Storm damage: Auditor blows whistle on power grid maintenance scandals

AN Adelaide man tasked with auditing the power grid has blown the whistle on seriously under-maintained power supply network after a storm brought down seven transmission towers in western NSW this week.

The damage blacked out Broken Hill, forcing the town on to diesel generators, shutting mines and causing other outages as far north as the Queensland border. Various people posting comments were blaming, without evidence, weather modification.

But the Adelaide man, whose name on his Facebook page is Sab Feleppa, said he had audited teams doing powerline work “a while back” and “was quickly taken to lunch and then off on a crabbing trip by the client’s project management team rather than hold the contractors to account and ask any more difficult questions… and was paid well for it.”

He said the problem was hanging more lines on “really old and crummy towers” that have seen their economic lifespan exceeded “yet strengthened by self-regulated design and construction contractors supervised by dopes without true competence.

“But they will blame the weather when these gadgets fail,” he said.

The company that commissioned Seleppa’s auditing mission apparently had “positive outcomes” in mind and “their senior execs ordered me to revise my report when tabled.
They never bothered to asked for my help again as I was seen as a ‘trouble maker’…. even after our blanket five-day SA blackouts.”

Seleppa was scathing of the industry. “The reality is no one has any idea of the bullshit that goes on in monopolised industries awash with cash funnelled by governments and provided by consumers.

“There is a huge number of examples. There is a known batch of about 350 faulty but newly installed tranformers that should be changed throughout Australia.”

He also referred to a new solar farm “built so poorly by a company that has stood over the owners by way of government green promises being held to their client’s head so that their approved variations run into tens of millions yet they are more than 12 months behind in delivery and handover.

“During construction the solar arrays didn’t align as they should have during a storm event which caused much damage and delay.

“Several purpose built ‘inverters’ failed on commissioning tests but no spares are available. Cable and civil designs are minimal and hopeful of no peak load demands to stay operational.”

He said installation techniques had also damaged underground HV cable, causing commissioning tests to fail.

“It goes on and on, but melted iceblocks are cheaper to replace. And government green ideology must be sold. I just giggle and shake my head, knowing full well the millions squandered to pay for silence would alleviate huge cost of living burden for average consumers.”