Recruitment drive to improve power supplies

10/6/04
Western Power has embarked on a major recruitment drive to hire a record number of workers to restore Western Australian power supplies in the event of faults, storms or fire damage.
Energy Minister Eric Ripper today announced the plan to spend more than $8million over the next four years to improve response times and reliability of power supplies by recruiting more than 100 workers.
Response times would be further improved with more Western Power emergency vehicles equipped with lights and sirens, allowing repair crews to get to the scene more quickly if there is traffic congestion.
The rapid response vehicles have been trialled for the last 12 months.
Mr Ripper said the investment was part of a major program of spending on the electricity network throughout the State to improve the safety, reliability and quality of power supplies.
The Minister said Western Power had prepared a comprehensive strategy to overcome a shortage of electrical linespeople.
"Through an expanded local training intake, we hope to have many more front line workers," he said.
"They are the unsung heroes of the power supply system who work day and night, often in dangerous conditions, to restore services to WA families."
Mr Ripper said Western Power would double its annual intake of trainee linespeople to 16 and immediately recruit another 50 people for field assistant roles.
Training for linespeople would begin next month and in August for the field assistants.
The first of the field assistants would be joining metropolitan and regional linecrews about one month later and the trainee linesmen within three months.
Some of the recruits were from regional areas and they would work with regional crews.
"Line crew recruitment is one of several new measures to improve the performance of the network and cope with the increasing demand for electricity," Mr Ripper said.
"But it is easier said than done when there is a worldwide demand for experienced linespeople."
The Minister said Western Power had engaged contractors as a stop-gap measure to replace experienced people who had retired or been poached by interstate electricity utilities.
"We are pulling out all stops to address this challenge and increase the number of workers available to repair and maintain 80,000km of lines and 800,000 poles, as well as respond to emergencies," Mr Ripper said.
Training lasted up to four years, depending on existing experience.
Mr Ripper said the Government wanted more young people, particularly from country areas, to consider a career with Western Power.
The Minister said Western Power was also retraining their experienced staff to do more live-line work.
"This means that power supplies are not switched off for some works including fitting new steel cross arms to replace the wooden crossarms at risk from poletop fires," he said.
The linecrew resources are essential to improve the reliability of power supplies. Western Power has a complement of about 370 linesmen in WA (170 metro, 200 country).
Following a massive increase in the State Budget, Western Power will spend $1.8billion over the next four years to improve the performance of the electricity network.
Minister's office: 9222 8788