Queensland's energy minister says the government are looking at "a range of measures" after the North West was hit with its second major outage this year.
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Ergon Energy confirmed more than 10,000 customers were affected by a blackout that lasted almost five hours on Wednesday afternoon, November 10 and it follows a five hour blackout which affected the entire region in April.
In parliament on Tuesday, November 16, Traeger MP Robbie Katter asked energy minister Mick di Brenni if the government would "deliver on its pre-election commitment to connect the north-west to the National Electricity Market" and whether he was aware of the cost in lost minerals and business production.
Just like the April blackout, Mr di Brenni said Wednesday's problem was a problem at APA's 242MW Diamantina Power Station, this time a fault in a transmission line in the switch yard.
"As a result I immediately stood up my department's emergency response team (and) our first priority was the 55 customers who reside in the neighbourhood and have life-support plans, meaning they require ventilators, etc," Mr di Brenni said.
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"My next step was to seek assurances about the investigation of the outage and the restoration of power."
Mr di Brenni said the fault occurred at 1.50pm and power was sequentially restored from 6.30pm.
"Reliability of the electricity supply in the Mount Isa region is a concern for householders (and) I have sought advice about a range of interim measures as we go through the consideration of the CopperString proposal," he said.
"I have looked at reinstating the 216-magwatt Mica Creek power station (which) is five decades old. To make it operational again would take probably two years. "
Mr di Brenni said the government was focused on in-confidence negotiations with CopperString, which hopes to connect the North West to the National Electricity Market.
"I am not at liberty to divulge the details of that (negotiation)," he said.
"The member asked whether we would deliver on our election commitment to support CopperString. We have. We have delivered $15.9 million to underwrite its initial development plans. We will continue to work with CopperString and other proponents to make sure that there is reliable cheap clean power in the north-west."
As for the other half of Mr Katter's question, Mr di Brenni said APA Group was a private provider of electricity to large customers.
"They engaged directly with those large customers," he said.
"Any interruptions for the large customers and any cost to them is a private matter between them and their electricity provider."
The blackout came in the week APA announced it was creating a solar farm in Mount Isa.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
