhead power lines have for the year 2001/2002?

List in order of priority the suburbs to have their power placed underground.

By what date will each suburb have their power placed underground?

What does the term, used by the Chief Minister, ‘preferred households’ mean when responding to a comment from the Leader of the Opposition? (Hansard Question Time on 13 August 2002)?

ANSWER

Answered on 12/02/2003

H:\EXEC\CLRK_ASS\Wqst9ass\Wqstsans\Aqsts27.doc
The Undergrounding Power Project is to commence in the 2003 Dry Season in the suburbs of Nightcliff and Rapid Creek. It has been determined, based on reliability data for the 12 months to September 2002 that the Nightcliff feeder supplying the suburbs of Nightcliff, Rapid Creek and Alawa has the most customers (2680) affected by outages. The total number and duration of outages (14,822 customer hours) in these suburbs are amongst the highest in the Darwin region and hence these suburbs have been ranked as the areas most likely to benefit from undergrounding. The program of works for the remaining suburbs will be considered at a later date as priorities are likely to change in view of other ongoing maintenance programs undertaken by Power and Water ie tree trimming, tree replacement program, etc.

The timeframe for the project is 20 years with Nightcliff and Rapid Creek expected to take three to four years.

The term "preferred households" refers to those 8,958 urban residential lots (or approximately 16,000 customers) in Darwin's Northern Suburbs which make up the overall undergrounding program.