KNOWING how to be safe around the electricity network paid off for Steve Borley, the first winner named in Western Power’s online Storm Safe competition.
The Gosnells resident won a $1000 tree-pruning package, which he will use to help John Douglas prune trees on his Greenmount property.
Western Power’s head of operational maintenance Gair Landsborough said recent data showed the major cause of outages on the network was vegetation.
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READ NOW“Vegetation is a common cause of outages all year round but during a storm a majority of power interruptions are directly attributed to vegetation coming into contact with the network,” he said
“The May 21 storm earlier this year resulted in around 60,000 customers losing power, driven mainly by vegetation hitting the network.
“We see this in the unusually high number of hazard faults reported due to downed powerlines.”
Mr Landsborough said storm fronts with 100km/h winds increased the risk of toppling trees and breaking branches.
The competition coincided with the launch of the utility’s updated website, which features safety information, guides on working safely around the network, how to report faults and stay up to date with outage restoration times.
The website also allows customers to pinpoint and log faults.
The Storm Safe competition ends on September 11 and there are four more $1000 tree-pruning packages to be won. Visit www.westernpower.com.au.