Electricity giant Powercor has been awarded $3.7 million to incentivise safety after sparking some of the St Patrick's Day bushfires.
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The payment will come out of the pockets of customers.
The Australian Energy Regulator this week announced the payment under the F-factor scheme for the 2018/19 financial year.
That's just months after Powercor's electrical infrastructure caused major bushfires in the south-west on the night of March 17.
Powercor is yet to finalise payments for all bushfire victims who successfully took Supreme Court action.
Major sticking points in relation to compensation continue to be negotiated and it's expected that Powercor will be dragged back to court by lawyers for the victims.
Victims took action in relation to two of the bushfires.
The Terang/Cobden blaze was started after conductors clashed near the Terang electricity sub-station due to an anchor pole shiftin.
The Sisters/Garvoc bushfire was sparked when a rotten wooden power pole snapped in high winds.
That led to independent testing of the wooden poles on the Sparrow Spur line which revealed inadequacies in Powercor's testing regime.
During a Supreme Court trial involving The Sisters/Garvoc bushfire, it was also revealed that since the bushfires Powercor had reviewed its replacement of wooden power poles program.
That report recommended an up to eight fold increase in the number of poles that should be replaced.
Powercor has more than 550,000 poles across western Victoria and in 2017 replaced 1153 poles, despite many of the poles reaching their use-by date.
Pole No. 4 on the Sparrow Spur line sparked The Sisters bushfire.
This week it has been revealed that despite additional testing on poles across the south-west, that pole No. 3 on the same line has now been marked for replacement.
Nearby residents have raised concerns about the replacement of that pole after it's believed to have been tested a number of times since the St Patrick's Day bushfires.
The pole is in Jack Kenna's calf paddock, just outside his home.
Pole No. 4 was also on the Kenna farm.
In the 2017/18 financial year - the year of the St Patrick's Day fires, Powercor received just under $1 million to incentivise safety.
The financial year before the fires the electricity giant was awarded $5.8 million.
The Sisters dairyfarmer Jill Porter questioned why Powercor was now receiving any incentive payment.
"Surely that's part of the electrical distribution business, but we, the victims of the St Patrick's Day bushfires, understand there have been flaws in Powercor's maintenance procedures," she said.
"We are very pleased that some changes have eventually been forced through vigorous and passionate community lobbying.
"The reason behind that concerted effort has been very simple - we never want to see anyone else go through the endless trauma of being the victim of a bushfire that should never have started."
Mrs Porter said seeing pole No. 3 marked for replacement had stirred up enormous emotions in bushfire victims.
"We would request that pole is replaced as soon as possible," she said.
"That pole has been tested a number of times since the St Patrick's Day bushfires.
"It just makes us wonder how many other wooden power poles across the south-west are in a similar poor condition and need to be replaced," she said.
A Powercor spokeswoman said the distributor continued to improve how it safely operated and managed the electricity network and that was reflected in the annual results from the AER's F-factor scheme.
"Our robust pole inspection program is designed to identify when a pole needs to be upgraded or replaced and this is what has occurred in relation to pole No. 3 on the Sparrow Spur line," she said.
"In June, the pole was checked as part of our routine inspection program and we will be replacing the pole in September, ahead of the fire season.
"The settlement negotiations being managed between Powercor's insurers and lawyers for the plaintiff groups are progressing in line with the court process."
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