A network operator has warned a massive spike in power consumption from houses transitioning off gas has led to undervoltage.
CitiPower says undervoltage is a growing problem, exacerbated by more Victorians getting off gas.
The network operator, which distributes power to more than 300,000 customers in metropolitan Melbourne, says smart meter analysis shows the average energy consumption on cold days has jumped fourfold for customers who have removed gas connections and electrified their homes.
Complaints received by the operator include customers being unable to heat or cool their homes, EV chargers not working, and broken or malfunctioning appliances.
alsotheabyss on
Worth reading the AER’s September 2025 draft decision on CitiPower’s access arrangement. Their commentary has not aged well.
damnyouspacemonkey on
Citipower complaining to justify more capex (this is how they make money). Luckily the government just subsidised the fuck out of batteries for the last 6 months, with the potential to dramatically alleviate the problem (but DNSPs like citipower won’t pay you for this, rather build their own stuff and charge you for it)
anaussiemusicfan on
Haven’t power companies been complaining for years that rooftop solar has been resulting in over voltage? And that’s why they were going to start charging us for power export? Make up your minds.
WretchedMisteak on
>The AER has previously declined a similar proposal, arguing CitiPower had overstated the impacts of undervoltage.
>Victoria Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain said the issue of undervoltage came amid Victoria’s energy transition, with households encouraged to move away from gas.
>But he said undervoltage was not yet a major cause for concern.
>”This is not yet a widespread problem,” Professor Mountain said.
>”I think it’s a matter of understanding how the evolution of these demands and battery and solar and the simultaneous use of all of these will occur, and we have yet to see how that’s going to take place.”
So is it an issue or not. Citi power say it is and have data to back it up, AER say otherwise while residents stuck in the middle.
HeftyArgument on
how’s that gas led recovery going for ya?
trust the liberals to take a global disaster and sell it as an opportunity to line the pockets of their mates.
xlr8_87 on
Meanwhile, the house I’m building just paid $400k to Citipower just to get the supply of power this house requires. No typo on that figure – its a very big house and thats only a small percentage of build cost
Red_Wolf_2 on
Oh I’ve had this issue since September last year… Supply voltage regularly dropping below spec, even on bright sunny days (and I have my own solar system too).
Citipower tried load rebalancing across the phases and investigated retapping the existing local step-down transformer, but reality is a new pole transformer needs to be installed to take off the local 20kV lines to address the issue as otherwise the fluctuations are too wide.
Total time to get it sorted? Maybe nine months to a year… It isn’t an easy thing to fix, and it is EXPENSIVE, not to mention grid improvements have been impacted by destruction of assets in places like Harcourt and other bushfire affected areas.
ThePositiveApplePie on
Glad we privatised our energy grid
Suspekt7 on
I’ve had this issue for ages and never knew it was undervoltage. Wow
ihlaking on
We’re mobilising our apartment buildings in North Melbourne for this. We have two blocks of mid century apartments and want to get solar/induction etc, but wattage from the street (and wiring into the buildings) isn’t sufficient.
It’s a big project we’ve just started out on. This is timely for our conversations!
11 Comments
A network operator has warned a massive spike in power consumption from houses transitioning off gas has led to undervoltage.
CitiPower says undervoltage is a growing problem, exacerbated by more Victorians getting off gas.
The network operator, which distributes power to more than 300,000 customers in metropolitan Melbourne, says smart meter analysis shows the average energy consumption on cold days has jumped fourfold for customers who have removed gas connections and electrified their homes.
Complaints received by the operator include customers being unable to heat or cool their homes, EV chargers not working, and broken or malfunctioning appliances.
Worth reading the AER’s September 2025 draft decision on CitiPower’s access arrangement. Their commentary has not aged well.
Citipower complaining to justify more capex (this is how they make money). Luckily the government just subsidised the fuck out of batteries for the last 6 months, with the potential to dramatically alleviate the problem (but DNSPs like citipower won’t pay you for this, rather build their own stuff and charge you for it)
Haven’t power companies been complaining for years that rooftop solar has been resulting in over voltage? And that’s why they were going to start charging us for power export? Make up your minds.
>The AER has previously declined a similar proposal, arguing CitiPower had overstated the impacts of undervoltage.
>Victoria Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain said the issue of undervoltage came amid Victoria’s energy transition, with households encouraged to move away from gas.
>But he said undervoltage was not yet a major cause for concern.
>”This is not yet a widespread problem,” Professor Mountain said.
>”I think it’s a matter of understanding how the evolution of these demands and battery and solar and the simultaneous use of all of these will occur, and we have yet to see how that’s going to take place.”
So is it an issue or not. Citi power say it is and have data to back it up, AER say otherwise while residents stuck in the middle.
how’s that gas led recovery going for ya?
trust the liberals to take a global disaster and sell it as an opportunity to line the pockets of their mates.
Meanwhile, the house I’m building just paid $400k to Citipower just to get the supply of power this house requires. No typo on that figure – its a very big house and thats only a small percentage of build cost
Oh I’ve had this issue since September last year… Supply voltage regularly dropping below spec, even on bright sunny days (and I have my own solar system too).
Citipower tried load rebalancing across the phases and investigated retapping the existing local step-down transformer, but reality is a new pole transformer needs to be installed to take off the local 20kV lines to address the issue as otherwise the fluctuations are too wide.
Total time to get it sorted? Maybe nine months to a year… It isn’t an easy thing to fix, and it is EXPENSIVE, not to mention grid improvements have been impacted by destruction of assets in places like Harcourt and other bushfire affected areas.
Glad we privatised our energy grid
I’ve had this issue for ages and never knew it was undervoltage. Wow
We’re mobilising our apartment buildings in North Melbourne for this. We have two blocks of mid century apartments and want to get solar/induction etc, but wattage from the street (and wiring into the buildings) isn’t sufficient.
It’s a big project we’ve just started out on. This is timely for our conversations!