Electrical- Organising Power Supply to New Build
I have seen a few questions around organising the power supply to the build and thought I would put together some notes on how we did it for our owner builder project in the South-West of Western Australia.
So firstly I think it is helpful to clarify the difference between Synergy and Western Power as can be confusing. In Western Australia Synergy is responsible for generating and selling power whilst Western Power delivers it to your home through the network. So you will need to make an account with synergy to buy the power and raise an enquire with western power around the connection (i.e green dome to your power meter).
One thing that I was not aware of was that you don’t have to go for a temporary power supply whilst you build- what we found was that because we had the power in a meter box out the front we didn’t need to go for a temporary power supply for the build. If you have the meter box attached to the house then must go temporary power first (as house is not built to hang the box on).
Three Steps for Power Supply
1. Green Dome Installation
If the green dome has not been installed this will need to be done by submitting an application through Western Power- this is a long process and can take 12 months. Can find a link to apply here.
In our case the green dome was already installed but we had wanted to apply to increase the power supply as we were installing three phase power. So we had to apply here.
The wait times are really long, according to the website it is:
3 months to provide you with a technical assessment
4-6 months to provide you with a design and quote, depending on the complexity of your project
3 months to construct, upon payment of quote and confirmation your site is ready
For us we had to wait for the technical assessment and the design and quote and still took a year- my advice is to set a remainder for a few weeks until the time period is up to send them an email checking in. I think in this case the squeaky wheel gets the grease and I wish I had put more pressure on them as it took 12 months + and I think our application got lost.
2. Apply to Synergy for a Pernament Account
This needs to be done so they can sell you the power.
You can follow this link https://www.synergy.net.au/Your-business/Help-and-advice/Moving-premise
To find the application form(see snip below): You want to click on the New Electricity Application for a single connection.
As the picture above reads this should be processed within 3-5 days.
They will give you a P300 number, you will need to give this to your electrician so they can do the installation.
3. Electrical Contractor Installs
In case of pole out the front the electrician installs the box and pole they dig a trench to the green dome, install cable but they do not connect it as that is Western powers job, in the silver box will have to have the meter panel ready for Western Power and then cable to a mains circuit breaker, that’ll feed the house (eventually) and any other circuits you want at the box when Western Power connect the power.
The electrician will coordinate with Western power on your behalf. Once electrician is finished Western Power comes out within 5 working days in metro or 10 working days in rural areas.
Below is the picture of our finished meter box- Dans a electrician so he installed this and made a custom monument box to match our house. How great does it look. Here is a link to his business, Blue Spark Energy, if you need one installed in the South-West, he does from Dunsborough to Augusta.
Hopefully this has been interesting and useful, I look forward to provide some more updates as our build progresses