Energy Australia has been fined $1.5 million for the “preventable” death of a worker.

The company was fined after veteran Yallourn power station employee Graeme Edwards suffered fatal burns to 90 per cent of his body in an electrical explosion while he attempted to connect a high-voltage cable to the segment of the power station he worked on.

The procedure involves placing a circuit breaker into position in a cabinet while wires are live or energised, and while Mr Edwards was fully trained and had undergone his required three-yearly retraining two months before his death in November 2018, the infill panel above the 6.6kW control panel he was working on was loose.

With just the slightest pressure, it exposed him to live wires.

Energy Australia Yallourn later pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching the Occupational Health and Safety Act, admitting to failing to properly install and inspect the infill panel, failing to properly train employees to connect the cables, and failing to provide and require employees to wear appropriate arc-rated personal protective equipment while they worked on circuit breakers on live high-voltage switchboards.

“There is absolutely no excuse for it,” the company admitted during a pre-sentence hearing last year. 

“It was avoidable and it was preventable and he shouldn’t have died. The reason why he died is due to the failings on the part of Energy Australia.”

Mr Edwards was wearing cotton overalls, which one expert described as “manifestly inadequate”.

Appropriate arc-rated PPE, which had been provided to workers at a sister company, provides thermal protection and is self-extinguishing, the Victorian county court judge John Carmody said. 

Energy Australia says it has made significant changes over the past four years, many directed at the causes of Edwards’ death.

“It raises the question, why wasn’t all this done before November 2018?” the judge asked, noting that the cost of fixing or replacing the panel was minimal.