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AAP
Politics
Alex Mitchell

Workers build Broken Hill towers in power outage fix

Work continues on repairing a 3.5km section of transmissions lines in the Broken Hill region. (Supplied Transgrid/AAP PHOTOS)

Two emergency response high-voltage transmission towers are in place in Broken Hill as authorities race to avoid any further debilitating power outages.

By Sunday afternoon, two of the seven 60m-tall towers were in place and a third was nearing completion, with workers grinding around the clock to ensure rapid progress.

For the second night in a row, the far-west NSW region experienced no outages overnight on Saturday, with no load-shedding required in the evening peak period.

Severe thunderstorms on October 17 crippled the region's powerlines and faulty back-up generators left about 20,000 locals with minimal electricity for the better part of a week.

Workers repairing the damaged electricity network in Broken Hill
Severe storms wiped out powerlines, causing supply problems in NSW's far west. (HANDOUT/TRANSGRID)

Residents had also been enduring repeated brownouts, particularly throughout the evening peak when electricity supplied by multiple generators was unable to meet demand.

Essential Energy, a government-owned power infrastructure body, said load-shedding was not needed on Saturday night, but the limits of their system were being tested.

"From 4pm onwards that evening peak does start to climb, and is starting to get up there towards the limits of the generation, particularly in that Broken Hill area," Essential Energy's Mark Summers said.

He urged residents to closely monitor their power usage during the evening peak.

The town is not set to be re-connected to the national grid until November 6, as workers scramble to fix a 3.5km section of transmission line damaged in the storm.

A backup gas-fired generator had been offline for nearly a year, while a second one tripped on Monday under high power demand due to hot weather.

Trucks delivering food hampers have begun reaching the region, so locals can throw out old food that could not be kept fresh without refrigerators.

Schools are set to operate as usual on Monday.

NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe (file image)
NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe has praised residents for their resilience. (Bianca De Marchi/AAP PHOTOS)

Energy Minister Penny Sharpe, who has been in Broken Hill in recent days, praised the locals for enduring the difficult times.

"It's a very practical and resilient community in the far west … they've really had a lot of good ideas and they've had good suggestions, and they've had questions," she said.

"I thank everyone who is making any reduction in usage from 5.30pm onwards, it's really making a difference in helping us manage through this."

Premier Chris Minns announced a support package last week, entitling residential electricity account holders to $200 payments, while small and medium businesses can get $400.

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