Evoenergy will pay compensation to customers in Canberra's south after a power surge caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to home appliances.
Three months after the electrical fault, some residents in Farrer are still waiting for their appliances to be replaced.
Eighty-three customers over three streets were affected by the power surge on January 20 that destroyed ovens, fridges, air conditioners and other electrical appliances.
Farrer resident Lyn Turner's solar system, heating and fridge were all damaged, but she said she was luckier than some as she was able to replace the items out of pocket and then make a claim to EVO Energy.
"[Others are] still without fridges, heating. We have pensioners in our street who have difficulty even paying for the electricians," Ms Turner said.
"It's not our fault. It's not something that happened just because the fridge blew up, it's something that happened due to the power surge – or the electrical outage – which was to do with a transformer.
"It's really not the residents' fault that this happened and so it shouldn't be out of the residents' pocket at all.
"I'm very frustrated that we have paid out the $20,000 in repairs and at the moment we've got nothing back."
Ms Turner said the day after the surge residents were told where to find a claim form and begun submitting them, but after that it took over two months to hear anything more from the electricity distributer.
"Evo [Energy] held a meeting on the third of April, so that was the first communication we had really," she said.
"They told us they'd done an investigation, found out what the problem was, and now they would be starting to pay out the claims.
"Unfortunately they also told us they'd be looking at depreciation on items. So where you have an air conditioning system that has been maintained every year and is only 10 years old and you have to put in a new one, we might not going to get the full value of that back."
'Way too long for customers': Evoenergy
Evoenergy general manager Peter Billing told ABC Radio Canberra on Friday morning that while he appreciated the delay was frustrating for effected customers, each step of the process had to be completed before claims could be approved.
He also confirmed the ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr and ACT Attorney General Shane Rattenbury sent a letter urging Evoenergy to pay out all claims in full.
Ms Turner also spoke on radio about the delay on Friday morning.
On Friday afternoon, Mr Billing spoke again and said 70 per cent of the claims had now been approved, which included Ms Tuner's.
He said applying depreciation to the value of household appliances was considered in each case, but had not been applied to any of the currently approved claims.
Evoenergy found the claims were "fair and reasonable" he said, so they would be paid out accordingly.
"The first major component in the delay was understanding exactly what the fault was and what we needed to do to that, and what impact did that have on the customers involved," Mr Billing said.
"Once we had that info processed, we then started communicating with customers."
He also acknowledged the wait for customers had been a long one, and offered an apology.
"Look, we know that's been way too long for customers," he said.
"We've been very open to apologise around that, including in a public meeting.
"We're not holding back that that hasn't been seen as acceptable from our customers."
He explained the surge was caused by the failure of a conductor component.
"The outage was caused by a component on our distribution substation, which is the transformer that feeds the local area in Farrer," he said.
"There was a failure of a component on the neutral conductor. It's basically a bolted connection that holds two parts of the wires together."
