Geraldton residents told to prepare for outages as Western Power starts network upgrades

Western Power has warned residents in Geraldton and surrounding areas could lose power during network upgrades. The renewals are scheduled to take place in Geraldton and Three Springs, 150km southeast of the city, between Tuesday and Friday this week. Crews will be performing maintenance on power systems to improve the network. Although the power supply will be cut off, Western Power will aim to continue powering the areas by using Synergy generators at Mungarra Power Station, 50km east of the CBD. The process, known as islanding, is used for planned and unplanned outages where residents are switched to the generator supply in an effort to avoid power outages. However, Western Power said the process was not a failsafe and warned people in the area to prepare for a potential outage by charging medical equipment, computers and phones. It said it worked closely with Synergy and AMEO to avoid any unplanned disruptions during the upgrades.