Ergon Energy Year In Review

Ergon Energy Network and Energex had a busy start to the year with major flooding in North Queensland and Cyclone Alfred in South-east Queensland, but outside of disaster response they have been even busier.

Chief Operating Officer Jeff Green said the everyday work of crews and the people who support them is often forgotten, even though almost $2 billion was invested last financial year to maintain, design and build new sections on Queensland’s electricity distribution networks.

“The big events always attract a lot of attention because they lead to a lot of outages and damage, but the reality is the same crews are doing much the same work every day as part of business as usual,” Mr Green said.

“It’s just that the work is spread out over the rest of the year when they’re not responding to floods, fires, storms or cyclones.

“Last financial year we replaced more than 14,500 poles and extended the life of another 13,000 - that’s on top of nearly 19,000 new crossarms, 500km of new powerline, 338 substation and lines projects.

On top of that effort, crews also inspected 402,000 poles and 225,000 electrical assets across 38 programs of work and rectified 74,000 lines defects.

“That’s why so much focus is on checking our poles and wires and other equipment to make sure that not only are we providing reliable power to customers, but it’s being delivered safely.”

Mr Green said another $2 billion would be invested across the state’s electricity distribution networks in the 2025-26 financial year, with similar targets set as the previous year.

“We’re always ready for extreme weather events, but we are continually planning for all the things we need to deliver every day.”