If you’re one of the 2,324 greater Caloundra locals braving the heat without power this evening, we get it – scrolling is probably all you’ve got the energy for without an air conditioner.
With the mercury soaring to a blistering 37°C across greater Caloundra today, Energex crews are working this evening to tackle four major outages across the Sunshine Coast.
Alongside the 2,324 affected in Meridan Plains, Currimundi, and Little Mountain, another 1,053 in Palmview, 1,436 in Mountain Creek, and 82 in Buderim are sweating it out with you.
And the outage map continues to light up like a Christmas tree across Queensland.
An Energex spokesperson told The Aura Post crews were “on the ground patrolling” in the affected area but were as yet unable to find the fault.
“They are working to fix the issue and hoping there’s not another secondary fault,” the spokesperson said.
“We have trees down, storm damage and crews out all the way up and down the state.
“There are a lot of problems.”
But the spokesperson said it was too early to put the outage down to a grid overload.
“Obviously this is what people are fearing, but at this stage we have no reason to believe that it is grid overload related.”
Either way, the completion of the $109.75 million SunSouth Power Project – which will include 18km of new powerlines and underground cable from a new substation at Bells Creek to Meridan Plains – can’t come soon enough.
Energex has confirmed the project will bolster power to the rapidly growing communities in the Sunshine Coast’s southern regions and cater for increased load drawn from existing properties in the Caloundra area.
“Once the new Bells Creek substation comes online it will take significant load off the existing Caloundra substation and will be beneficial during severe weather events – allowing our technical staff to divert power between both areas, enabling faster restoration if storms or other unexpected issues interrupt supply,” an Energex spokesperson said.
The substation is due for commissioning in early 2027.
