Div 6Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plans and reports

Division 6—Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plans and reports 48—Application of Division (1) This Division applies to a licensee holding a licence authorising the operation of a distribution system 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. 49—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 dealing with matters prescribed by subregulation (2); (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 26(1)(b) of the Act, the following are matters that must be dealt with by a safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management plan: (a) the safe design, installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of gas infrastructure owned or operated by the person; (b) the maintenance of a supply of gas 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) ensuring adequacy of the distribution system at all times of high demand on the system; (d) ensuring that gas supply is suitable for each gas installation situated in a place that will be connected or reconnected to the distribution system; (e) ensuring that an appropriate level of examination and testing of installations (including appliances) is carried out on the new connection of gas supply to a place to provide assurance of the safety of gas installations; (f) ensuring compliance with code provisions under the Essential Services Commission Act 2002 relating to metering of gas supply at delivery points; (g) monitoring compliance with code provisions under the Essential Services Commission Act 2002 relating to metering of gas supply at delivery points; (h) 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 gas infrastructure owned or operated by the person; (ii) ensuring that employees performing work in respect of gas 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; (i) ensuring that contractors performing work in respect of gas 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; (j) the manner in which accidents and unsafe situations are to be dealt with, reported and investigated; (k) 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; (l) monitoring gas infrastructure owned or operated by the person for the purposes of identifying infrastructure that is unsafe or at risk of failing or malfunctioning; (m) the establishment of indicators and the collection and recording of information to measure the person's performance in respect of matters referred to in the preceding paragraphs. (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. 50—Safety, reliability, maintenance and technical management reports (1) A person to whom this Division applies must, within 24 hours after an unplanned interruption to the supply of gas that affected the supply of gas to 5 or more but less than 100 customers, lodge with the Technical Regulator a report stating in relation to that interruption the following: (a) the date, time and cause of the interruption; (b) the number of customers affected by the interruption; (c) the locations (for example, in the case of city customers, the suburbs) of all of the customers affected; (d) the time taken to restore supply to all of the customers affected; (e) the time taken to restore supply to the majority of the customers affected. (2) A person to whom this Division applies must, within 2 hours after an unplanned interruption to the supply of gas that affected the supply of gas to 100 or more customers, lodge with the Technical Regulator a report stating in relation to that interruption the information referred to in the paragraphs of subregulation (1) that is known to the person at the time of the report. (3) Subregulations (1) and (2) do not apply in relation to— (a) an interruption to the supply of gas 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 gas to a customer that occurred at the request of the customer or that was caused by the customer. (4) A person to whom this Division applies 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 gas 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) 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. (5) In this regulation— quarter means a period of 3 months commencing 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October.