It was a coincidence that power was lost to around 10,000 homes across Caroline Springs and Burnside last night on a day of extreme heat, according to Powercor.
It was the second time in about a week that power was out in the area during hot weather.
Powercor spokeswoman Avi Tan said the black out, which occurred around 6pm, was caused by three separate faults, including two underground.
“We rerouted power where possible and power was restored to everyone at 1.44am,” she said.
“Further works to repair the faults started at first light this morning and will continue into the day.
“We do recognise the frustration that power outages cause on particularly hot days and we apologise for the convenience.
“However, it is a coincidence that the network fault occurred on a hot day.
“Underground cables reduce the likelihood of a fault as they not are subjected to the same external conditions that overhead powerlines are, for instance stormy weather, animals on assets or trucks bringing down lines.
“However, when there’s an underground cable fault, it takes a longer time to locate and repair as they are not so easily accessible.”
One local resident Virginia said power outs were a regular occurrence when temperatures climbed above 30 degrees.
“Whatever the anomaly that cuts out the power in our areas – it needs to be addressed,” she said.
“As a major power service provider (it is) unacceptable that the west is copping more and more and longer outages.”
Powercor said in a statement on its Facebook page that on days of Total Fire Ban it was required to manually patrol the line when addressing faults “which does slow things down”.
Yesterday was not a Total Fire Ban in the Central region.
