Div 5Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plans and reports

Division 5—Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plans and reports 71—Application of Division (1) This Division applies to a licensee holding a licence authorising the generation of electricity or the operation of a transmission or distribution network or a person exempted from the requirement to hold such a licence. (2) However, the Technical Regulator may grant an exemption from this Division, or specified provisions of this Division, on terms and conditions the Technical Regulator considers appropriate. 72—Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plans (1) A person to whom this Division applies who is exempted from the requirement to hold a licence must, if so required by the Technical Regulator by notice in writing— (a) prepare, maintain and periodically revise a safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan— (i) in the case of an exemption which authorises the operation of solely generating plant to which AS 5577 does not apply—dealing with matters prescribed by subregulation (2); or (ii) in any other case—dealing with matters prescribed by subregulation (2a); (b) obtain the approval of the Technical Regulator to the plan and any revision; (c) comply with the plan as approved from time to time; (d) audit from time to time the person's compliance with the plan and report the results of those audits to the Technical Regulator. (2) For the purposes of section 22(1)(c) of the Act, the following are matters that must be dealt with by a safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan of a person to whom this Division applies in relation to a licence or exemption which authorises the operation of solely generating plant to which AS 5577 does not apply: (a) the safe design, installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person; (b) the maintenance of a supply of electricity of the quality required to be maintained by or under the Act, these regulations, the person's licence or the conditions of any exemption granted to the person; (c) the implementation and conduct of safety measures and training programs for the purpose of— (i) reducing the risk of death or injury, or damage to property, arising out of the operation of electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person; (ii) ensuring that employees performing work in respect of electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person are competent and properly trained, perform their work safely and are provided with a safe system of work; (d) ensuring that contractors performing work in respect of electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person have processes and procedures for ensuring that the persons personally performing the work are competent and properly trained, perform their work safely and are provided with a safe system of work; (e) the manner in which accidents and unsafe situations are to be dealt with, reported and investigated; (f) monitoring compliance with safety and technical requirements imposed by or under the Act, these regulations, the person's licence or the conditions of any exemption granted to the person; (fa) the preparation and maintenance of an internal switching manual that complies with the switching manual prepared by the Technical Regulator under regulation 13A; (g) monitoring electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person for the purposes of identifying infrastructure that is unsafe or at risk of failing or malfunctioning; (h) monitoring and inspecting aerial lines owned or operated by the person in a bushfire risk area for the purpose of identifying risks posed by the aerial lines relating to bushfires; (i) in the case of a person who operates a transmission or distribution network— (i) monitoring compliance with requirements for vegetation clearance; (ii) the communication of information to the public for the purpose of reducing the risk of death or injury, or damage to property, arising out of the operation of electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person; (iii) the communication of information to existing and potential customers about the facilities that customers must provide for connection to the network and procedures that customers must follow in order to prevent damage to or interference with the network. (2a) For the purposes of sections 22(1)(c) and 23(1)(c) of the Act, the following are matters that must be dealt with by a safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan of a person to whom this Division applies (other than a person to whom this Division applies in relation to a licence or exemption which authorises the operation of solely generating plant to which AS 5577 does not apply): (a) the preparation and maintenance of an Electricity Network Safety Management System in accordance with the requirements of AS 5577; (b) the matters prescribed in paragraphs (b), (f), (fa), (h) and (i) of subregulation (2). (3) A person to whom this Division applies must, at the request of the Technical Regulator, provide the Technical Regulator with such information and access to such officers, employees and contractors as the Technical Regulator reasonably requires for the purposes of determining whether a safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan prepared by the person is operating effectively and whether that person is complying with the plan. 73—Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management reports (1) Subject to subregulation (4), a person who operates a transmission or distribution network must, within 21 working days after the end of each month, lodge with the Technical Regulator a report— (a) stating in relation to each unplanned interruption to the supply of electricity during that month that— (i) affected the supply of electricity to customers such that the aggregate of the periods for which the customers' supply was affected exceeded 120 000 minutes; or (ii) affected for 30 minutes or more the supply of electricity to 1 or more customers with a demand of greater than 1 MVA, the following: (iii) the date, time and cause of the interruption; (iv) the number of customers affected by the interruption; (v) the time taken to restore supply to all of the customers affected; (vi) the time taken to restore supply to the majority of the customers affected; (b) stating in relation to all unplanned interruptions to the supply of electricity during that month and in relation to each region as defined by the Technical Regulator— (i) the aggregate of the periods for which customers' supply was affected by the interruptions; and (ii) the average time taken to restore supply to all of the customers affected. (2) Subregulation (1) does not apply in relation to— (a) an interruption to the supply of electricity to a customer if the interruption was in accordance with an interruptible or curtailable supply contract with the customer; or (b) an interruption to the supply of electricity to a customer that occurred at the request of the customer or that was caused by the customer; or (c) an interruption that was rectified by an automatic supply restoration operation. (3) Subject to subregulation (4), a person who owns or operates electricity infrastructure must, on or before 31 August in each year, lodge with the Technical Regulator a report relating to the previous financial year containing the following information: (a) a general description of the circumstances in which electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person has failed or malfunctioned or been found to be unsafe and of the action taken to rectify, or to prevent or minimise the risk or recurrence of, the failure, malfunction or unsafe situation; (b) the total costs actually incurred to maintain, repair and replace electricity infrastructure owned or operated by the person, together with an estimate of the total costs likely to be incurred for those purposes in the financial year following that to which the report relates; (c) whether the person has been able to comply with all aspects of the person's safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan and whether the person considers the plan to have been operating effectively. (4) This regulation applies to a person exempted from the requirement to hold a licence under section 23 of the Act only to the extent specified by the Technical Regulator by notice in writing to the person (but nothing in this subregulation affects the application of this regulation (according to its terms) to a person to whom this Division applies).