Regional network in good hands

8 December 2011

REGIONAL NETWORK IN GOOD HANDS

Eastland Network is outperforming many of its energy peers, according to two recent reports from the Commerce Commission.

When compared to 29 other electricity distribution businesses across the nation, Eastland Network consistently featured near the top.

Eastland Network general manager Brent Stewart says it's particularly pleasing when the challenging terrain and low customer density is taken into account.

“We have a lot of kilometres of installed network over rugged country that supplies remote locations with a low customer density, making it much harder for us to feature highly in many of the performance measures, but this report highlights we are an efficient operation.”

While there were many factors considered, Mr Stewart says the two that stand out are Eastland Energy's fifth spot of the 29 businesses in the average operation expenditure per kilometre of network and 12^th spot in the average operation expenditure per connection.

“These results support our current operational and maintenance practices and validate the asset management plan we have in place,” he says.

The Commerce Commission also ranked Eastland Network in the top 10 of the 29 network businesses in terms of compliance with the requirements of asset management plans, which detail how the network will be managed over a 10-year period.

Mr Stewart says the feedback from the commission shows that the region is in good hands.