Jemena Statement on ESC (Essential Services Commission) Penalties

Jemena confirms it has paid financial penalties to the Victorian Essential Services Commission (ESC) after Jemena’s Electricity Network business did not comply with regulatory requirements which set out how planned interruption information is communicated with its customers, including those customers on life support.

The penalties also relate to instances where the Group did not provide required information to life support customers and retailers within the required timeframes.

Jemena’s Executive General Manager of Networks, Shaun Reardon, apologised to impacted customers.

“Planned outages enable Jemena to safely service and maintain our electricity network across Melbourne’s north-west, however we know how crucial it is that information about these outages is communicated with our customers so they can make alternative plans, or advise us of any special needs they may have,” said Mr Reardon.

“We apologise to our customers who were impacted by these planned interruptions, and recognise we failed to appropriately notify them of planned maintenance works.

“We also recognise we did not provide a customer with information after we had received their life support registration, and that separately we did not provide information to retailers about some of our life support customers as we would normally.

“We take seriously our responsibilities for our life support customers and the role we play in providing them with clear, timely, and accurate information and we sincerely apologise to those customers who have been impacted.

Mr Reardon said Jemena had self-reported the instances of non-compliance to the ESC and that the business was critically examining its processes to understand the underlying cause behind this incident.

“We are treating this with the utmost seriousness and are already implementing a suite of changes to improve our processes.”

For more information about the Planned Interruption Notification Process visit: https://www.jemena.com.au/outages/electricity-outages/