Charlie Casa here this morning from Ergon Energy.

Just here to give you an update on the Douglas Shire power supply upgrade.

So work's progressing well at the Mosman Substation. We've built the new buildings. We've bought the new transformer in.

What you will see over the next few months is work being done also at Mount Molloy and at Craiglea. And that's all part of this project to make sure that we set up the Douglas Shire and the surrounding areas for the future.

For Mossman, it's a completely new substation, basically removing the old site and rebuilding the whole site. So you'll have all new transformers, new equipment, the latest technology.

At Mount Molloy, we're actually breaking sections of the powerline up so that we can improve the reliability of supply.

And also at Craiglea at our zone substation there, we're also doing some further works there as part of the integrated program for the three sites all to work together.

So the antenna is obviously to bring Mossman across to the 132,000-volt network, which is a much more reliable transmission network than the old wood pole 66,000-volt lines that we have.

We will be able to actually integrate both Craiglea and Mossman substations into the supply. And currently, although people might not know it, but most of Mossman area has actually been fed from the Craiglea substation, which is one of the early stages of this project.

So it does give us a lot more flexibility, will give us the ability to, you know, get the power back on sooner rather than later when something major does happen on that transmission network.

Some customers will experience some outages as we do the work unfortunately, but as I say, it's a short-term pain for the long-term gain.

Everybody's had to work together. You know, we've had the local crews do some parts, transmission lines crews have had to replace sections of line all the way from Turkinje, which is to the south of Mareeba to here.

We've put in new optic fibre to allow the substations to communicate. We've had the substations crews here working full-time, connecting the equipment and we've had contractors come in and actually do some of the civil works.

When you're lifting large transformers and moving, you know, large equipment, it's not just a quick job. The weather's obviously held us up a little bit, but everything's on track for completion towards the end of this year.

The most important part for us is that, you know, it's all about the future. What we're doing today will set us up for the next, you know, 30-40, fifty years. As the area grows, we'll be ready for it.