The Power is Underground

Today is a big day for the household...............the power went underground and was energised. I guess the new power line has been under the ground now for about a year, but finishing off the requirements to finally move from the above ground system to undergound has been slow and tedious. All that remains to be seen of the old system at our place is the old above ground connection close to the roof.

There seem to have been so many minor and major problems, including the total reconstruction of the Casuarina sub station that basically exploded about a year ago, and meant a major diversion of resources to fixing that issue, as it impacted on about half of the Darwin population.

The most recent hiccup was the discovery, about three weeks ago, that many of the electrical boards in the household power boxes would have to be changed - why? They were made of, or contained, asbestos. I am not sure it was a big issue.......the meter board just sits there quietly doing its thing, rarely, if ever, being disturbed. At least in changing over the internal power board, we had a new digital smart meter installed, so that was some sort of improvement even if we do not get much benefit yet from that equipment. At least it does easily allow some time dependent charging among other benefits.

The whole process of undergrounding power in our suburb was supposed to be finished a year ago. And it pretty well was, but for lack of resources to finalise the process.

At least now, hopefully, with a new substation at Casuarina [it supplies us] and underground electricity cabling, that some of the wet season / storm season power outages will be significantly reduced. They will not cease..........that is almost too much to expect and 100% time supply is unrealistic here in a region well known for violent thunderstorms. But reliability should be much better.

The big cost benefit comes from power security and safety in the event of a significant storm or cyclone, often resulting in fallen power lines. Hopefully there will be reduced community costs in managing electricity through that type of event.

As for any significant change.............well, probably no. But it does make it a bit easier to grow a garden and not have to worry about the trees in the powerlines though.

As for the telephone...........another story. They were supposed to also be upgraded to an undergound system, but it seems to be still eons away. No one knows, no one can give advice and it seems to have disappeared into the behomoth that is TELSTRA. May a pox be upon them!!! Maybe it is all tied up with the National Broadband Network.........but it is a disgrace in communications, execution and customer treatment. Good old Telstra......and there is no real other option.

I am annoyed that it seems as if the new telephone system will be copper cabling. Fibre to the Premises would have really been nice, and this is becoming more common in new or refurbished developments around Australia. It seems as if Darwin will be treated to a second class system AGAIN.