Inquiry announced into recent power outage at Broken Hill and ...
Power has been progressively restored in the far west New South Wales town as an inquiry has been announced into how the community was left without backup electricity.
Severe weather and a possible tornado knocked down seven transmission towers last week, leaving residents in Broken Hill and outlying towns without electricity for about two days and intermittent supply over the weekend.
On Monday, the town's sole backup generator "overheated" and shut down, causing a second blackout.
In a statement, power infrastructure company Transgrid says the generator is now operational, with power restored to most homes and businesses overnight.
It said additional generators are being installed to "supplement supply" to the area while emergency works will ramp up to repair the storm-damaged powerline.
"Transgrid is focused on completing construction of the new temporary powerline as soon as possible to restore a permanent electricity supply to Broken Hill and surrounding communities," a Transgrid spokesperson said.
"Transgrid apologises to residents and businesses for the prolonged outage caused by a fault to the backup generator and acknowledges the significant impacts on local communities."
Transgrid installing additional generators to supply Broken Hill region after a backup generator failed. (Supplied: Transgrid)
It was revealed on Tuesday one of two backup emergency generators for the region stopped working 12 months ago before the second failed on Monday.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said Transgrid needs to explain why a second potential generator was not repaired after failing late last year.
"We'll be ensuring there's an inquiry into how this happened so regional communities know the power will be available when there is a natural emergency," he said.
NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said it would be weeks before long-term repairs can completed on the "mangled" towers damaged during the storm.
"It is challenging and Essential [Energy] is also putting in place another 75 generators so look, everything is being thrown at this but there's probably another 24 hours of big challenges.
"We think it's unacceptable this town's been left without backup generation and we want to be holding people accountable for that but look we need to get the electricity up and running and we need to get those towers repaired, we obviously then will get to the bottom of how this happened in the first place."
Crews sent to Broken Hill region for emergency repair works. (Supplied: Transgrid)
She said the community may encounter "short load shedding, which is blackouts for small groups of people for a short period of time" while the infrastructure is being fixed.
Telecommunication services at Broken Hill have been brought back online after Monday's power outage, with connection expected to return to the remaining far west towns within 24 hours.
Telstra regional general manager, Michael Marom, said additional crews from Dubbo have been deployed to get services up and running again as quickly as possible.
The NSW government has signed off on a natural disaster declaration, with funding available to help local councils with the costs of the clean up.
