Fostering connections in new neighbourhoods

When you turn on your heater or stovetop in your home, it’s usually as easy as flicking a switch, turning a dial, or pressing a button. But a lot of work happens behind the scenes to get new housing estates connected to gas so they can enjoy reliable energy supplies just like more established neighbourhoods.

No one knows this better than Jemena Gas Networks Connections Subject Matter Expert Sangeeta Biswas. It’s her job to ensure new residential properties are connected to gas supply across Jemena’s gas network, which covers around 1.4 million customers across Sydney and regional New South Wales.

“When I started with Jemena five years ago, I was astonished to learn about the amount of work, people and departments involved in connecting a home to natural gas,” she explained.

“With so many stakeholders involved, coupled with factors we can’t control such as extreme weather events and resourcing capabilities due to COVID-19, my team work hard to manage risks to getting customers on the network when they need to be connected.”

Sangeeta said communication and adequate lead-time are key to ensuring a good connection experience for customers.

“Sydney is a busy market for upcoming new estates for residential properties. Once Jemena receives the request for connecting a new residential estate from the developers or builders, then our business first needs to determine the feasibility of bringing natural gas to the area.

“To bring natural gas to a new area can involve extending our existing gas mains within close proximity of the new area and then further reticulating through the estate by laying new gas pipelines within trenches left by the builder around the new estate. Another alternative is to connect newly laid pipelines within the trenches to the nearest existing high pressure gas mains via a ‘cocon’ which acts as a regulator to drop the gas pressure down for safe residential use.

“The network extension process involves several permit applications to local councils and the Roads and Maritime Services state government department prior to carrying out the mains lay work. This end-to-end process for new housing estates can take months and is also dependent on the progress of building and any delays the developers are experiencing. Throughout the process, our contractors communicate with the builders of new estates regarding progress of the gas connection, and follow up with the building progress,” she said.

Sangeeta said she and the team are always aiming to be able to deliver to the customer’s expectation and go above and beyond wherever possible.

“I have been very fortunate to have worked with most of the various functions performed by our new gas connections team at Jemena, including connecting new customers, looking after existing customers and their retailers, through to disconnecting existing meters and services to safely enable knockdown/rebuild projects to occur. 

“My favourite part of my role is to carry out a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of a potential problem and resolving it, bringing relief for the customer involved. 2022 has been an exciting year so far with a great deal of innovations being worked on within the team to improve the way we communicate with our customers regarding their gas connection. We’re looking forward to implementing our enhanced proactive communications program soon,” she said.