More than 16,000 in Sydney without power in mass outage across inner west

More than 16,000 people in Sydney were left without power in a mass outage on Wednesday morning.

The outage started about 5.50am and affected 16,620 customers in Sydney’s inner west.

Ausgrid identified the suburbs of Leichhardt, Balmain, Drummoyne, Five Dock, Rozelle, Abbotsford, Birchgrove, Balmain East, Russell Lea, Wareemba and Rodd Point as being affected.

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The majority of the outage was resolved about 8am, but 2524 customers in Leichhardt, Balmain and Rozelle remained affected by an unrelated outage until about 9am, according to Ausgrid.

Several sets of traffic lights were out on Victoria Rd at Drummoyne as a result of the power failure, but were restored about 8am.

Motorists are advised to exercise caution and allow extra travel time.

Ausgrid apologised for any disruption caused by the outage in a statement.

“The network has protections like a home, that trips when the system detects an issue to protect the safety of our communities,” an Ausgrid spokesperson said.

“Emergency crews investigated the network issue in a substation in Homebush that supplied the Balmain and Drummoyne areas.

“Power has been fully restored to the area.”