Residents in far western NSW are being told to expect an unannounced power outage for another fortnight, as fallout from a storm that destroyed transport infrastructure builds continue.

The affected area stretches more than 400 kilometers from Menindee, south of Broken Hill, to Tibooburra, near the Queensland border.

Only one of two large-scale backup generators is operational, but the single redundancy tripped Monday, leaving residents without power.

Although the generator was restored Wednesday morning, power outages continued during peak demand periods at night as limited power is shared across the city.

The State Government said more than 12,000 properties were without power in the past week, many “for prolonged periods”.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns announced government support for residents and businesses affected by the power outages on Thursday.

Each residential electricity account holder who lost power will receive $200, and small and medium-sized businesses will be eligible for grants of $400.

Basic products, fresh produce, food baskets and mobile cold rooms are distributed throughout the region.

The $4 million support package includes a $1.5 million contribution from Transgrid.

But several companies told ABC they had lost thousands of dollars since the electricity crisis began last Thursday (October 17).

Broken Hill cafe owner John Perry was unable to open the doors and estimates he threw out at least $20,000 worth of food.

“For me trying to run a business, do we run out and stock up or do we just play hour by hour because we don’t know when the power is going to go out again?”

“More should have been done”

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has begun investigating whether Transgrid breached the conditions of its license, including reliability standards.

In Parliament on Wednesday, Mr Minns pointed the finger at the big electricity company.

“The main thing here is the gas generator, the emergency power supply has not been maintained by Transgrid and has been out of service since November last year,” Mr Minns said.

But Transgrid hit back, saying the generator was operational before being taken out of service last month for renovation.

“Claims that it has been out of service since November 2023 are not accurate,” he said.

The outages generated a political storm surrounding the former coalition government’s privatization of Transgrid in 2015.

National leader Dugald Saunders said “the government was trying to hide its responsibilities”.

“It has nothing to do with privatization of assets. It has to do with a response and a lack of urgency,” Mr Saunders said.

“Given people knew there was only one generator working in Broken Hill, more should have been done in this area.”

Disruptions could last until early November

The reason for the outages could be as simple as a cloudy day, limiting home solar input to the grid throughout the day and putting pressure on the generator.

Essential Energy said this was part of the reason why load shedding occurred yesterday from 4pm, leaving properties in Broken Hill, Wilcannia, White Cliffs, Menindee and Tibooburra without power throughout the evening .

The company is responsible for distributing electricity to customers in the region.

Operations director Mark Summers said ABC disruptions would continue until at least November 6, when Transgrid’s temporary transmission infrastructure is expected to be connected to the grid.

“The current generator does not have sufficient capacity to handle this peak load,” Mr Summers said.

Four other generators are currently connected to the grid, which will cause another outage.

“A lot of what we’re putting together is putting different components together to produce a generator that’s large enough to support that load and that grid,” he said.

Residents are encouraged to clean during the day

Mr Minns arrived in Broken Hill a week after a severe storm destroyed transmission lines connecting the hinterland town to the energy grid.

It also declared an electricity supply emergency, which will remain in effect until November 10.

Residents were asked to reduce their energy consumption between 5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. local time.

They were asked to limit pressure on the network by cooking their dinners or doing laundry and dishes during the day.

Mr Summers said it was difficult to warn people in advance of a power outage.

“Yesterday we could see the fluctuations on the network and the increases were very rapid,” he said.

“We no longer have time to say, ‘Hey, customers, you’re now part of load shedding.’

Uncertain supply is expected to continue until temporary transmission towers are erected. These should be ready by November 6.