In order to recover power lines ripped away during the storms in the Otways near Apollo Bay, Powercor enlisted the services of a helicopter to fly replacement power lines over more than 500 metres of heavily treed gullies and mountainous terrain.
This unusual method of restoring power was decided upon after Powercor crews discovered the area was inaccessible by vehicle and foot.
The Victorian electricity industry has been in keen focus recently with wild wind storms affecting supplies to more than 400,000 electricity customers across the state and causing delays to restore power in some areas.
At their peak, the storms affected more than 105,000 Powercor customers throughout regions including the South West, Wimmera, Mallee, Goulburn Valley and Central Victoria.
Powercor restored all of its major outages within the first 24 hours of the storms, with some faults affecting smaller number of customers - including several hundred single-premise outages, resolved in the followingtwo days.
Regional Asset Manager Robert Learey said Powercor was able to provide field resources to help other Victorian electricity distribution businesses after first completing repairs to get all of its own customers back on supply.
"These storms caused significant impact to the state’s power supplies and we sincerely appreciated the patience and understanding of our customers as we worked through challenging conditions to get their lights back on,” Learey said.