Cunderdin and Meckering network upgrade

Western Power is making a substantial investment of $5 million for the benefit of Cunderdin and Meckering residents.

We’ve been working with the Shire of Cunderdin to plan an upgrade to the town’s network assets in early 2023 and early 2024. The upgrade is focused on improving network reliability, maintaining high standards of safety, and enhancing network resilience to environmental impacts.

We’ll be replacing more than 290 poles, 47km of overhead power lines, installing LED streetlights, upgrading reclosers, and carrying out other essential maintenance concentrated within the area.

Planned network upgrades

• Switching points: Increase the number of switching points to enable network flexibility so that in the event of an outage, we can improve response times and restore power more quickly.
• Streetlight replacement: Streetlights in parts of the Meckering township will be upgraded to LED streetlights. These energy efficient replacements have a longer life than standard units and emit far less carbon than average lights.
• Overhead wire replacement: Sections of overhead wires will be replaced with covered Aerial Bundle Cable. ABC cable has improved service life due to covered aluminium conductors and clamps, and are less susceptible to environmental factors which will improve power reliability for the town.
• Recloser replacement: Old reclosers will be replaced with new electronic reclosers to enable remote switching and monitoring by network control, assisting with the capability to isolate damaged parts of the network so that, in the event of an outage, we can reduce the number of people impacted and restore connections faster.
• Wood pole replacement: Aging wood poles will be replaced to maintain safety and reliability.

The works are scheduled during the drier months to allow access to the poles. The project has been broken into stages to reduce the impact on the community, which includes limiting the number of outages at a time.  We also considered avoiding seeding/harvesting times, Christmas/New Near times when deciding on a schedule. 

Two temporary network generators are installed in Meckering town to reduce the impact of the outages.

Cunderdin and Meckering network upgrade

Work will be undertaken across the feeder line between Meckering and Cunderdin. Please refer to the map below for an overview of the work areas.

How this work may affect you

The work needs to be carried out on de-energised lines in order to ensure safety for residents and workers. This means that power outages will be required and given the volume of work, unfortunately some customers will be impacted by multiple outages.

• Customers will be notified a minimum of three business days (but typically up to 9 business days) prior to an outage that interrupts power supply. These notifications are sent to the primary account holder only. Please forward to anyone else who may be impacted by the planned outage, i.e. tenants
• While we aim to keep any disruption to a minimum, residents may notice dust, noise, and excavation work where the pole replacement are being undertaken
• Traffic management will also be in place where required
• Our teams will notify if access is needed to an individual’s property.

We are working closely with the Shire of Cunderdin to keep disruptions to a minimum.

We understand that the planned work may cause some short-term inconvenience, but we expect that these upgrades will bring improvements to reliability of power supply to the town.