As COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) continues to spread, we are taking precautionary measures to ensure we can continue to provide power to our regional communities and reduce the spread of COVID-19.
We are doing all that we can to protect the most at risk and vulnerable members of our community, keeping our workforce, customers and communities safe during this time.
Our response plans continue to evolve and are consistent with the latest Government advice and appropriate for our people, activities and regional communities.
Find out more about the actions we are taking.
Maintaining services
We are committed to keeping the lights on for our regional customers as such, we have Business Continuity Plans in place to protect the health and wellbeing of our workforce, customers and regional communities we service and maintain continuous power supply.
We do not foresee any interruption to power supply.
Our local teams and service crews remain in place to respond customer inquiries and local events if required. We will only be attending local communities to attend to essential work that needs to be done to ensure continuous power supply and at this stage, our regional offices remain open.
We will advise customers if that changes at any point in the future. We remind people that they can continue to report faults on our Horizon Power faults line on 13 23 51.
Support for customers
We are committed to supporting each of our customers and their individual circumstances during the COVID-19 period.
Our primary goal is to ensure there is continuity of service allowing people to stay connected to our network at all times.
We realize that at this time, it is important for you to continue with as much certainty and normality in your daily lives. For our business customers, we understand how critical it is that we make it possible for your operations to continue as normal.
The State and Federal Governments have announced a series of support measures to provide vulnerable Australians with relief and assistance during this time. In particular, there are a number of measures designed to provide relief to households and businesses.
We are committed to working with any vulnerable or at risk customers in need of support or assistance within our service areas. If you anticipate that the impacts of COVID-19 may compromise your ability to pay your energy bills, please let us know as early as possible. We are here to support you with your unique circumstances and have a range of options that may be able to support you, including payment extensions and payment plans.
You may also be eligible for concessions and rebates offered by the State Government. We can help you identify any concessions and rebates you may be eligible for and ensure these are set up on your account.
To help us maintain communication with you, connect with our digital tools like MyAccount and the Horizon Power mobile app (HAPP). These tools can also help you monitor your power usage and avoid bill shock.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please reach out to our Horizon Power team on 1800 267 926.
We want to help you stay connected during this period.
Our people
The health and wellbeing of our workforce is our highest priority and as such we continue to communicate our expectations with regards to current hygiene, travel and quarantine in line with the latest advice.
Like many other organisations around the world, our plans continue to evolve. To date, we have limited visitors to our offices and cancelled non-essential travel to remote communities and overseas. We are also advancing preparations for work from home arrangements where applicable, to lower the risk of transmission through physical distancing.
We also have provisions in place for leave arrangements to help balance personal and family care during this period, and offer counselling services to provide psychological support outside of the workplace.
We recognise that this is a stressful time of uncertainty for all. Our goal is to continue to protect the most at risk and vulnerable members of our community and keep our workforce, customers and the community safe during this time.