Far West NSW was reconnected to the electricity grid weeks after the devastating storm

Far western New South Wales has been reconnected to the electricity grid more than two weeks after it was cut off.

The region from central NSW to near the Queensland border was on generators before a brief blackout on Thursday evening to get the network back on.

An outage of about 25 minutes was sufficient.

Earlier than expected

Essential Energy operations manager Mark Summers said Transgrid called on Thursday afternoon.

“Transgrid informed us that they were ready to recommission the 220 KV transmission network to Broken Hill so we had our crews on site very quickly, ready to go,” he said.

The move came a day early.

Transgrid’s head of Far West Operations, Sam Pickering, said earlier this week that the electricity grid would be reconnected on Saturday, which was five days earlier than previously expected.

It came after a storm cell downed seven power poles south of Broken Hill on October 16.

The Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement it believed a mini-tornado was to blame.

“The damage to infrastructure south of Broken Hill is consistent with such damaging wind gusts and the possible presence of a tornado,” an agency statement said.

The communities of Menindee, Wilcannia, Silverton, Broken Hill and Tibooburra were without power.

A generator was used to power the region, but last Monday the generator failed, leaving more than 10,000 people without power for up to 36 hours.

Transgrid has since issued a formal apology to the community for the impact of the outages.

Mr Summers said the four generators transported after the outage would remain in the region.

“We will ensure that we do not leave the community without some form of discharge,” he said.

Come on

The federal government announced on Thursday that affected workers would be eligible for up to 13 weeks of income support.

Transgrid is providing $500,000 in grants to community organizations and nonprofit groups in the Far West.

The state government announced last week that it would allow payments of $200 to electricity bill holders and $400 to small to medium businesses.

But the system for accessing support has not yet been created by Service NSW.

A further $200 support payment was announced on Friday for all affected residents over the age of 18.

Australia’s energy regulator and the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal are investigating energy supplier Transgrid over the power outage.