Heads roll over NT blackout
The NT Government has fired the bosses of both Power and Water Corporation and Territory Generation over their “unacceptable” response to an eight-hour blackout in Alice Springs.
Territory Generation CEO Tim Duignan and Power and Water CEO Michael Thomson have been sacked after the territory saw its second mass outage in Alice Springs in as many weeks.
“The independent inquiry into this found an unacceptable level of preparedness for this incident,” Chief Minister Michael Gunner said.
“No work had been done essentially for when this occurred to know how to respond to it in terms of role-playing, having the right procedures in place, or knowing how do you respond to this when it happens.
“That led to the confusion and delays in getting the power back on.
“All of this is unacceptable, which is why we acted swiftly and decisively because the people of Alice Springs do deserve to have their power on and know the people who manage that power will look after them in a time of crisis.”
Renewables, Energy and Essential Services Minister Dale Wakefield has issued a statement saying the investigation found “a number of key failures caused the system black event and delayed the restoration of power”.
The failures were “technical, complex and involve both equipment failure and human error”, the review found.
Ms Wakefield said the CEOs assured the Government about issues in the Alice Springs power network, but they were not accurate.
“That's why the Government has acted swiftly and decisively to ensure similar incidents don't occur again,” she said.
“This swift and decisive action is only possible when our public power assets remain in public hands.”
David Brown and Djuna Pollard have been appointed acting CEOs of Territory Generation and Power and Water Corporation, respectively.
Non-government MLAs have called for Ms Wakefield to be sacked as well.