Energex chief executive Gordon Jardine has told The Australian newspaper that if storms this season were as intensive as last summer’s, similar widespread blackouts were inevitable, while Ergon Energy has warned that supply interruptions would remain ‘elevated’ until the middle of next year.

Energex customers lost power for an average of six hours last financial year and the restoration of power took longer than in previous years, according to the company’s annual report tabled in state parliament this week.

While Energex supplies power to south-east Queensland, regional Queensland is covered by the Ergon Energy network. Ergon also tabled its annual report this week and it too presented a sorry tale.

Ergon predicted that its customers will face power outages with lightning and storm damage being the biggest cause of blackouts. It warned that interruptions to supply would remain a high level until August 2005 as maintenance continued.

The average Ergon customer was without power for more than nine hours in 2003-04 – up from eight hours and 25 minutes the previous year. The frequency of blackouts increased from 4.5 to 5.1 over the same period.

Ergon said the current state of the network was not allowing it to consistently meet customer expectations. While the gap was being addressed, ‘more work needs to be done’, its annual report said.

Meanwhile Premier Peter Beattie has been forced to defend his Government’s taking 95% of Energex’s profits last financial year at a time when storms were disrupting power supplies.

The Opposition is claiming the Beattie Government was responsible for the power crisis because it had taken too great a dividend from Energex, depriving it of the funds to carry out infrastructure maintenance. The Energex annual report showed $147 million of its profits last year were paid to the Treasury.

Beattie has pledged that his Government would reduce its take of Energex profits from 95 to 80% this year, but he said the corporation’s ability to maintain services had not been adversely affected.

“Profit means after you spend all your money on maintenance and looking after the network,” Mr Beattie said.

Energex’s new CEO, Gordon Jardine, described the last year as challenging, with an extraordinary combination of storms and high temperatures.

But difficult weather was not the only challenge the corporation faced. The suicide of its previous CEO, Greg Maddock, and the criminal charges laid against his replacement, Ross Dunning, also caused many problems for Energex.

The Energex report begins with a tribute to Maddock, who is described as one of life’s truly remarkable people.

“To those who worked with him or knew him, he was the epitome of a clever man as well as a genuinely good human being,” the report said.