Around 255,000 of our customers were impacted by the severe storms in Victoria on 13 February 2024.
At 4:18pm on 13 February 2024, our Outage Tracker crashed. It remained unavailable until 9am on 21 February 2024.
We understand the frustration and inconvenience this caused our customers, who were not only left without power, but also without information.
We know we let you down and we are improving our systems so this won’t happen again.
Our commitment
In acknowledgement of our contravention of the Electricity Distribution Code of Practice, we have entered a court enforceable undertaking with the Essential Services Commission that requires us to:
- allocate an additional $2 million to the Energy Resilience Community Fund (bringing the total to $12 million) to further support customers experiencing financial hardship and building the capacity of local relief organisations. The additional $2m will be donated to the Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de Paul and Financial Counsellors Australia by 31 October 2024
- commission independent reviews of the Outage Tracker issues and our overall response to the 13 February storm event, with the reviews approved by the Essential Services Commission. In the coming months, we will publish the recommendations from these reviews and implementation deadlines, alongside our Board’s response to these
- issue a public apology via advertising in the Herald Sun and The Age newspapers
- distribute the entirety of the Fund by 31 December 2026, with any remaining funds being donated to charities approved by the Essential Services Commission within 30 days.
More information
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