This weekend, almost 50 Essential Energy customers along the western side of the Coonamble main street will temporarily have their power turned off for some pre-planned maintenance on the network.

Essential Energy spokesperson Bronya Pressler said the outage will take place on Saturday (17 July) between 12pm and 4pm and would impact 49 customers.

"The planned power outage is to allow an authorised electrical contractor to complete work on Essential Energy’s network, on behalf of another customer (Coonamble Shire Council) rather than for work that Essential Energy is carrying out," Ms Pressler said.

"Essential Energy is required to provide customers with a minimum of four business days’ prior notice of planned power outages on their network, to enable customers to make alternative arrangements if necessary."

This maintenance will include connecting power to the new public toilet block in the Skillmans Lane carpark which was erected earlier this year and to the switchboard set up by the NRMA in preparation for the electric vehicle charging station expected to be installed by the end of 2021.

According to Ms Pressler, Essential Energy typically advises customers of planned power outages either via SMS to registered mobile telephones or a letter so customers are aware ahead of time.

A basic map showing the area that will be affected by the outage can be seen below.

A decent section of the local main street will be affected. Image courtesy of Essential Energy.

Ms Pressler advised any customers who hadn't yet received any notification but were concerned they might still be affected to contact Essential Energy.

To prepare for the power connection this weekend, local contractors installed a concrete slab at the site, liaising directly with Coonamble Shire Council's representative, local electrician Tony Wiatkowski.

Council's Manager for Economic Development and Growth Pip Goldsmith said Mr Wiatkowski was involved with the concreting to make sure the it could allow for the installation of the electrical conduit this weekend as part of his role managing the power connection for council.

"There are a lot of people involved, particularly with the electrical side of things - we've got a Level One, Two and Three service provider, we've got Essential Energy and we've got the contractor for Essential Energy who are managing the disconnection this Saturday," Mrs Goldsmith said.

"Because he's local, Tony's been managing most of those electrical stakeholders on behalf of Council which is a huge relief."

Mrs Goldsmith said a meter installer would come to the block after this weekend's connection to put in a meter for the block to record its usage.

"Once that's done, then the toilet block will be up and running and flushing," she said.

For more information about this and future outages on the horizon for Essential Energy, click here.